Patriarchy’s Broken Promise

This installation uses two vintage dolls houses to explore the assumptions and promises about shelter that are contained in the doll’s house – a powerful patriarchal tool for childhood socialization. Girls were traditionally given a doll’s house (often made by an elder male in the family) and encouraged to arrange and decorate the interior. They were not encouraged to make their own doll’s houses, or the furniture. Their play should rehearse and replay traditional social rituals and roles.

Vignettes in each house illustrate the promise and the reality of these early messages about shelter that our society continues to tell girls.

The installation shows how those early promises we make to girls are broken in a patriarchal system of home, marriage and parenting.