At the beginning of the 19th century, most Euro-Americans would bathe three times: after birth, before marriage (which was required if one was a woman), and after death. Handwashing was practically non-existent. Laundry and cleaning surfaces were done once a year. The labor of cleaning was largely completed by women; middle- and upper-class white women would hire Black and immigrant women to do this labor on their behalf, which kept their appearance of cleanliness intact.
And yet, throughout the 19th century, cleanliness practices transformed drastically to resemble our more frequent contemporary cleanliness practices. As I will argue, these changes came about in the context of evolving ideas about race. Throughout the 19th century a myth emerged that influenced cleanliness practices, which I will call the myth of whiteness as cleanliness. This myth contributed to ideologies that perpetuated colonial, white supremacist, and patriarchal gender practices.
My thesis in this post is that the revolution in cleanliness practices during the 19th century was inspired by patriarchy, settler colonialism, and white supremacy. The development of cleanliness practices and the marketing of cleanliness products capitalized on the fear of and disgust towards the “dirty” other. This deeply entrenched mythology continues to manifest today through the marketing of cleanliness products as “civilizing,” the racialization of disease (such as COVID-19), the placement of toxic waste facilities, and the disparity of access to hygiene products and sanitation.
Patriarchy
During the 19th century, gynecology was an up-and-coming field that conducted horrific experiments upon Black women who were operated on without anesthesia. Gynecologists described women as unclean, diseased, and dirty. Menstruation was described in the language of disease and was thought to spread gonorrhea. Because women were deemed to be diseased for a quarter of a month, they were excluded from participating in society outside of domestic settings (of course many women who were not middle- or upper-class white women had to work or were forced to work). Menstruation was also described as necrosis (or death tissue), as waste material, or scraps of what would be life. Menstruation was taken to be a failure to reproduce, a deviation from the norm that white women were encouraged to uphold. During the practice of slavery, especially after the international slave trade was banned, women who were enslaved were encouraged to reproduce, but after Emancipation black women were discouraged from reproducing and forced sterilizations were performed.
Women’s cleanliness came under cultural scrutiny; cleanliness practices for white women became quite strict as their cleanliness was supposedly a sign of civilization, of white supremacy, and was utilized as an ideological justification for settler colonialism. Soap companies manufactured and marketed products like vaginal deodorant, douches, and wipes; cosmetics, perfumes, and eventually razors proliferated.
Further, appearing clean had a significant impact on one’s social status; appearing clean was as important as being clean. As Angela Davis’s work shows, hiring others to clean would preserve one’s appearance of cleanliness, as such middle- and upper-class women would hire Black women and immigrant women to labor on behalf of white families. Appearing clean through wearing white clothes and preventing suntan were also signs that one had the means to not work outside and not come into contact with dirt. White women were encouraged to avoid being outside as this strict gender hierarchy in the white race was taken as a sign of civilization. One punishment for women who did not conform to norms set in the gender hierarchy was having their mouth washed out with soap. Importantly, while constructions of white women’s purity as an ideological justification for colonialism has been theorized, constructions of cleanliness that support these practices have been undertheorized, allowing the whiteness as cleanliness myth to go unchallenged. My goal in this post is to show how constructions of cleanliness have been utilized for political purposes, how they have supported violent practices, and how they continue to operate today.
Settler Colonialism
Descriptions of Indigenous peoples as dirty, or as vermin, supported violent settler colonial practices of Indigenous removal and relocation. What we would today call ethnic cleansing (the practice of removing unwanted people from wanted land) was written into legislation through conditions for statehood requiring more settlers than Indigenous peoples and monetary rewards for scalps of Indigenous peoples. Genocidal boarding schools employed this language of dirtiness as well; the Superintendent describes students’ first day of school: “Strip from the unwashed person of the Indian boy the unwashed blanket, and, after instructing him in what to him are the mysteries of personal cleanliness, clothe him with the clean garments of civilized men.” Boarding schools prevented children from speaking their native language, if they were caught doing so their mouths would be washed with soap as well.
Soap advertisements reframed violent settler colonial practices as teaching the virtues of cleanliness to “civilize” the Indigenous peoples; they spread these ideas to their target audience of middle- and upper-class white women, who were deemed to be the moral compass of the nation. During the 19th century, soap companies, like Unilever, equated soap and civilization (their slogan was, “Soap is civilization”). Soap advertisements claimed that the “dark corners” of the Earth could be lightened with soap—teaching the virtues of cleanliness became the “white man’s burden.” This framing of settler colonialism as a paternalistic sharing of civilization and soap spread the false narrative that colonization is as benign as washing or cleaning. This language assuaged white guilt regarding the violence of these practices as the violence was “whitewashed” out of the narrative.
White Supremacy
Justifications for slavery claimed that it was not just a political, economic and social system, but also a hygienic institution. As abolitionist ideology gained traction and the institution of slavery was under moral scrutiny, pro-slavery ideology turned to public health for support. The push for slavery as a hygienic system included establishing the sanitation police with the power to “order sanitary inspections, or surveys… to order hygienic statistics or censuses… to have jurisdiction of public baths, dispensaries, warming-fires, and life-preservers; and of hygienic asylums and hospitals; to make laws for the conservation and progress of the race; and for this to prevent degeneration, by prohibiting intermarriages manifestly and perniciously degenerative…” Pro-slavery ideology attempted to justify slavery, sanitation police, and eugenic practices in support of white supremacy through hygiene. These are manifestations of the whiteness as a cleanliness myth and contributed to its entrenchment in our cultural practices.
