Conference turris::womannotes-v2

     It sounds like you are afraid of being thought of as a traditional
    woman- man's caretaker, homemaker and all. You know that you can make
    it "in a man's world," and you don't want to give anyone the impression
    that you can't, or that you can but are better suited for a more
    traditional role. It appears that you are worried about other people's
    perceptions of you.
    
     It sounds like you fear other people seeing your domestication. It has
    been expressed, though rather subtly, that domestication and
    traditional female roles are somehow less worthy than traditional men's
    roles. Thus it is important to not be seen doing domestic things like
    ironing since it makes you feel less worthy of the feminist movement
    (just a supposition). After all, feminism is an attempt to break away
    from all that, is it not?
    
     The problem arises in that there are a number of domestic items which
    must be accomplished- often more than one person can do alone,
    especially when they work full time. Both partners must share in this
    domestic work, and it really isn't demeaning unless you always get
    stuck with a crappy job and your SO gets all the good jobs. These
    things have to get done. You'll do some, and if your relationship is
    somewhat egalitarian, your SO will do a roughly equal amount.
    
    re: shock value of doing non-traditional things
    
     I think most everyone enjoys "showing 'em." Some people are skeptical
    of your abilities because of preconceived stereotypes they have based
    on your sex, height, appearance or whatever. It feels good to show them
    their stereotypes are false. No- it is not silly. The stereotypes are
    (even our own).
    
    I think it is important to realize that domestic tasks are no less
    important than work related tasks (or other atypical tasks.) Part of
    the problem relating to the perception of domestic activities comes
    from men from the old school "that's wimmin's work." Part comes from
    the feminists "I want to do 'men's' work because it held in higher
    esteem." (Implying that people that do domestic activities are somehow 
    less worthy of respect.)
    
    I think it is important to reach a point of balance in your life, where
    you do the things that you want to do as well as the things that you
    have to do. For each person this is different. Some people are happy
    doing predominately domestic work. Some are happy doing predominately
    "outside" work.
    
    Perhaps you should come to accept that people will continue to harbor
    stereotypes about you because you are a woman. Many of these
    stereotypes will be wrong. But as time passes, the stereotypes will be
    broken by example often enough where most of them will disappear. 
    
    These thoughts are all my own impressions and thoughts based on what I
    think you may be feeling based on my own experience. I hope I have at
    least gotten you started on the right path of thinking, so you can feel
    more comfortable doing domestic activities. I prefer to think about it
    this way- if I lived alone, I'd have to do ALL the domestic things. Now
    I only have to do half.
    
    The Doctah

    re -1
    
    I tend to agree.  It doesn't faze me to get "caught" doing the ironing. 
    I like ironing!  There was a time when I felt that I didn't want to be
    seen doing traditionally female tasks.  As time passed, I realized that
    I thought that male chores were "better", "more important".  That's
    silly.  There's chores, and there's activities.  We all get the chores
    done and we talk about our activities.  If I can iron faster than Jim,
    and he can change the oil faster than me, we go do it so we can go
    climb somewhere together.  If what I'm doing around the house matters
    so much to other people that it affects their opinions of my worth then
    they don't have enough to do.
    
    Dondi

    re .3
    Dondi, you remind me of when I taught Paul to blindstitch the hem for
    the new curtains for his apartment....
    
    But I still do nearly all the sewing: he is left-handed, and a very
    slow blind-stitcher.
    
    Anyone else got any more thoughts?
    
    I typed that all in more as a sort of musing about how silly my own
    behavior can be on occasion that for anything else (OK, I get this way
    on rainy days...).
    
/Charlotte

     re: .0 (Charlotte Richardson)
     
     The following comment made by your mother...
     
     >    My mother says I am trapped between her generation (she is 66) and the
     >    "ideal" one to come some day, when life really is egalitarian at last,
     
     ... reflects  some thoughts  I've had  in the past couple weeks about women
     who are one generation ahead of me.
     
     Your mother  is 66,  and I am 23, so that puts the generation of women I am
     referring to as being roughly between 37 and 47 years of age.
     
     Recently I  have begun to better appreciate and understand the women a gen-
     eration ahead  of me  who broke down barriers in the way of achieving their
     goals while  traveling along  a similar  path in life as I am.  They fought
     the fight,  and now I am the benefactor.  While I don't think my generation
     is necessarily  the "ideal"  one (if that will ever exist...), I think I am
     pretty lucky  to be  of my generation.  After all, things *could* get worse
     for the  next generation  (slowly, more  and more  restrictions  are  being
     placed on our personal freedoms via abortion restrictions, etc...)
     
     The generation  of women  before mine is likely to have been presented with
     wildly conflicting messages about what their place and roles "should" be in
     society.   As the  in-between generation, they were initially behest to get
     married and  become good  wives and  mothers.   Then, suddenly,  they found
     themselves married  with children  when the new message they heard was: Do-
     mestication is out; careers are in.
     
     Yea, you now have a choice!  What?  No training, no college?  Sorry.
     
     So then  the first independent action made by the woman was to un-marry and
     pursue her new life choices.
     
     I am grateful I never received such conflicting messages from society while
     growing up.   I  am grateful  because I seem to be having a relatively easy
     time achieving  my goals compared to women one generation before me.  Don't
     get me  wrong - I work hard; but they worked as hard or harder and achieved
     less.
     
     Yes, Charlotte,  I think  your mom  was quite insightful about the "trapped
     generation."
     
                                                  nancy b.
     

