Feminism Tied with an Apron String

This post has gone through several different versions because I had to calm down enough to get it out in the right way. I always feel uncomfortable writing about political, divisive things. But if writing has taught me anything, it's that these things are the ones most worth saying. Or shouting. And in the light of the innumerable stories commodifying, undermining, persecuting, and harming women today, I've decided I need to say something.

This week, New York Magazine printed a piece titled "The Feminist Housewife: Can Women Have It All by Choosing to Stay Home?" It's basically the tale of career-women turned housewives, like Kelly Makino who's stories are but an example of the "legions" of women deciding to leave the workforce and go back home, lest their lives fall apart having been entrusted to the care of feeble, incompetent dads and caretakers. As a woman raised by a mother who worked and who nannys as a day job, I think I have certain qualifications that entitle me to these opinions.

Photo by Julie Blackmon for New York Magazine

Among other things, the article claims that women like Kelly are happy to give up their day jobs for the chance to completely oversee the the goings on in their household, to program their husband's clothing size in their iPhones so they can surprise and "spoil" them with new clothes and back rubs. But perhaps the most unsettling thing is the author's claim that all this fighting for equality, fighting traffic to get to work, fighting husbands over who stays home with sick or troubled children "is just too much." After all, "What if her husband works 80 hours a week and her kid is acting out at school, and she's sick of the perpetual disarray  in the closets and the endless battles over who's going to by the milk and oversee homework?" Well, obviously she should just give up any semblance of an outside life and continue fighting her husband instead of just asking for help and then walk around and claim that archaic gender roles are alive and well in the media and the suburbs. Obviously.

Ah, and this:
If feminism is not only about creating an equitable society but also a means to fulfillment for individual women, and if the rewards of working are insufficient and uncertain, while the tug of motherhood is inexorable, then a new calculus can take hold: For some women, the solution to resolving the long-running tensions between work and life is not more parent-friendly offices or savvier career moves but the full embrace of domesticity.

We go on to learn that this new league of extraordinary housewives is an epidemic most concentrated in affluent white communities. But in spouting statistics this like these: "The number of stay-at-home mothers rose incrementally between 2010 and 2011... While staying at home with children remains largely a privilege of the affluent (the largest number of America's SAHMs live in families with incomes of $100,000 or more), some of the biggest increases have been among younger mothers, ages 25 to 35, and those whose family incomes range from $75,000 to $100,000 a year," we are recreating the same culture that women suffered through and bucked against in 1965. By highlighting the fact being able to stay at home is a luxury afforded only to those of a certain color or income bracket, those women who DO work, because they have to or WANT to, are being set up to be stigmatized and vilified. Again. All why STILL having to come home and get dinner on the table and do a load of laundry before settling in to finish the work they brought home from the office that pays them 77 cents to their boss's dollar.

From Good Housekeeping

I was raised by a mother that worked. I was raised by a mother who also packed my lunch every day, checked my homework at night, and stayed up late to talk to me about my day. I never felt shorted or neglected because she chose to get up everyday and contribute, and I certainly didn't grow up to be some type of delinquent, due to a perceived lack of maternal guidance - contrary to the article's claim that "no amount of professional success could possibly console [a woman who felt] her two young children were not being looked after the right way" because she was at work.

I was also partially raised by two grandmothers - one who worked and one who didn't. BOTH of whom felt happy and fulfilled. And who successfully demonstrated to me that there are different ways to live as a woman and be happy.

Feminism isn't about how women choose to spend the hours between 9 and 5 everyday. It's about GETTING to choose, and not being persecuted for what you decide. All this piece did was perpetuate the notion that there's a specific mold women are inherently born into and if you do decide to be a "feminist" - whatever that word means these days - it means not only that you're seen as "militant" and "with a chip on the shoulder" (thanks Marissa Mayer, current Yahoo CEO who went on PBS saying she didn't want to label herself as a feminist because of its negative connotations) but also that you spend all of your time working AGAINST what you were apparently born to do. After all, according to Kelly, "girls play with dolls from childhood, so 'women are raised from the get-go to raise children successfully. When we are moms, we have a better toolbox."

That little semantic snack is really just saying that women shouldn't trust their husband/boyfriends/partners with the duties of the home because they're of course incompetent and useless in the field of child-rearing and therefore shouldn't bother with it at all. After all, boys didn't grow up playing with dolls. Well if they didn't, it's because they were probably told by scared, conservative fathers that boys who played with dolls were wusses and would obviously grow up to be gay and that's ohmygod the worst thing that could ever happen. Learning such things as empathy and kindness and taking care of others has no place when it comes to raising a boy.

Jesus.

Guys. ALL THAT DOES IS ALLOW MEN TO ABDICATE DOMESTIC RESPONSIBILITIES. Men are not incapable of taking care of kids or fixing meals or making cookies for the PTA. They're just taught that they are and therefore deem themselves unfit for that type of activity. For every woman vilified in the workplace, there's a stay at home dad making macaroni art who's the laughing stock of his golf buddies. And that's the whole fucking problem. Mindsets like those belonging to Patricia Ireland, also mentioned in the article, who believes that her husband's job should simply be "[going] to work and [depositing] his paycheck in the joint account." These are whole fucking problem. If I were a smart man, I'd be pissed off and insulted, not self-righteous and grateful that I don't have to do much more than take out the trash. Maybe if we started EXPECTING men to help and making them feel like they are actually good at it, we wouldn't be so scared to leave home.

There should be no parameters on what men and women are fit to do. Especially in terms of running a household or a business. There should be no difference in the price tag on their efforts either. Neither a woman staying home or a woman going to work should be newsworthy. They should be seen as everyday choices that are as accepted and generic as what brand of wipes to buy.

Articles like this line up one type of woman against another in a battle over who is the better woman. And if feminism is "fizzling," as the author so eloquently put it, that's why. Women are throwing their hands up in the air because they feel like no matter what, they loose. And that's not a culture I'd want to raise a daughter or a son in. If and when I decide to have children, they will be raised with the notion that they can BOTH do whatever they want with their lives. They can stay home, work, be gay, be straight, be doctors, be teachers, be scientists, be pissed off, be aggressive and ambitious. Be kind and empathetic. They can be all of these things with no regards to their gender. And hopefully they won't have to read articles like this one - that are limiting, divisive, and short-sighted.

But it's going to take a lot more than bitching on a blog to ensure that happens.

/endrant

xo.

OH! And if you want something a little less rage-inducing on the topic, this is a much better read:
The Impossible Juggling Act: Motherhood and Work on NPR