New study by some ivory tower eggheads at the University of California, Berkeley! I know, I know! You’re so excited already! Researchers have noted that when women have decision-making power at home, they no longer give a rat’s ass about gaining power at work. It seems that women, especially mothers, are intensely satisfied when they have the power to determine how their homes run, how their children are raised and what the family will be having for dinner. Some women, get this, DON’T WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME AT ALL!
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/uoc–wmi011713.php
No seriously. Apparently, there are adult, grown-up women who find sufficient meaning in caring for their families that they don’t spend one single second of their lives in a cubicle shuffling paper for cold hard cash.
And that right there? That’s a disaster. Women who are satisfied by simply caring for their families are a national security threat. The productivity of the nation is at stake here, people! There are still men in power! Men control the upper echelons of management in the workplace, because those stupid women are all “what shall I make for dinner and I hope Henry knows where his ballet shoes are for practice tonight”. The wage gap? That’s because women are happy taking care of their families and don’t want to play cut throat at work.
Well, we can’t have that. Men, it’s time to get on those rubber gloves! It doesn’t matter what makes your wife happy. That is irrelevant. You need to drag that women out of the kitchen and send her back to work, no matter how much she protests. This is about EQUALITY. Happiness? That’s for oppressed victims of the patriarchy.
This is Caitlin Moran. Shut up! She’s cute!
Caitlin wrote a book called “How to Be a Woman”, and in it, she asks “what part of feminism is not for you?”. And I don’t think she was joking. Actually, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t.
Allow me to answer that question: THIS, Caitlin. This part of feminism is not for me. The part that says I have no CHOICE but to measure my value in terms of money. That my happiness does NOT MATTER. And it’s not a new idea. The grandmother of modern feminism, Simone de Beauvoir said essentially the same thing:
“No woman should be authorized to stay at home and 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.”
“A parasite sucking out the living strength of another organism…the [housewife’s] labor does not even tend toward the creation of anything durable…. [W]oman’s work within the home [is] not directly useful to society, produces nothing. [The housewife] is subordinate, secondary, parasitic. It is for their common welfare that the situation must be altered by prohibiting marriage as a ‘career’ for woman.” – “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Simone_de_Beauvoir
This version of feminism explicitly acknowledges that women WANT to be at home, raising the children she has with a MAN (children do not belong to women, Simone), and sets forth an agenda to deny women what they want. Let’s give women no CHOICE in this matter, because ….
Why again? Oh yeah. The childless, unmarried spinster who chased her lover (who refused to marry her) around the planet and died alone DOESN’T LIKE IT. Well, pardon me, Simone, but I don’t give a fuck what you like.
It wasn’t always like that. The women who led the early suffrage movements were all maternal feminists. They wanted women to have the vote because as the mothers of the nation, they had a vested interest in how that nation was run.
A woman’s place is in the home; and out of it whenever she is called to guard those she loves and to improve conditions for them – Nellie McClung, Canadian feminist (1915)
The maternal feminists saw no conflict between women’s WORK in the home and a role in public life. “They saw their maternal responsibility for children as the motivating force behind their reforming zeal. Motherhood became more than a biological, but a social function, which, if re-invigorated, could serve as a buttress against destabilizing social forces.”
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/features/timelinks/reference/db0015.shtml
So what happened? Well, spoiled, pampered little middle class housewife Betty Freidan decided she was “oppressed” by her life of epic drudgery. She had a “problem with no name”. Then along came the single, carefree ladies like Gloria and Germaine and Helen Gurley Brown to proclaim that shit you can buy is way more important than children will ever be. Of course, Gloria married, Germaine spent a fortune trying to have a baby long after the horse had left the barn and Helen, well, Helen can claim the triumph of convincing an entire generation of women that slutting it up was a meaningful way to live.
Thanks, ladies!
I’ve been a housewife, oh sorry, parasite, for over ten years now, and I am so sick of hearing about how my life is invalid and stupid and worthless. I have the qualifications to earn $100 000/year. Being at home has cost my family more than a million dollars in unearned income.
One. Million. Dollars.
You know what that means? Absolutely nothing. What is the value of a happy family? What price can you put on a life filled with daily joy? How much are happy, stable, well-adjusted children worth?