    Oh, I think we worked hard, but I don't think we accomplished less. 
    I'm speaking from the high school class of '66.  Mostly we had fewer
    options.  We always had the chance to do the best we could with what we
    had and I think that's true now too.  The problem was that if I wanted
    to do something out of the "ordinary" for females, I couldn't do it,
    wasn't "allowed".  For example: no shop in high school for girls, nor
    home ec for boys; no athletic scholarships for girls going into the
    University.  Those are defined barriers that have been crumbling for
    years to everyones' benefit.  Still, musing here too, there are duties
    as well as choices.  There are things that have to be done in each
    person's life that I call chores.  How one gets the laundry done, gas
    in the car, food on the shelf is largely a matter of style, it still
    has to be done.  So in our house we do it, and everybody suffers the
    indignities, everybody complains, but we just do it.
    
    Dondi
    
    (I'm muttering out loud here, I'm not really sure what it is we're
    talking about.  Is it the value judgement on tasks, progress in the
    household, versatility in changing roles, reminiscing ??)   

>    This note reminds me of what my mother always says,
>    "the worst thing the woman's movement did was creating the 
>    perception that being a housewife was demeaning and something
>    to be looked down upon." (not a direct quote but that's the jist
>    of it)

The women's movement did NOT create the perception that being a
housewife was demeaning.  That perception existed well before there was
a women's movement, and has been intensified over the last few hundred
years with the development of a commercial economy.  "Women's work": the
business of caring for a family, providing food, shelter, clothing, and
the nurturing necessary for life have been little valued activities
precisely because there were done by women.  Although without them life
and comfort as we know it in human civilization would grind to a halt,
much of our history has managed to live with the most outrageous double
vision about the value of such necessities.  Although there have been
periods when "women's work" has been romanticized, particularly in
Victorian times when women were encouraged to cherish their noble role
as heart of the hearth and home ("the hand that rocks the cradle rules
the world" nonsense), all of that is just a sop thrown to an underclass
to try to stave off restlessness with their lot.  No one believes it for
a second, and certainly no man engaged in the tough and unpleasant
business of making money, practicing a profession, or deciding public
affairs would swap his miserable lot for the more pure and noble destiny
of the housewife. 

Because our beliefs about the low value of "women's work" are such a
deeply ingrained part of our society, one of the first reactions of
women who feel themselves to be strong, capable, ambitious women is to
strive for work and achievements that are valued by our society.  Valued
work is traditionally men's work, and it seems natural that women
learning to value themselves would seek to do valued work.  This changes
the demographics of who is doing the valued work, but does not challenge
the underlaying principles of who assigns value and for what. (And it
does not change who does the unvalued work, as any woman neurosurgeon
who still has to worry about what to do with a sick baby can tell you.) 

Challenging these more basic assumptions is something that has been
happening as women's experience in the system develops.  As women
achieve a stronger sense of personal value, it can be a position from
which to challenge a value system that still assigns worth only to
male-ness and its imitations and to reclaim a sense of female value.  As
long as women are only valuable if they act like men (and blacks if they
act like whites, and Hispanics if they act like Anglos and so on) then
nothing fundamental changes.  It is not enough to put a few new faces
into the system we already know.  It may be better to be a token than a
slave in an unequal system, but it is better still to build a completely
new system.  Envisioning such a system is hard work.  We need to ditch
assumptions we didn't know we had, we have to conceive of things that in
our minds have never existed and for which we don't have any words.
Maybe we need to ditch words and concepts like "housewife" and "career",
and create some totally new things, new ideas and new ways of being in
the world.  We need a system in which the women's backs on whom the 
world has been built and on which it runs have honor and value, and maybe 
a little respite from their unceasing labor.

    
    re: .8
    
    What a great note. Thank you for debunking this damn myth that
    housework was _ever_ respected. Seems to me it's the propaganda
    of fundamentalists and others who want to get women back into the
    house. It used to be there was nowhere else for women to go. Now
    that there is, they've suddenly decided it's "respectable", in order 
    to entice us back. 
    
    DISCLAIMER: There's nothing wrong with being a housewife, and there 
     never was.
    
    Roberta
     

    I'm not really embarassed about doing housework or sewing or whatever,
    except sometimes some of my friends look at me like I was my mom...but
    I don't mind (it's kind of nice surprising people by actually *cooking*
    for them on occasion).
    
    I have another image which I sometimes don on weekends...it's barefoot
    and wears jeans and tie-dye or ratty T-shirts...it's fairly mellow
    and likes to hang out or listen to music or read....the only reason
    I'd feel uncomfortable about being "caught" in this persona is if
    I were met by a co-worker or something....I might feel kind of weird
    and extremely unprofessional but hey - that's why I do these things
    at night and on the weekends sometimes...
    
    The only problems I have with image occur when the way *I* view
    myself and the way *others* view myself (i.e., place me in a certain
    role) clash....generally resulting in the fact that I feel
    incapable/unworthy of their respect/praise.  But that's another
    one for the "women and self-confidence" note...
    
    -Jody
    

> a second, and certainly no man engaged in the tough and unpleasant
> business of making money, practicing a profession, or deciding public
> affairs would swap his miserable lot for the more pure and noble destiny
> of the housewife.

	RE: 632.7

	Catherine,

	Well, guess what? When I was growing up in the 1950s, I knew
	a man who decided to give it all up and stay home and do all
	the domestic chores.

	I happen to believe you generalization that "no man...would
	swap his miserable lot..." to be incorrect.