As Saidiya Hartman’s work demonstrates, pro-slavery ideology also maintained that slaveowners were like father figures and the enslaved were like children who supposedly could not take care of themselves. This literature defended slavery: Carl Zimring claims that slaves would be taught the virtue of cleanliness, and slaveholders would ensure the adoption of cleanliness practices in the enslaved, which they supposedly would not do on their own. The stereotype of the picaninny (i.e. caricatured black children who are often naked and have exaggerated features, frequently presented without parents) was used in soap advertising to suggest that Black families could not take care of themselves without paternalistic white interference/meddling. Carol Anderson argues that During Reconstruction, and Painter shows that the myth of whiteness as cleanliness was utilized again to support segregation, district redlining, and eugenic practices (including forced sterilizations) that Shatema Threadcraft’s work unpacks.
Yet again, soap advertisements strove to assuage white guilt surrounding the violence of these practices through assuring white America that it was justified— these practices were falsely framed as in the best interest of the black community—spread to mass audiences (especially to white women) through marketing.
Contemporary Implications
The fear and disgust response to people who were constructed as “dirty” through this mythology continues today. For example, in the 19th century and again in the 21st century, Asian-Americans have been scapegoated for the spread of disease. In the 19th century, cholera was described as “a disease of the sinful” and as “Asiatic cholera.” This scapegoated Asian-Americans as responsible for the spread of disease and disseminated the idea that Asian-Americans were immoral. After the racializing of cholera, the Page Law of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 were created, halting immigration. This racialization of disease is reflected in the U.S. response to COVID-19, described as the “China virus” and as “Kung flu.” The racialization of COVID-19 fueled racial violence against Asian-Americans, demonstrating a contemporary manifestation of this mythology, which evolves to support political interests. Many targets of this violence are Asian-American women and girls, which highlights the gendered consequences of this myth.
Our contemporary cleanliness practices have largely gone unquestioned since germ theory became more complex with the discovery of microbiomes. Some contemporary cleanliness practices that emerged in the 19th century are more cultural than hygienic. As James Hamblin describes, hygienic practices are about the avoidance of disease whereas cleanliness practices are about following culturally formed habits to appear clean. This is significant because, in the COVID-19 era, frequent handwashing with soap, wearing masks, and getting vaccinated are practices that prevent the spread of disease and as such are hygienic practices rather than solely cultural cleanliness practices. This distinction allows us to advocate for targeted hygiene practices, i.e. the continuation of hygiene practices that stop the spread of disease, while allowing us to critique the harmful cleanliness practices that emerged through white supremacy, settler colonialism, and patriarchy.
One example of a cleanliness practice that is not a hygienic practice is the use of douches, vaginal deodorants, and wipes. In response to the construction of women as unclean, dirty, and menstruation as disease, companies manufactured and marketed products which promise cleanliness but cause harm. Lysol, the disinfectant spray, was marketed as a douche and a contraceptive and led to tissue damage, poisoning, and death.
Many of today’s “feminine hygiene” products disrupt the pH balance of vaginas—which are self-regulating—and can lead to an increase in infections (including gonorrhea and chlamydia) as well as life-threatening peritoneal infections and ectopic pregnancies. Douches remove bacteria and microorganisms that are healthy for the vagina’s pH balance, that contribute to “numerical dominance” (i.e. good bacteria outnumber harmful bacteria), that create bacteriocins (antibiotics that kill harmful bacteria entering the body), and that produce discharge that prevents incoming bacteria from attaching to vaginal walls and spreading through body tissue. The risks of using douches have been shown to disproportionately impact Black and Hispanic women and women from low-income backgrounds. Douches then, are an example of a cultural cleanliness practice that is not “hygienic” (in Hamblin’s sense of the word) as it does not prevent disease, but is cultural and causes harm to women.
While these cleanliness practices are largely intact today, celebrities in the U.S. have been disclosing their infrequent cleanliness practices, causing public and disgust, revealing the challenge of breaking with cultural practices of cleanliness. White celebrities have enough social privilege to not conform to the cleanliness practices established within the whiteness-as-cleanliness mythology, which is not the case for many who are still subjected to these cleanliness practices and their ramifications. Advertisements that follow this myth of whiteness as cleanliness continue through today—see Nivea’s advertisement from Esquire magazine published in 2011 below.
As I have argued, these cultural cleanliness practices evolved within ideologies of patriarchy, settler colonialism, and white supremacy. But, the question regarding how to dismantle the myths surrounding who is clean and unclean remains, and is especially fraught as enormous disparities exist. Celebrities may choose not to bathe, but incarcerated women are denied hygiene products; people experiencing homelessness face obstacles accessing showers, laundry, and handwashing; hair discrimination prevents black employment and educational opportunities; Asian-Americans face racial violence as they are scapegoated for COVID-19; race is the highest predictor of where hazardous waste facilities are located; 2.1 billion people do not have access to clean water and 4.5 billion people do not have access to sanitation. The challenge for us now lies in dismantling the myth of whiteness as cleanliness without reinscribing it.
The Women in Philosophy series publishes posts on women in the history of philosophy, posts on issues of concern to women in the field of philosophy, and posts that put philosophy to work to address issues of concern to women in the wider world. If you are interested in writing for the series, please contact the Series Editor Adriel M. Trott or Associate Editor Julinna Oxley.
