Did the wash machine and dishwasher emancipate women?

John Aravosis at Americablog put that question up for discussion, after some pundit contended that.

The discussion is actually interesting. You can find the link HERE, with the comments.

After a cursory view of them, and just sort of scanned them....

Well, I guess he has a lot of readers my age. Who remember the old washers with ringers, for instance. We had one... And when it gave up the ghost, I got to go to the laundrymat every week, which was sort of a pain. I remember having an ice box in Portland Maine. And the guy would deliver a big block of ice in a horse-drawn carriage, break of a piece the right size, and deliver it upstairs. But the milk would go sour anyway....

I really do not think that women's emancipation was helped or promoted in any way by the invention of 'machines'. That is sort of silly... In the Fifties, if you were of a certain class, your parents worked, and you were expected to help out and ease the burden. So you got taught to iron, for example, and that was one of your 'chores'. Just as a for instance.

So I guess it is a silly supposition... but interesting to see how one looks back on that now.