	Scott

Charlotte,

It really does take guts to bring this sort of thing up in womannotes. So
thanx. It's tough for 'feminists' (self-avowed or otherwise) to discuss their
ambivalence about certain aspects in a notesfile where it's easy to see
anti-feminist knee-jerks occur. Which always make my feminist knees jerk. Which
makes it hard to go home and do the dishes (with my knees jerking). Which is
_exactly_ the same sort of thing (with me). Every time I mention I do the
dishes I feel the need to indicate all the other chores that Joe does, and all
the other chores I do, to show what an up-to-date and egalitarian couple we
are. And I can _feel_ how silly that is. But, of course, I can discuss it (see
beginning of this paragraph).

And, in fact, there are the traditional-woman things I don't mind others know I
do, just like you (oh thankyouthankyouthankyou for starting this note; how nice
to relate). Like cooking. A co-worker just said today "I can't imagine you
standing in front of an oven." as a chain-pull. Cooking is a nice, nourishing
thing to do, even if it's pb&j (which is barely cooking, I suppose...). But
dish washing is cleaning up after others, which is, well, evoke your favorite
denigration of women's work here.

I do appreciate women in womannotes who'll 'stand up for' taking care of home
and hearth. I've had some good discussions with them, and it helps me to work
through those awful assumptions of worth I carry with me. I truly believe I got
them from watching my mother and father interact, not from feminism. But you
know me and my knees.
	Mez

	I have to agree with Catherine, it wasn't the woman's movement
	that looked down on the traditional role of women, in fact it
	was the woman's movement that uncovered the myth about being
	a mother/housewife and the "hand that rocks the cradle rocks
	the world" ideaology.  

	The times in my life when I have lived alone (with children in	
	toe) I have had to do ALL of the chores, now I choose which ones
	I will ignore and which ones I will take care of.  I still iron
	my cotton clothes but I rarely cook.  I really like to cook but
	there isn't anyone to eat what I cook most of the time.  I like
	to have pressed clothes but I hate the chore of ironing.

	BTW - if you ever visit my home you may find me doing almost
		any of the necessary chores one has to do to support
		a healthy environment.  I even will make pizza from
		scratch (starting with growing yeast in sugar and water)
		if I have the ingredinents in the cupboards.

	_peggy

		(-)
		 |
			The Goddess suppiles the materials
			we supply the meanings.

    
>    "the hand the rocks the cradle rules the world", i've always
>    liked that saying and i think it holds true.  i'm not sure you
>    understand the subtleness behind it.  Very often the person 
>    sitting on the throne is not actually in power.

I think I understand the subtlety extremely well.  And yes, sitting on a 
throne is not in and of itself a true indication of power.  Certainly 
Genghis Khan had a mom, and I'm sure would rather go massacre a few
provinces than have her yell at him for not wiping his feet 
when he walked in the yurt.  One could say that in some ways Genghis
Khan's mom was more powerful than he, and her influence over the cradle
determined the fate of a large part of the world for many years. 
This is still baloney.  It is an attempt to equate the minor authority 
that women wield over their kitchens with the authority to truly shape
the world.

Is it women who exercise power in a world in which women in most
cultures have lived under conditions very little different from slavery
-- the property of fathers, husbands, and sons who could dispose of
their lives as they saw fit?  Even if the most strutting of macho men
must bow to their mother when she tells them to straighten up and get
his elbows off the table, she is still obligated to serve him and make
his life comfortable.  There is power of a sort in service, and women 
have learned to make the most of it.  However, at the bottom line men 
get to live off the labor of women and those women have little sense of 
choice in the matter.  

Few men could be powerful executives without wives tending to all their
domestic affairs and secretaries tending to all their administrative
affairs, so one could argue that all the world's power lies with wives
and secretaries.  And indeed if these women stopped doing their jobs,
all business would grind to a halt.  However these women do not decide
to redline minority neighborhoods, invade Angola, dump toxic waste in
the Great Lakes.  They merely answer the phones and fix dinner so these
things can happen.  They do not perceive what they do as valuable or 
important, except as it pleases their families or the boss they are 
dependent on.  They do not have power in the larger world.  They 
cannot even walk on the street and go where they want when they want. 
One third them have been raped, one fourth assaulted by their fathers 
or male caretakers as children, one half at some time the victim of 
violence by a man.  How many are regularly beaten in the privacy of
their own homes (where they "rule") is hard to guess - at least a tenth.
What choices do they have?  What power do they have when the response
to a woman raped or beaten is that she shouldn't have gotten herself
into that situation? 

I have sometimes wondered what the millions of Chinese mothers thoughout
history must have felt as they murdered, or allowed to be murdered,
their own baby daughters.  Is this a choice made by women who wanted it
that way?  Who through their "power" over the cradle created a society
in which a newborn girl could be disposed of like garbage?  Or is it the 
act of human beings taught to so despise themselves and the value of 
their lives that they could snuff out the lives of babes destined to be 
like them?  (In using this example I do not mean to imply that only the 
Chinese killed their girl babies -- death of female infants and young
girls through neglect was very common throughout medieval Europe.
During hard economic times it was common to let little girls starve and
only feed the boys). 

This "rock the cradle" thing is a half-truth designed to content women 
with their "power behind the throne."  The subtle ways in which women 
have learned to manipulate their husbands, fathers, sons, so that they 
could have some small control over their own lives are the arts learned to 
survive in a state of servitude.  They are not the arts or powers of free 
women with power over themselves.  We must honor all survivors, so I do 
not diminish the value of what women have done and still do to survive.  
It is achievement for any woman to be alive, really.  But I consider it
a big mistake to look at these things and view them as anything other 
than desperate survival measures under oppression.

