The Happy Feminist: WHEN GLORIA STEINEM ALMOST CAME TO DINNER: FEMINISM AND THE TRADITIONAL HOMEMAKER

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WHEN GLORIA STEINEM ALMOST CAME TO DINNER: FEMINISM AND THE TRADITIONAL HOMEMAKER

I have been conversing for several weeks with very conservative women on Crystal's blog because I have been struggling to understand why any woman would ever be opposed to the notion of equal rights for women. A couple of women have commented that they feel that feminism belittles their role as homemaker.

It kind of makes sense. When I was growing up, feminism promised to "liberate" women from their destiny as "housewives." Little girls were taught to aspire to something more than being "just" a housewife. It is no wonder that women who had devoted their lives to husband and children and home felt belittled by the movement!

Even my own feminist-thinking homemaker mother had trouble when Gloria Steinem was invited to dinner at our house. (Steinem and my parents had a close mutual friend.) My mother literally made herself sick with dread at the idea of cooking and cleaning and waiting on Gloria Steinem. My mother believed that Steinem would be judging my mother's role and my mother's marriage with a critical eye, and was hugely relieved when Steinem sent her regrets.

Today large numbers of women in the U.S. are still homemakers and stay-at-home mothers -- whether by choice, necessity, socialization or religion. And I bet a great many of them still think that feminism is hostile to them. As a feminist, the last thing I want to do is to make another woman feel "less than" just because she has made different choices than I have. But it is a tough balance to strike. On the one hand, I want to make sure that our society remains one that does not force women to become stay-at-home-mothers. I want equal pay, equal leave provisions, legal protection from discrimination, legal protection from sexual harassment, and access to reliable contraception. I want to see women welcomed into every profession and every position of power from factory foreman to the U.S. presidency. I would like to see little girls socialized to be strong and independent. And I would love it if traditionalist women would also support these feminist goals. The difficulty is that articulating these goals almost comes across as a slam of traditional homemaking. One inevitably is asked why homemaking isn't "good enough."

This is a major PR problem for modern feminism. I suppose the solution is to present it as a matter of freedom and choice: No one will stop you from choosing a traditional role. Please don't put barriers in front of women who aspire to less traditional ambitions. I also think that ensuring a wealth of options for women will help homemaking to be seen as a truly voluntary choice, and thus more worthy of esteem than the forced servitude it is often now perceived as.

This website, The Feminist Homemakers webpage, has some interesting perspectives, including among other things, a description of feminist defenses of homemaking:

Feminists have done a good job of calling attention to the fact that male culture has devalued the work of women in our homes. Feminist economists have pointed out the invisibility of this labor in traditional economic theories. Cultural feminists have chronicled the immense labor and artistic value in many homemaking projects such as quilting. Political feminists have called for men to fully participate in the domestic world just as women have increased our participation in the work world.

November 09, 2005 in Feminism | Permalink

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Comments

This was an interesting read.....and I'm with your Mom, I would have been EXTREMELY nervous too! LOL ~Mrs. B~

Posted by: Mrs. B | November 10, 2005 at 12:53 PM

Oh, Mrs. B, I'm so glad you're still reading and commenting (esp. after yesterday)! Welcome, and please feel free to comment anytime, even if it is to disagree.

Posted by: The Happy Feminist | November 10, 2005 at 05:13 PM

Thank you VERY much for the welcome HF.....and I don't hold grudges....I said what I felt I needed to say and you all were very nice about it.

I've never been brave enough to comment until today but yesterday you suggested that I could and then I see that Zan does so I might start too. (o:

Posted by: Mrs. B | November 10, 2005 at 05:54 PM

"Equal pay and equal leave provisions" is one thing, but my husband's co-worker, a female professional, is taking maternity leave 6 months early due to health conditions. This is leaving my husband and the other professionals on the job in quite a lurch. While she gets paid to convalesce for several months before the baby is even born, the others will work her hours with no additional hired help. (Consequently, Dh is putting in 10-12 hour days on the job.) The feminist movement has managed to demand many times MORE than equal work for equal pay and paid time off. The job force fears the repercussions of militant women who will go sue-crazy at the slightest hint of "sexual discrimination." Once again, men are left holding the miniscule bag of payment for the work they do in comparison to women.

Another note: At my husband's place of employment, my Dh and the other working men run around tending to customer needs while the women "coworkers" stand around gossiping and chit-chatting with each other. If one of the men calls them to task, he becomes the brunt of said gossip and feminist chastisement.

