Katie Baker, writing at Jezebel has noted something interesting about interns who work for no pay: they’re the new housewives of the corporate world! Neat!
http://jezebel.com/5973293/are-interns-the-new-housewives
And by housewife, of course she means “highly motivated, dedicated, autonomous, self-directed, multi-tasking and with a skill set of astonishing range and flexibility”.
Oh wait. No she doesn’t. By housewife, she means “compliant, silent, submissive and obedient”.
I had to run that one by Mr. JB. His response? “Shit honey, you’re doing it wrong”.
I’ll say.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the issue of unpaid internships, what is up with all this housewife hate at Jezebel? Could it be that the Shrews of Gawker media have sensed a change in the air? Check out this comment from Hannali:
Just wanna point out that all of the housewives I know are strong, intelligent, competent women. I’m not sure where this myth came from that all housewives are doormats. Quite frankly, it’s a lie. Are there men that abuse their stay-at-home wives? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that all stay-at-home wives are abused. This stereotype has been around for far too long. I am eighteen years old, in college, with my own job, and yet my dream job is still to be a stay-at-home mom. Nothing would make me happier than to love, to nurture, and to make a home for my family. It makes me sad that society trashes the concept.
Young women like Hannali must scare the bejeebus out of an older generation of feminists. Yesterday we had Sabrina saying “fuck off slut culture” and today we have Hannali, whose ambition in life is to love and make a home for her family.
The pendulum swings back, as it always does. Let’s do an attitude check, shall we? What did British men and women say they valued most in a spouse?
Oh my! Ladies doing housework and men earning money? Alert the presses! According to Forbes Magazine, opting out is the new dream for American mothers, too. According to the annual Forbes survey of working mothers, “ 84% of working women say that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to”.
I wonder if that 84% knows that once they become housewives, they will also have to be silent, submissive and obedient?
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Jezebel likes to portray housewives as some horrifying caricature of femininity stuck halfway between a character out of Les Miserables and an antebellum slave. When 84% of women surveyed by Forbes ASPIRE to be housewives, where can this caricature come from?
I think Simone de Beauvoir said it best: “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.”
Now, who is it again that wants women to be silent, submissive and obedient? Was it the patriarchy, which understood that women do not like to be parted from their children and created a society that kept families together as a functioning unit, or feminism, that also understands women do not like to be parted from their children BUT DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT WOMEN WANT?
Shut up, sit down and take it. Yeah?
Well fuck you Simone de Beauvoir and fuck you feminism. Also, fuck you unpaid interns. Get a degree in something that actually gives you some skills and hey guess what? People will PAY YOU MONEY.
And Hannali, if you’re gonna keep reading trash like Jezebel, I hope you even it out with some JudgyBitch.
nolite te bastardes carborundorum
Don’t let the bitches grind you down.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
THANK YOU for pointing out de Beauvoir. Whenever I tell feminists that they’re angry at the wrong person for taking their choices away, I get a blank stare.
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Feminism talks a big game about representing all women…
so long as all women excludes stay at home moms, pro-life christian ladies and non carousel riding hookup culture sluts.
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You can be anything you want! Unless it’s a housewife. Then fuck off traitor!
Yeah, thanks feminism!
And as for unpaid internships, WTF? Are you kidding me? I did an internship at a BANK and I was not only paid, I was WELL PAID. The bank was hoping I would stay on full time.
Yeah, no thanks.
Get a degree in USEFUL, folks! That’s how you make money.
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I think today, what with the ’08 crash still leaving it’s effects around, it’s still an employers market, and people are stepping all over themselves to work for free (with the pay of ‘experience’) instead of asking to be paid, because they know the employer will let them go and hire someone else who will work for a ‘free’ internship. Why hire someone who wants a steady paycheck when you have tons of workers ready to take your shit, run your errands and get your coffee for abso-fraggen-lutely nothing?
You know… there’s a slut analogy in that somewhere hehe. Something about cows & milk… i can’t recall.
As for a degree in USEFULL… you and the Captain should meet 🙂
http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.ca/
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Maybe, if your job skils involve ability to make coffee and push elevator buttons.
If you know how to price a futures contract, trust me, no one expects you to work for free.
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“Maybe, if your job skils involve ability to make coffee and push elevator buttons.”
You think today’s millennials know any skills beyond that and twittertwattering on their social media?
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Some of them do, but you won’t find them in Liberal Arts.
Business
Engineering
Comp sci
Natural Sciences
You know, useful things. Not by coincidence, that’s where all the men are, too. You think I took an MBA because I just loooooove me some derivatives?
Hell no. I went for an MRS.
Got one, too. And I also got paid for my internship!
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“According to Forbes Magazine, opting out is the new dream for American mothers, too. According to the annual Forbes survey of working mothers, “ 84% of working women say that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to”.”
In my experience (having had it both ways), a fair number of the women who SAY they aspire to stay home with the kiddos don’t really aspire to stay home with the kiddos in practical reality. Cost to gains wise staying home with the kiddos, especially when the children are small, is extremely hard work. ..especially when they can use the excuse of payments on that Lexus to forego the housework (isn’t that what maids are for? or fuck that! let the man do it…) and childcare (split that 50/50 with him, and the nanny/kiddy kennel can have them 90 percent of their waking hours).
Hope you’re right that society is starting to throw off that model, but I still see so much of it. The other day someone asked me where I got my pedicure. I told her I painted my toes myself and she gasped…”Oh, I don’t have time for that!” (but she does have time to drive somewhere so someone else can do it…)
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Liberal arts guy here. I’d LOVE to know how to write a futures contract, actually. But I compensate by being an absolutely kick-ass follower, and make a good living being Friday to guys who need to go kick ass and don’t have time to do their own research. SKILZ. It’s where they’re at, tangible or otherwise.
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You don’t write a futures contract, you price it.
Epic amounts of bullshit and cash involved!
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lol. For which, I hope, you were epically paid!
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You know, the funny thing is we were overpaid. Mr. JB and I both did internships for the same bank (different departments) and it was an insane amount of money.
And we had no time. Our life was the bank. At our desks by 6 AM and never out before 9 PM and we both knew pretty quickly: fuck this! It was a crazy introduction to a life we did not want.
A perfect example of be careful what you wish for! Thank god we had each other and found the courage to say no thank you!
I shudder to think of how I might have reacted without him. I might be leading a very different life. I don’t think it would be a very happy one.
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Maybe i’m too cincilliatory but i like to think Simone wasn’t as smart as you, JB and that you both want to protect womens futures but you came up with getting a timeless degree and she didn’t. Depend now but prepare for the worst.
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