>	Well, guess what? When I was growing up in the 1950s, I knew
>	a man who decided to give it all up and stay home and do all
>	the domestic chores.

I think it's wonderful that you had this kind of role model.  Now, 
compared to the number of women you know who did this same thing, does 
it seem to balance out?

>	I happen to believe you generalization that "no man...would
>	swap his miserable lot..." to be incorrect.

I will grant you that "no man" is here inaccurate, as we do have one man 
who did so.  However, one man out of the 2 billion or so currently 
living on this planet is quite statistically insignificant.  I think an 
observed incidence of .0000000005% is close enough to "no man" that artistic 
license may excuse me.

    	re: .15
    
    	I'll reiterate. You have made and continue to make a gross
    	generalization. You have no proof that only 1 man in 2
    	billion men feel this way.
    
    	Scott

    re .14, that was beautiful Catherine.
    	Linda

    re .16
    
    Scott, There may be more men who would like to stay home and have
    their wife go off to work than men who actually do so. However,
    in my generation (now in my 40s) it was practically unheard of.
    The only man that I know of who did so was my father-in-law. This
    was because he was a minister and worked Sundays. My mother-in-law
    worked as a teacher during the week, so dad took care of the
    house and the dishes and making lunch and such things. Until this
    current generation the vast majority of couples divided the roles
    such that the woman took care of the house and the children and
    the man had the outside job. The women may have also worked at a
    trade (weaving, pottery, etc) or on the farm, but they were still
    the ones who had the responsibility for the home and kids. Women
    had less status, could not own land, could not vote. Thus was that
    often the only power they had was to use 'feminine whiles' to get
    a man to do what they wished.
    
    Bonnie

    
    re:.16
    
    i'm a little confused as to what exactly constitutes a 'gross'
    generalization. is a 'gross' generalization a generalization based on a
    statistically invalid sample? is a 'gross' generalization a
    generalization that is 'gross' in it's import?
    
    now, if you are suggesting that the import of ms. iannuzzo's
    generalization is 'gross' (as in unpleasant) you are quite right. it is
    really a shame that our society seems to be set up this way.
    
    but suspect you mean that ms. iannuzzo's generalization is somehow
    'gross' because it is based on a statistically invalid sample.
    personally, i can think of no male adult i have ever met whose sole
    or even primary function within his family unit was that of 'domestic
    engineer'. i can think of only a handful of male adults that i have
    ever heard about, read about or even heard rumors about that have
    filled that role. even adding that in with ms. iannuzzo's observations,
    you are no doubt quite right that these do not constitute a
    statistically valid sample. of course, by the same lights, i do not 
    think you have given evidence that a significant proportion of adult 
    males, say 5%?, fill the role of domestic engineer. still less have you
    given any evidence that a *reasonable* proportion of adult males, say
    40%?, fill this role.
    
    i'm afraid this reminds me of 2nd year philosophy. do you really think
    that most men would be happy to be 'house husbands'? do you really
    think that men and women are treated equally by society? do you really
    think that discrimination does not exist?
      

    Now that my blood pressure has gone back down, I want to lend my
    support (not that it is needed) to Catherine's views in .14.  I've
    never placed much stock in "argument by cliche".
    
    Back to the base note, I too have had occasions where I felt
    embarassed to be seen doing something "typically male" or would
    want to object when someone suggested I might have a "typically male"
    view.  One example of the latter was my frustration at all the
    well-intentioned folks who INSISTED that "of COURSE I wanted a boy
    for my first child."  (Well, no, actually I had a slight preference
    for a girl, but I got blank stares if I mentioned this.) 
    
    When this happens, I try to realize that I can only be who I am, and
    if other people want to put their own particular spin on my
    motives, there's little I can do to stop them.  I have enough
    opportunities to go against the mold.
    
    				Steve

    The one area that particularly gets me in the male/female
    role areas, is that of the generally messy state of my house.
    I hate to clean and do it as seldom as possible. There are
    6 other people living here now..ranging in age from 44 to 11.
    All of them help make the mess and all of them help clean it
    up. Yet I still feel when I have unexpected company that
    it is my fault and I should appologise for the mess. (I have
    to really trust someone to let them see the upstairs!
    
    Bonnie

    It's really comforting to know that some of the respondents in
    this note are Personnel-types, and might, one supposes, have to
    deal with the male species on an even-handed basis.
    
      Alan

    Let's see...on the matter of housework.  I've noticed I NEVER dawdle
    when I do housework.  Once a month I go haywire and clean and vacuum
    and scrub the whole apartment.  I do it in about 2 hours time (I
    used to clean houses during high school to raise money for college).
    So I just "have at", music up, dressed in sweats, and get it over
    with as completely and quickly as possible.  I don't enjoy doing
    housework, but I do like the results enough to do it right.
    
    On the matter of househusbands - the ONLY man I have ever known who
    WANTED to be a househusband (i.e. the homemaker of the family) wished
    to do so because he was *terrified* of the outside world, of
    responsibility, of holding a job, and of talking to people on the
    telephone.  He wished to sit at home, forever, raising children and
    cooking and cleaning  This is in no way a blanket statement, but I'm
    willing to guess that many (*not all*) men who are househusbands are in
    that role because of some special need of the family, special ability
    of the wife as bread-winner, or personal requirement that he not work
    or be forced to cope with the outside world.  
    