I suppose in a perfect world, men and women would mutually treat each other respectably and seek to relieve each other of undue burdens, but in this world, women demand way beyond equality. This intensely blights the feminist movement

Posted by: The Happy Homemaker | November 11, 2005 at 10:28 PM

Hi Happy Homemaker! Thank you so much for commenting. I am especially glad to hear comments that may contradict some of the views on this site because I don't want to spend all my time preaching to the choir.

With regard to your husband's pregnant co-worker, wouldn't your husband's company also provide an equal amount of leave to a male employee who was ill or injured? If your husband were ill or injured, wouldn't you want his company to give him leave even if it meant that some of his co-workers had to pick up the slack? Why would this woman's leave be any different just because her illness happens to be pregnancy related? If your husband's company does not provide an equal amount of leave to an injured or ill male, then your husband's company is guilty of sex discrimination. It was feminists who fought for gender neutral parental leave laws -- because feminists DON'T want women to be discriminated against based on the assumption that they will need more time off than men for child care and pregnancy.

As for the problem of your husband and his male co-workers having to do the work for women co-workers who stand around chit chatting, I have a couple of observations, although obviously I don't know the specifics of your husband's situation. First, there may be some bad apples out there, but you don't throw out the notion of feminism just because some individual women behave poorly.

Second, it sounds as though your husband's company is guilty of poor management; whoever is in charge should be documenting these women's performance problems and disciplining them and firing them if necessary. I can't believe this company is just treating these women as though they are immune from having to do work merely because it fears a lawsuit. I would recommend that the company consult with an attorney as to how to remedy this situation; their fears of sue-happy women and the potential costs to the company may be overblown. (I should mention that I spent three years defending companies from discrimination claims, very few of which involved sex discrimination.)

Thirdly, I wonder whether your husband's perceptions of the problem may be mistaken. Is it really true that ALL the women are lazy and ALL the men have to do their work for them? There are NO women who pull their weight? The men NEVER take breaks when they shouldn't? Or is it possible that your husband notices it more when a woman is gossiping because that plays into a preconceived notion that women tend to gossip a lot?

Fourthly, if it really is true that your husband has to do more work that his female colleagues, HE may have a basis for a sex discrimination suit! If he would like some legal representation, let me know! :) (And again thanks for reading and commenting!)

Posted by: The Happy Feminist | November 12, 2005 at 03:18 PM

I like your response to happy homemaker. you made some good points. In regard to this post, I was discussing this idea in my gender and ethnicity class when I was doing my master's... that women should be supportive of whatever career path one chooses, whether that is in the home or out of the home. My professor brought up a point I had never thought about, being a white, middle class woman. She said "for many minorities, the idea of staying at home to raise their children is a luxury." We often talk about equality for women, but minority women are often lost in the fray.

The divisiveness between women is frustrating for me. I realize I was quite young when the women's movement was beginning to take place, but this lack of support on both sides of the fence (working in the home versus working out of the home) is really destructive. Like you said, it should be about equality and I think we should all support that, whether our own beliefs are that it is best for a woman to stay in the home.

Posted by: Aisy | November 13, 2005 at 01:32 PM

I am a mother and homemaker, and while I will be honest that I am not very familiar with the specifics of feminism, but I know that I support equal pay, equal opertunities, relaible birth control, etc. I also think that the uniqueness of women and men need to be recognized, and accomidated for example some women who work will have a complex pregnancy, and it should be ok to take a medical leave, etc.

That being said I typically would not say that I identify with the feminist community and it isn't because I feel judged. The reason I struggle to identify with feminism is because as a homemker I feel as though I should also have certain rights, rights that are ignored. In order for being a homemaker to truly be a choice, mothers or fathers who choose to say home should also have some support. As a SAHM, I am in big trouble if I leave my husband, I would have no healthcare or income. Now I'm not suggesting that any stay at home parent should be subsidized, but I think that if feminists want to help women and make sure women have true choices, they need to focus on the rights, needs, and job security of both working women and women who choose to stay home. Until that happens, homemakers will continue to feel alienated from feminists.

Posted by: Nellie | August 24, 2006 at 02:10 PM

You sound like a dyed-in-the-wool feminist to me!

Posted by: The Happy Feminist | August 24, 2006 at 02:18 PM