Tarulevicz, Nicole
(2012)
"Let Lifeguard Milk Raise Your Child":
Gender, Food And Nation In Singapore's Past.
International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS), 8 (2).
pp. 56-71.
ISSN ISSN: 1823-6243
Abstract
The slogan "Let Lifeguard Milk Raise Your Child" was emblazoned on teacups
sold in Singapore during the 1980s, and offers a point of departure for my paper,
which seeks to interrogate the complexities expressed in the distancing of the
categories of "Good Mother" from "Good Cook" in Singapore. Women, in
particular, received a series of contradictory messages about food and food
preparation in the period from Singapore's Independence in 1965 to the end of the
cold war era. On the one hand, school textbooks in subjects such as Home
Economics and Domestic Science were presenting cooking and domestic hygiene
as a form of nation building, with the student as proto-housewife. On the other
hand, the realities of economic development and increased female participation in
the workforce, coupled with the presence of domestic servants, meant that homecooking took a surprisingly marginal place in discourses around femininity. While
the student was constructed as the proto-housewife, the reality of housewifery
was, as always, classed and raced. It is in this context that products like Lifeguard
Milk could advertise that they would "raise your child."
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