    -Jody
    

>    but suspect you mean that ms. iannuzzo's generalization is somehow
>    'gross' because it is based on a statistically invalid sample.

	You're correct. That's what I mean.

>                                of course, by the same lights, i do not 
>    think you have given evidence that a significant proportion of adult 
>    males, say 5%?, fill the role of domestic engineer.

	You're correct. I haven't and cannot. But, that doesn't mean
	that no men feel/act this way. And, yes, it is a small
	number.
	

>    still less have you
>    given any evidence that a *reasonable* proportion of adult males, say
>    40%?, fill this role.

	I cannot give such evidence, because I don't have it.

>    i'm afraid this reminds me of 2nd year philosophy. do you really think
>    that most men would be happy to be 'house husbands'? do you really
>    think that men and women are treated equally by society? do you really
>    think that discrimination does not exist?

	I can't speak for most men. I assume that the majority of men
	would not be happy as `house husbands."

	There's no question is anyone's mind (including mine) that 
	society's treatment of women is deplorable.

	There's no question that discrimination exists. Actually, 
	one reason I like Digital is the fact that this is the first
	place I've worked that seems to try to treat people equitably
	and fairly. It's also the first place where most of the people
	over me are women.

	I share some the same concerns as Catherine, being the father of
	two teenage daughters. I would like to see women treated fairly
	by society. My problem is more with the tone of the reply. It
	pushed my hot button. I make no apologies for that.

	Scott

	I have been thinking about this "househusband" and if I
	know of any.

	Well, first I would have to do a definition of what I am 
	looking for:

		A male who takes on the stated "traditional" role
		of the female in the home.

	This is a problem for me - for the stated "traditional"
	role of the female is a concept I have little experience
	with (on a purely personal basis).  In fact I am not sure
	I really understand what it is.

		Is it - barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?

		If so then technology has not advanced that much 
		for a male to take on that role sucessfully (and 
		I am not talking about being barefoot or in the
		kitchen).

		Is it - no work for pay outside the home?

		I have a real problem with this one since I know of
		a few people who almost never leave their homes and
		definitely don't work outside the home but they do
		earning a very good living doing their "work" at home.

		Is it - having sole responsibility for the "care
		and feeding" of other members of the family and the
		house.

		Does this include live-in Nannys and housekeepers or
		parents who live with their children and grandchildren?

	I guess my biggest problem is with this last item - even in single
	parent homes (including mine) I have not seen anyone with "sole"
	responsibility for the "care and feeding" of the house and its
	residents.  Now this may be because I have not ever agreed to this
	arrangement but I also am having a hard time thinking of any family
	unit that I know well enough to judge where this arrangement was
	true.

	Now before I get flamed I know that the "stated" traditional role
	of women has been the "care and feeding" role what I am questioning
	is what this concept is based on.  Did this situation ever really
	exist or is it an ideal that needs to be strived for, you know like
	love your neighbor, world peace and equality for all?

	If I am correct and this ideal NEVER existed except in the minds of
	some why do we continue to give it credence by refering to it as
	though somewhere out there there is someone who makes this exception
	the rule we judge ourselves by?

	If the Emperor has no clothes why pretend that he does?

	Having stated all that - Yes I do know of a number of men who have
	for periods of time did "care and feeding" roles for their families,
	but they were all considered exceptional individuals (not always in
	a positive light either) for doing so.

	_peggy

		(-)
		 |

			From the Goddess comes the ideal for both
			females and males - Know that you do what you
			can and not judge your behavior by exceptional
			meeasurements.

    
                          <** Moderator Response **>

    Could we maybe all use smaller hammers, folks?  They're only gnats,
    after all.
                
    						=maggie

re: gross generalization

I confess that I have made an error in making my point.  Instead of:

	.. no man engaged in the tough and unpleasant
	business of making money, practicing a profession, or deciding public
	affairs would swap his miserable lot for the more pure and noble destiny
	of the housewife. 

I should have written:

	.. very few men engaged in the tough and unpleasant
	business of making money, practicing a profession, or deciding public
	affairs seem eager to swap their miserable lot for the more pure
	and noble destiny of the housewife. 

I confess that my rhetorical enthusiasm got away with me and I concede I 
have not made an entirely accurate statement.  It is not, however,
entirely wrong.  I do not wish my error in expression to be used as an
excuse for invalidating the concept itself, which even without a
sociological survey of a statisticly valid sample population seems to me
to be quite obvious. 

    I'm not very into housework, myself but I do it, almost all of it.
    I can think of no other single more important job than raising
    children. The responsibilities are tremendous. The stresses are
    overwhelming. 
    
    I think, although the women's movement certainly didn't mean to
    belittle the traditional mother/homemaker role, that it did so on
    a subliminal level. Generations ago it was expected to be the home-
    maker so that was ok. But, now, to do it by choice??? that's a
    different story. 
    
    Kate (who was born in 1956)
    
    

re: "rock the cradle"

I do not wish sound as if I am demeaning the strength and power of 
women.  According to a UN statistic, women do 75% of the world's labor,
so it is women who make the world go.  However, men reap 90% of the 
fruits of that labor, and own 99% of the cradles and all (women earn 10% 
of the world's income and own 1% of the world's property).  To pat women 
on the head and tell them how very important they are in the scheme of 
things, while very true, is not enough.