I’m the CEO of my own life. The architect of my own happiness. The master of my fate. The captain of my soul. And that’s not because some progressive social movement came along and made it all possible. Quite the opposite. I shouldn’t have that control and power over my own life at all, according to the lovely ladies of Second Wave Feminism.
The truth is I have the choice to forgo slogging it out in the “real world” because I have a man who gives me that choice. My life rests on a foundation that he has laid. Together, we have it all.
http://judgybitch.com/2012/11/16/no-you-cant-have-it-all-you-have-to-fucking-share/
There is no promotion in the world that could possibly mean more than that. Turns out that most women feel just the same. But they have been lied to, grievously. Feminism peddles a story that being fulfilled by caring for others (unless done for cash) is a problem that needs to be fixed. Older women have lied to younger women, and encouraged them to make the kinds of choices in life that ironically, give you no choices at all. Go to college, borrow money, acquire skills, get a job, start repaying that debt, be single, be a slut, and if you DO have a husband and children, don’t ever make them a priority, even if that’s what you want most in life.
Get out of the kitchen, ladies. Leave those children alone. There are promotions and power to be had at work, and that is the only thing that matters.
Except that it’s not. It never has been. What women need is NOT more money and more ambition and more power. We need to build a world in which women DO have the choice to be at home. We need a society that RESPECTS and HONORS what makes women happy. And we need a cultural change that teaches women that being at home, raising children and caring for a family is a wonderful way to live. But it’s not free.
We’ll deal with that tomorrow. For now, a shout out to the ladies who are happy being CEO at home. Forget about that corner office. Leave it to the guy with a wife and kids at home. And cut out early today. You need to find those ballet shoes!
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
Isn’t it just amazing how pretty much every “ism” out there has a straitjacket, aka, a view of how you “should” live, just set up and waiting for you? I’m a pretty hardcore libertarian, and even my ideological peeps (who want to take over the world, and then leave you alone) have REAL problems grasping the concept that some people really ARE happiest living under fairly intrusive laws that tell you what to do….
LikeLike
Well said! Brilliant post!
LikeLike
Second wave feminism also flourished at a time(and often the same places) when a lot of political and economic radicals had a stated objective of tearing down the existing society to replace it with their own vision of utopia. Many singled out the traditional family as a primary target that had to be destroyed to tear down the current society. I know correlation isn’t the same as causation, however smoke might just mean there is a fire around.
LikeLike
I am so glad i discovered you… huge high five to the Private Man for introducing me to you.
You keep knockin’m outta the park.. i’ll be hear catching everything you belt out.
Cheers!
LikeLike
“I’ve been a housewife, oh sorry, parasite, for over ten years now, and I am so sick of hearing about how my life is invalid and stupid and worthless. I have the qualifications to earn $100 000/year.”
Just last night my husband and I were talking (we actually have time to speak to each other now! It isn’t a ‘tag, you’re it! See ya’ with the kiddos. He said, “I am so glad that you were smart enough to leave that job when I said you should. Think about how different our life would be now. And in three years, you would be unrecognizable.”
So true…and (unsaid) our kids would be in a worse place. A latchkey, raise yourself in front of the television/video game kid place. But it was hard to stop valuing myself in terms of ‘economic production’ rather than things beyond price (quality of life, happiness, longevity, harmony, family security, peace). There are things I miss about working but the price was too high at this time in my life.
Really, when all the tangential expenses are considered many mothers are working for nothing…I knew one woman I worked with years ago who told me after work related expenses and childcare she was basically working to make the payments on her new truck. And she was on Prozac for depression. I almost asked if she had factored the doctor payments and medication into her category of expenses but thought better of it. I’ll bet she’s divorced now anyway. No one would say that their children’s welfare and the welfare of their family takes a second to a truck payment, but that’s often the way things work out and few people step back to truly think about the choices they are making (particularly when society is giving them the the big green “go!”.
We’re living in interesting times. Times of perverse incentives.
LikeLike
It’s the big green go that really gets me. For women who genuinely prefer to be at work rather than with their children, well, they don’t sound like very nice people to me, but I still believe they have the right to live their lives however they want.
But the fact is that most women with small children do NOT want to be working. It’s just that have not structured their lives to accomodate years at home, thanks to that big green go!
And that bothers me. Women should know that will most likely want to be at home when they have small children, and they should be encouraged to make the kinds of choices that will permit them to do so.
