ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 3, 1996 TAG: 9606040002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
Jeffrey Meikle, author of ``American Plastic: A Cultural History'': ``One expects that kind of plastic container to be disposable, of little or no value. Tupperware violates that. It's purchased at a social gathering, it's of higher quality, and you save it and keep it for years.''
Morison Cousins, the chief Tupperware designer, sees it as a receptacle for American values about food and the social mores that surround it: ``We have so many different cultures and different eating habits in this country now. At one time, the family simply sat down and ate together. That's just not the case anymore, and the form of our products has to reflect that.''
Alison Clarke, a lecturer at the University of Brighton in England, who is writing a book about American gender issues and Tupperware: ``It's about social relationships as much as about objects. For many isolated housewives in the 1950s, it was a positive way of creating some kind of community. Many women I spoke to had no social life whatsoever besides Tupperware.''
Clarke sees the Tupperware party as nothing less than one of the fonts of feminism.
``The whole reason why it worked was that it was about helping each other - cooperation within the social network of the suburbs,'' she says. ``Women were helping other women. As much as the process exploited women because they felt they were duty-bound to buy when they went to a Tupperware party, they also got many of their needs out of it.''
LENGTH: Short : 36 linesby CNB