I assume the power assigned to the hand rocking the cradle has to do 
with the fact that since young children are in the charge of women, it 
is women who are responsible for conveying essential lifelong values to them.
In this sense, women are shaping the future generations of a whole 
society, and that could be viewed as an enormous power.  As my example 
about the Chinese mothers who practiced or endured the routine
infanticide of their daughters was intended to illustrate, I am not
convinced that the values by which women shape these future generations
are necessarily the values these women would choose if they were truly
free and held themselves in esteem.  Hence, I consider this power, 
though real, to have been co-opted.

Being of Italian descent, I am think I am well aware of the subtle power 
wielded by women in a culture that on its surface is quite masculinist.
Men have freedom and privileges and are quite indulged, on the whole, 
while the matriarchs at home run the family.  The women are not weak or
helpless by any means.  However, their range of choices is still 
limited and although they can rule in the home (as long as they are 
'respectable' wives, mothers, and widows), they do not rule in the 
outside world.  Letting women be queen of the kitchen sink or 
even the cradle is not compensation enough when it is men who have their 
fingers on the big red button.

    Ah me...
    
    I don't mind people seeing me do housework-type stuff.  It's not often
    that they do as I get by on the minimum. Neither Rick nor I enjoy these
    tasks, but sooner or later they get done. 
    
    I _do_ mind when people comment upon my domesticity ... as if it were
    sufficiently rare that tickets should be sold.  When Mother used
    to visit I would clean until 'you could eat off of the floor' ...
    not because I needed her approval, but because I got tired of staring
    at her backside sticking out of my oven while trying to have a
    conversation. [she is a cleaning compulsive ... polished my
    refrigerator one day by mistake when she got to the end of the
    countertop after emptying out a glass of iced tea and mopping out
    the sink afterward. I'm not making this up.]
    
    Cleaning, for me, is one of life's little necessities -- sort of
    like relieving my bladder, but more genteel.  It's nicer too in
    that when I don't have time someone else can do it.
    
    My ambivalence comes more when I look at the things I am proud of:
    
    I make many of my own clothes, I am a fabulous cook, I do all sorts
    of needlework, I sell some of my designs even...
    
    When Rick wanted a fancy dinner with several friends for his birthday,
    I had a blast planning and fixing it.  OTHER WOMEN told me I was
    being exploited.  I don't agree, but I sort of stopped talking about
    it.
    
    When my boss knew I'd made my grey suit, she asked if I ever took
    in sewing. EXCUSE ME!?!?!  This offended me somewhat.  I love to
    sew and design and stuff, but I do it for ME or for love, not for
    hire. [like sex]

    While I don't usually find myself making excuses for the 'cute and
    domestic' things that I _do_ do, I find that I close down an awful
    lot of myself to others because I don't want to deal with the negative
    stereotypes that people attach to them.
    
      Ann

Well actually Maggie, I was thinking of the heat this generates, which implies
to me that this issue that seems small is really very important to a lot of
people on 'both sides' of the issue. I know why it's important to 'my side'.
I'll have to think about 'the other side'.

Maybe we should consider separating personal story topics (which this started
as) and the polictical-is-personal topics (which is heating up in here).
	Mez

    re: .36
    
    Excellent note, Ann.

    My husband tends to take the heat as far as being non-traditional goes
    - and he doesn't care.  He loves to cook, he enjoys cooking, he takes
    pride in his cooking - so he does most of the cooking. Wow, what a
    concept.  He's also a perfectionist about his clothes being folded and
    hung (we're talking all buttons on shirts have to be buttoned, shirts
    must hang the same way in the closet etc.), so I usually sort and put
    the laundry on but he ends up putting it away.  
    
    Am I a bad wife because my husband does these things? Well my
    grandmother would like to tell you so - she thinks it's a disgrace that
    I don't get up and cook my husband breakfast in the morning.  And it
    bothered me when we invited my parents over for dinner our first
    Christmas Eve married. We both did the cooking ( I usually make the
    bread from scratch, bake cookies, set the table, do all the fancy
    decorating and Dave does the rest of the cooking), and my mom commented
    to her sisters and mother on Christmas "Oh Suzanne fed us a wonderful
    dinner last night." Grandmother's comment "Oh you mean she has domestic
    talents after all!"  GRRRRHHHHH!!!!!
    
    I guess neither of us care what people see us doing as far as chores.
    But it is much more fun when you get caught doing something
    non-traditional :-).  One friend came over and commented on our new
    looking deck and told my husband he did a great job sanding it.
    I loved the look on his face when my husband told him I did the
    sanding. "You mean she used the sanding machine????"  Or when people
    see me doing the lawn work and Dave doing the laundry.  We like
    it more for the shock effect.  But we don't do the opposite "traditional"
    chores just to be different either.  We just do what we enjoy and
    split the ones we both hate.        
    
    From day 1 I've always made more than my husband - and I liked it
    that way - not because I enjoy making more money, but just because
    it is different.  Well he is considering a career change and will
    be making a heck of a lot more than me.  It kind of bothers me because
    we won't be "different" in that respect any more - but him making
    more certainly doesn't bother me.  Of course the first thing Dave
    says when we started talking about his prospective new job and salary,
    "We're not going to tell you're Grandmother!!!!"  He knows her too
    well, she'll just say "Well that's the way it should be anyway."
         
    As far as "the hand that rocks the cradle"....IMHO....I agree that
    it's a lot of baloney dished out to make women feel better about
    their position in society.
    
    Suzanne

I've always enjoyed breaking traditional roles and enjoy cooking,
cleaning, "being emotional", and being with children.  I've definitely
given some thought to being a househusband but since I'm not married I
guess it's a moot point and also its seems to be very difficult to
have one income households (and it would be much harder if the one
income was a woman's. Maybe I have a fantasy model of what it would be
like but certain aspects appeal to me... 

