Do you care about the environment? Stop fucking shopping, then!

Ladies, there is one way in which we are completely and utterly superior to men, the hands down winner, no contest, don’t even try to take me on champions:  Buying a whole ton of

“Women comprise more than half the U.S. population. And – of more interest to marketers – women make or influence the purchase of more than 80% of all products and services. Women are the majority decision-makers today, not only in the traditional areas of  fashion, food and cosmetics, but also for such big-ticket buys as automobiles, financial services, home improvement, computer electronics and travel.”

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=793

Paul Elam at www.avoiceformen.com has two pieces on women’s contributions to the environmental disaster we currently find ourselves facing, and I encourage you to click through and take a few moments to digest what he has to say.  Almost everything women buy is completely and utterly fucking useless and the environmental fall out from all that shit is dramatic.

I want to put my own JudgyBitch spin on the issue.  If most of what you buy is completely useless crap you don’t need, or you need in order to manage the fucked state of your life, then maybe it’s time to take stock of how you’ve got things arranged.  This is doubly, triply, eleventy times a million more true for women who are working while they have children at home.

Here is a calculator to help you figure how much of the money you earn actually goes towards the COSTS of working.  Things like clothing, daycare, commuting, etc.  Costs you WOULD NOT have if you were at home full time.  It makes for an interesting read.

http://homeparents.about.com/cs/familyfinances/a/workcalc.htm

A lot of women are figuring out that it actually costs more to work than to stay home, especially when you factor in the rising costs of childcare.  Childcare costs are going through the roof and all I have to say about that is

It SHOULD cost a goddamn fortune to pay someone else to raise the children you decided to have.  (http://judgybitch.com/2012/11/15/the-person-raising-your-child-is-the-person-who-does-the-work-of-raising-your-child-if-youve-hired-someone-to-do-that-they-are-raising-your-child-not-you/

A study in Gender and Society (and that should tell you the political leanings of the contributors right there) insists that most mothers who work would do so even if they didn’t have to, and the cheering section for women to be utterly self-absorbed and sacrifice every happiness for a paycheck grows louder.  Look, ladies, here comes a bus!  Chuck the baby under it!  And your husband, too, while you’re at it.  You’ll be so happy!  Promise.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120124093144.htm

Yeah, no.

Even feminists are starting to detect the odor of shit. A woman too afraid to use her own name wrote an article for the feminist website Feministing about her secret, dirty desire to be at home with her kids.  “Sure Ann [Romney] made a choice but it was a choice she was free to make because of her economic status.  Many American women would love to stay home and raise their kids and not have to work but they don’t have that luxury.”

http://feministing.com/2012/04/12/hilary-rosen-ann-romney-and-what-the-stay-at-home-mom-conversation-overlooks/

What’s that you say?  That most women have babies only to discover they WANT to be at home with them, but for some reason neglected to make the kind of life choices that would permit them to do that?  Really?  You mean they were LIED to?  By WHOM? Oh, that’s right.  Other women.

So not only do women manage, in one fell swoop, to ruin their own happiness and destroy any sense of security or responsibility in their children (how can you expect children to grow up feeling they have responsibilities and obligations when their own mothers refuse to accept even the most basic responsibilities of being a mother?), they also get to assuage their grief, guilt and exhaustion by buying a whole whack of shit they do not need and ruin the planet in the process.

Good job, feminism!  What a life-affirming ideology!  Let’s bury the planet under a mountain of trash so you can experience the joy and fulfilment of leaving your sobbing, snot-nosed toddlers (daycare kids are always sick!) in someone else’s care for the majority of their waking lives while you go futz around with papers in some stupid cubicle somewhere trying to figure out how to get women to buy even more shit they don’t need.  Gel manicures!  Scented candles!  Throw cushions!  Feather hair extensions!

Suffice to say, very few of these women are going off to cure cancer. Or do anything particularly useful at all.  That’s not what women do.  (http://judgybitch.com/2012/10/22/women-dont-build-invent-or-produce-anything-of-real-economic-social-or-political-value-but-we-shove-humans-out-our-vaginas-and-that-is-the-most-important-contribution-of-all-so-pay-me-motherfuc/)

Do you recycle your paper and soda cans faithfully?  Do you buy biodegradable trash bags?  Phosphate free detergents? Do you have cute little cloth bags you carry the groceries home in?  Go easy on the paper towels and baby wipes because you CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT?

Aww.  That’s sweet.

If you really care, quit your job, stay home with your kids, take care of your husband and stop buying so much useless shit.  That’s how you save the planet.  Oh, and your soul, too.

Lots of love,

JB