LikeLike
For the women who prefer to be at work than at home with their children, I think there’s another area that needs support.
Support for women who don’t want children.
I fully agree that a majority of women want to have children, and most of them want to be an active parent.
But all people fall into some form of bell curve, including the one on parenting. It’s a minority of women, but there are some who just aren’t that interested in having kids. Or just don’t have the skills to do a good job of raising kids. (Often those two go together, problematically, they sometimes don’t.)
I would like to see more societal support for the understanding that some women don’t want kids, and that’s an entirely acceptable path.
I think if we could remove that pressure that if you don’t dream of motherhood you’re not a proper woman, we could see a lot fewer children being raised by nannies and afterschool programs
Especially in fields supporting traditional families, I see a regular refrain that ALL women want children, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. that doesn’t help anyone. Yes, some women who don’t have kids will hit 50 and wish they had. But so what? Why do we care about a woman who couldn’t figure herself out? I care about her potential children.
I worked in childcare for many years, in a number of different areas. I saw a lot of women who just weren’t all that interested in motherhood. Most would swear up and down that they loved their children and couldn’t imagine life without them – but they worked full-time, had their kid in 7 different activities, and hired babysitters to help out when they did have the kid at home. They just weren’t all that interested in actually doing any mothering. And I’d just as rather see it be accepted for those women to admit they are happy without kids, and those kids not go through that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve heard the quote before that women shouldn’t be allowed to choose the home because they would all do it, but not the continuation.
I suspect she had not had much in the way of economic training?
Studies today show us that a housewife contributes a lot to society. Besides the benefits to the children, a man with a housewife can go much farther than a single man, or especially a working wife. Division of labour works! A man who knows his home and children are taken care of well can devote himself more thoroughly to work, and produce a lot for society. Quite likely more than two working parents who also have to both deal with their children. Silly.
I really hate women who demand equality of outcome at the complete detriment of anyone’s happiness, equality of opportunity, or many other good things.
LikeLike
“Who are you?” is a question the vast majority cannot answer and when they do it is almost always about what they do to make money.
Our real selves are defined by what we do without the promise of financial reward.
LikeLike
I got married my 3rd year of college (a very prestigious one to boot) and have spent the last 4 years doing the housewife/SAHM thing. Totally conscious decision – I actively went husband hunting @ age 20, knew I wanted kids and wanted to stay home with them, etc., etc.
I’m honestly getting a little twitchy though these days and considering grad school/a mild career. Good food for thought in this post. Maybe I’m idealizing the working world a bit too much.
LikeLike
Moran is not cute, she looks like a skunks arse hit with a spade.
LikeLike
Ssh. You’re too picky.
LikeLike
If you can’t stand the heat…
I have been thinking about the term, Stay At Home Mom(SAHM). Michael Moore, the Democrat icon, considers a job to be most wonderful if it provides up to a year of maternity leave. Seems to me, the SAHM gets up to 2 decades of Mat leave from the “Patriarchy.” Or more accurately, her oppressor, I mean Husband.
Mat leave is good. Yet less than a year of mat leave is great, and more than 20 years of mat leave is oppressive. Funny how that works.
If you can’t get a job that will provide 20 years of mat leave like you so totally deserve, and you have a Husband that will, is he subsidizing you, or all of society? Weird thing is, there are men lined up waiting for a chance to start subsidizing, no matter who its for. All they seem to need is a little sign of thanks. You give them a family that takes them out for dinner once in a while, and they won’t even mind being the one to pay for it.
LikeLike
Once upon a time, back in the 1970s I think, I started writing a book called “Home Management is a White Collar Job.” Trying to give some of their self-esteem back to women who chose to stay home with their families. Wish I’d finished it. I know young women who could use it today.
LikeLike
$100,000 a year my fucking ass! In your dreams bitch. Its easy for you to toss that number out there while sitting on your ass (and that’s ok) at home. What you think about yourself and your “qualifications” in your own little world is very different from something called REALITY ( aka THE REAL WORLD) sweetheart.
Typical nagging bitch, don’t you read your own blog posts? You would of contributed absolutely nothing outside of your kitchen. You’re a woman, you couldnt possibly do ANYTHING of worth to society and sure as hell couldnt make $100,000 a year. That’s money only a MAN can make.