Catherine's note triggers something that I have been reflecting on
recently.  It seems that in many aboriginal societies, there are two
different roles for men and women but they are considered to be of
equal stature and power.  I assume our society started that way but
has drifted into a patriarchal and heterosexist system over time
(which hopefully is being reversed).  The model being used in most
civil rights and women's right movements seems to be to give the
"minorities" equal opportunity within the dominate system and playing
by the rules of the dominant system.  So, we see many women, for
example, exhibiting the (in my mind anyway) same destructive 
traditionally male behavior patterns such as aggression and
competitiveness.

Another interesting case here is Native American rights.  The
traditional non-native focus has been to try and destroy the
traditional culture and values (which are beautiful) and "blend" the
Native Americans in the mainstream (ie, cultural genocide).  Of
course, what is actually wanted in many cases (I am at risk here of
speaking for another group) is a the land and power and ability to
preserve and function within the existing Native cultural traditions and
norms for the group.  An interesting subcase is that in many of these
societies, although there were sex based roles and jobs, exceptions
were allowed.  Berdache men for example, dressed and did traditionally
female jobs and were honored, valued, and accepted for their differences. 

What I'm getting as is:

1)  Is equality is the the same as equal opportunity under the
dominate system? 

2)  Are we ideally going towards a system in which women and men can
freely take on any role they choose (ie, abolish traditional roles
and move towards a universal humanness).

Or conversely, is is possible to have different traditional roles and
cultures and still have equality?  (This seems to not to be the
direction we are going in). 

3)  How can and should we value and preserve cultural differences without
saying one is more important than the other or that others are better
that others within the context of the global village?

4)  What is the root cause of patriarchy and hetrosexism and all
"ism's"?  Is it possible not to have any ism's (either the bad ones
and the "PC" ones)?  At a very basic level, what is it that separates
and divides us into different camps that are in conflict with one
another?

Just some food for thought.

john

    Re:  hammers and gnats
    
    I've noticed that a lot of the more heated arguments are driven not so
    much by disagreement as by a difference in emphasis.  Both sides have
    at least some validity to their position and both sides want to make
    sure that their point "gets its due."  Catherine's rephrasing of her
    position is an excellent example of breaking out of the pattern with
    grace.
    
    Re:  the hand that rocks the cradle
    
    I've always found that unconvincing.  The argument goes, "You already
    have power, so you don't need to do this."  My response would be, "If I
    already have power, what's the harm in my doing this?"
    
    Re:  the impact of the women's liberation movement
    
    I agree that the women's movement didn't cause the low opinion of
    "woman's work."  However, I think it worsened the situation.  A woman
    of talent and competence should be in the working world, so a woman
    still at home was:  1) still downtrodden and unliberated, or 2)  not
    capable of doing "real" work.  Since housewives did not *encourage* the
    perception of women as equals, they could be considered a liability to
    the movement.  Sort of the "if you're not part of the solution, you're
    part of the problem" paradigm.
    
    On the other hand, the women's movement was also instrumental in
    researching and promoting the value of "woman's work."  By showing that
    "real work" and "woman's work" were actually similar in value,
    feminists could demonstrate that women were, in fact, suited to "real
    work" since the transition was not so great.
    
    Re:  domesticity vs working
    
    One of the papers I did in college was on the economic role of women in
    Europe roughly during the Renaissance period.  While it was difficult
    to find information, I did manage to get enough to put together a 
    reasonable paper.  When the working population had been decimated by
    the plagues, women had much more important economic roles.  In some
    places, they were even admitted to guilds.  However, when the male
    population recovered to the point that there were enough men to fill
    all the necessary roles in the trades and crafts, women were pushed
    back out.  The Reformation finished off any lingering traces by clearly
    defining the role of the woman within the household.  (And this is
    where a lot of the "hand that rocks the cradle" stuff originates.  The
    Reformation did women a good turn by encouraging that they be educated,
    but it did them a bad turn by limiting the application of their
    education to the domestic scene.)
    
    The situation is somewhat similar today:  women are entering the
    workforce because there aren't enough men around to do all the work. 
    As added incentive, a single income is not currently sufficient.  The
    real test of societal changes will come when/if women are no longer
    essential to bring the workforce up to sufficient levels.

In trying to adjust my attitude, I recited to myself "The hand that washes the
dishes rules the world." as I did them. I didn't help much...
	Mez

    in cleaning out the cat box recently, i tried saying "the hand that
    scoops the shit rules the world". didn't work for me either. and that
    reminds me of the time my mother was changing an especially yukky
    diaper. she looked up from her task and said "for this i got a ph.d.?" 
    
    
    liz

    Liz,
    
    Regarding your mother changing poopy diapers: I would love to stay
    home and change my babies diapers. They do potty train after a couple
    of years. It's a shi*ty job but somebody's got to do it. If I could
    financially swing it I would gladly take a couple of years off to
    stay home with the young'uns. 
    
    It's nice for women to be able to make a decision about having
    children. I think we working mothers are looked at differently than
    you other working women. No one knows if you do the "womanly chores"
    outside of work. Anyone who knows I'm a Mom knows that I do. I think
    we are patronized. 
    
    Kate
    

    re. 41.
    
    The same thing happened here in the States during WWII.  "Rosie
    the Riveter" was the example used to show women they could indeed
    put together a tank, battleship, etc.  Many of the women enjoyed
    the feeling of accomplishment of creating something that stayed
    created.  As opposed to washing the floor today, tomorrow, the day
    after, etc.
    
