Say it with flowers: putting housework on a pedestal

Does having some feathers at the top of your washing-up gloves make you a better cleaner? Do feathers make you sexier? Will feathers do anything for your U-bend?

“I hate this glorification of housework as some kind of domestic goddess bullshit. It’s the patriarchy dressed up in Cath Kidston,” Only Ever Yours author Louise O’Neill tweeted last week.

“If I see another cutesy 50s style apron or pink washing-up gloves with feathers on them… “ an unhappy O’Neill continued.

So, does she have a point? Is the current trend for flowers, cutesy crockery and cake tins turning women into a generation of Stepford wives?

We seem to be buying it, alright. The sun is shining and Cath Kidston’s emporium at the bottom of Dublin’s Grafton Street is heaving with floral prints; flowers on mugs, flowers on tea-towels, flowers on teacups, flowers on socks, flowers on tablecloths.

Over the road in the Avoca shop there is a more eclectic mix of merchandise, but the pink, the quirky, the fragrant and the flowery are still vying for top billing.

Dunnes have even got in on the act. Its “Considered by Helen James” range is bringing a little bit of culinary kudos to all demographics. And yes, they do sell it in Crumlin. As Maureen Lipman once said, people will always need plates.

English lifestyle goddess Cath Kidston’s company was valued at £75 million (€103 million) a few years ago. Her grandfather raced Bentleys. Her uncle was chairman of Christies and her cousin is property TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp. Silver spoons fit perfectly on her floral saucers.

While Kidston is colonising Dublin, Irishwoman James is holding up the hopes of the home-grown. Her pastel earthenware vibe is the hipster beard of the storage jar generation.

But will all of this pass before Ireland’s women move on from baking breadrolls to getting breast enlargements while their husbands disappear into shady meetings at the country club?

Does it even matter?

Female aptitudes and interests have been shoe-horned into hats that were deemed to fit them before.

In 1908, the Daughters of Erin launched a monthly magazine, Bean na hÉireann. It was edited by prominent Irish republican, feminist and labour activist Helena Moloney, who went on to fight in the Easter Rising of 1916.

There were articles on politics, the vote for women, nationalism and language. It also had regular columns on labour issues, on fashion (yes, fashion - Irish-made of course) and a children’s section.

It also had flowers.

The “Women with a Garden” column was written by none other than Countess Constance Markievicz. It was, she wrote, intended to “give hints to the women who wish to make the most of the little bit of their land.”

It also gave more direct advice.

“It is very unpleasant work killing slugs and snails but let us not be daunted. A good nationalist should look upon killing slugs in a garden much in the same way as she looks on the English in Ireland, and only regret that she cannot crush the nation’s enemy with such ease.”

There is probably no need to worry, then, that we will be distracted by a flowery apron here or a pink cake mould there.

It seems that Mná na hÉireann are well able to deal with slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails. As long as they have their feathery rubber gloves on.