There is nothing wrong with being the CEO of your home and the architect of your happiness. But don’t go throwing numbers out there of what you COULD of done, or your “potential” to earn that amount of money. You DID NOT earn it, and you are NOT CAPABLE of earning that amount of money, so just shut up and keep writing these posts for my entertainment. My secretary job allows a lot of free time.
LikeLike
http://www.aacsb.edu/enewsline/business-school-salary-differences-comparing-average-salaries-with-different-variables.asp
Hmm. Turns out you’re right.
Average salary for a professor in the banking/finance stream (I’m studying regression models used in venture capital analysis when the data is collected in binary form) is actually $149 000 for women.
$165 000 for men, but they tend to work longer hours and do more valuable research.
Play your cards right sweetheart, and maybe I’ll hire you as my secretary.
Do you know the alphabet?
LikeLike
LOL-that article is referring to other women, not you.
Don’t get shit all twisted in a bundle bitch, I’m not referring to other, intelligent, accomplished women-I’m pointing at YOU. YOU-useless bitch. Big fucking difference. YOU couldnt make that much much money or even half of it. Lol, don’t DARE sit on your ass and put yourself in the same category as those women. What a fuckin joke.
Just another kitchen bitch, thinking she’s worth more to the world than she is. You run shit at home, so you better stay there. Cause the moment you step out, you’re lower than even little miss secretary over here.
And besides you couldn’t afford me, I get paid in dollars, not Mac and Cheese.
LikeLike
Holy shit, you’re incoherent.
Why would my PhD be worth less than anyone else’s? Your argument makes no sense. I’ll be hired on the basis of my research and ability to attract funding.
You know what, Emma?
Don’t bother to respond.
You’re stupid.
Goodbye.
LikeLike
Wow. You’re an angry little thing aren’t you? You pretty much prove Judgy Bitch’s points here. I love how supportive you are of another woman’s choice. /sarcasm.
This will make you REALLY mad. I stay home. I take care of the house, sure, but I also run my own online business… and make 6 figures a year. No boss. No office politics. Keep my own schedule.
Just thought I’d share. Yes, women CAN make 6 figures. Sometimes even if we stay home.
@Judgy Bitch, I LOVE your whole blog and have been reading it for hours. Keep being awesome and sticking it to the duped morons… I mean feminists.
LikeLike
Yep. I’m happy without kids. My husband and I decided for a lot of reasons not to have them. We’re happier focusing on each other and our marriage. I get that I’m not “normal” in this area, but I find kids pretty boring. When I was a kid my mom told me when I grew up I could do whatever I wanted (stay up late, go out, etc.), but when I grew up everybody was talking about me having a baby. And I’d already seen how much that can restrict your life. I felt lied to. I wanted a grown up life in a grown up world. I’m not saying you aren’t a grown up if you’re a mother… I’m simply saying that your life sort of becomes revolved around little kid stuff. Kid’s shows, and schools, and after school programs, and all their activities, and all their little learning milestones.
And that is awesome for the women into that, but I just wasn’t. I am grateful I found a man where I’m enough. I know most men want children desperately like most women do. I’m just glad I found a compatible man who is the same way I am on this topic.
I also agree though that it seems obvious that a lot of women aren’t cut out for being mothers. If they were, they would be more interested in spending time with their kids. Even though I think feminism is extremely harmful for women, we still shouldn’t repeat mistakes like assuming every woman wants kids or she’s worthless if she doesn’t have them.
I think only those who really really want kids and are really prepared to raise them right are the only ones who should have them. I think it’s the most important and also one of the toughest jobs out there with the biggest repercussions on society. But I knew I wasn’t cut out for the job, so I didn’t apply for it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
that cosmo cover has been hilariously altered – possibly pre-photoshop. In a normal human head, the eyes are on the centerline between the chin and crown. This photo has had an enormous mass of hair just pasted onto the top. She looks like she is wearing the skull of someone bigger than her as a hat.
LikeLike
Well, I give you kudos for doing the smart thing and capitalizing on your youth to find a husband as well as having the kids as your priority. It’s perfectly natural once kids are in an age they are not so dependent on their mothers for a woman to start thinking about working a part-time outside of the home. however, this is a much different model than the one that society now teaches which is to first focus on career and education and self and then use your frozen eggs and a sperm donor once baby fever kicks in.
LikeLike
I’d smash
LikeLike