    When the men came home, they wanted their old jobs back.  A full-scale
    propaganda program was put into effect.  'Newsreel' stories of 'happy'
    wives hanging up their overalls and putting on aprons.  Stories
    in ladies magazines, etc.
    
    Enough to make you gag.  Some women (probably a lot) wanted to stay
    home, but those who didn't were made to feel there was something
    wrong with them.  This was probably the beginning of the current
    'women's movement'
             

    re:.45
    Karen, 
    
    I agree with you, Karen. I just want to say that motherhood and
    business sence are not mutually exclusive. Working mothers do need
    more support in the workplace from traditional management roles,
    many of which are held now by women without children. Many men seem
    to patronize us while some women without kids seem to think "she's
    made her bed bla,bla,bla." 
    
    The analogy of a shit*y diaper, although meant in context of a joke
    is typical of the way non-mothers view motherhood. Kids are a lot
    more valuable than sh*t. A career as a motherhood is a lot more
    valuable than sh*t. Different strokes for different folks. Kids
    are only kids for a short time. 
    
    Kate 
                                                  
    

      I understand what Bonnie is talking about when she says the woman
      tends to feel guilty if the house is not clean. I always felt that
      when people came over it was me that was being judged on what the
      place looked like and not ray. Like I was somehow solely
      responsible.

      of course women hating housework is nothing new. Here's an excerpt
      from one of Emily Dickinson's letters circa 1866

      "house" is being "cleaned". I prefer pestilence. That is more
      classic and fell�.

      I too feel like a person trapped between the cultural expectations
      of two generations. I have many needs and desires that fit the old
      mold of woman's sterotypes and yet I also feel pulled by the image
      of the new woman. There was a "lost generation" of poets and
      writers. I think I'm part of the lost generation of women. liesl

      � I believe fell is being used here in the sense of savage and
      fierce or cruel.

    I also would have loved to have been able to stay home and take
    care of my daughter when she was small, but we didn't feel we could
    afford to pass up my mother's offer of free babysitting while I
    worked.  On the other hand, if the woman's movement had had it's
    current momentum 100 yrs. ago, I might have been more prepared to
    take on a well-paid job when I did go out to work, because I might
    have grown up knowing I would have to support myself instead of
    growing up expecting my husband to support me, as I did.  I also
    might have grown up with the awareness of more options than being
    a housewife, nurse, teacher, librarian, or secretary.  I, also,
    might have grown up with a few more varied role models than I did.
     Growing up in a working class family, in a rural community, in
    the 50's and 60's, all the women I knew were either housewives,
    school teachers or nurses, or a few poor unfortunates who, because
    they were either divorced or married to (I thought) lazy men who
    didn't earn enough money, and were forced to take on assembly jobs
    in factories or work as waitress or secretaries to get by.  I was
    24 yrs. old before I even knew what a computer engineer was, and
    over 25 before I encountered my first woman doctor, over 30 before
    I encountered either my first woman lawyer, or woman with a Ph.D.
     Not being an A student, or especially ambitious, it just never
    occurred to me for years that a woman could strive for anything
    other than being a wife, a teacher or a nurse.  I never believed
    that "the hand that rocked the cradle rules the world."  I just
    thought that men were supposed to rule the world and women were
    supposed to rock the cradle.  It was only when I realized that I
    could neither afford to stay home and rock the cradle nor could
    I rule the world that I began to question things.

    I agree with Liesl (and I believe we are the same age, almost exactly)
    that we are a "lost generation" of women.
    
    As far as stereotypes of mens and womens chores go, a recent incident
    served to remind me of the way previous generations thought of these
    things.  I recently discovered that a male friend's grandmother
    had decided that she doesn't "like" me anymore.  The reason she
    doesn't like me is because a couple of months ago when I stayed
    over at her house, my male friend got up and cooked a breakfast
    of bacon and eggs.  I sat at the kitchen table while he put the
    breakfast in front of me.  I thanked him for cooking it and said
    it was good.  He and I thought nothing of it.  However, from that
    moment on she had decided she didn't like me.  She just could not
    accept the fact that a woman would sit and let a man serve her
    breakfast.  She's 86 yrs. old, and apparently "in her day" no decent
    woman would have sat and let a man serve her food.
    
    Lorna
    

Note 632.51        I have an ambivalent self-image to project           51 of 51
AERIE::THOMPSON "tryin' real hard to adjust..."       8 lines  13-JUN-1989 12:17
                   -< FAFO ? 4_Ambivalent_Feminists_Only ? >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>    of course in the era the only people with ambivalent self-images
>    to portray are feminists ...  Neo-Sensitive 80's kinda guys have
>    no ambivalence since their role is so clearly defined ...  Or if
>    it is worth talking about maybe it's worth resurrecting mennotes
>    and talking about it there ...  * sigh *  ... better hustle our
>    feathers out of here before the feminists get back from lunch !!

>    ~--e--~  Eagles_Wonder_Why_This_Topic_Isn't_Clearly_Labeled_FWO?

    
    Eagles,
    
    This topic isn't clearly labled FWO because it isn't. Where has
    anyone said in this string that men don't also have problems
    with role ambivalence. This started off as a discussion of a woman's
    feeling on being 'caught' doing something classically domestic
    (what used to be considered 'women's work'). If you have something
    you'd like to say on the topic please do so. The 'cheap shot'
    comments aren't worthy of you.
    
    regards
    
    Bonnie