Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!aero-c!nadel
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Housewives...
Summary: ... and househusbands!
Message-ID: <19894@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 13 May 91 20:52:34 GMT
References: <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET>
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Organization: U Texas Dept of Computer Sciences, Austin TX
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
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In article <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET> IO92142%MAINE.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu (James Gray) writes:
> ...  Finally I said to her...
>
> You're going to have to realize that there are women (no womyn)
> out there that *want* to be housewives or want to have children
> and *not* work while raising them.  They want these things.
>
> Well, needless to say she didn't believe me, and started on this
> explaination about how if these women where *enlightened* about
> how they have been brought up wrong. ...

There are also men who want this.  I have known men who enjoyed
being househusbands, and others who clearly would if they could.
Indeed, while I would not want to give up career entirely, I
would gladly work part-time out of my home so that I could spend
the majority of my time raising children, were only I to meet the
right woman with whom to arrange such a lifestyle.  (Direct 
enquiries to e-mail address above.)  

I suspect that one's attitude toward this depends greatly on how
much one enjoys being around children, and one's patience in
dealing with the work they entail.

On the other extreme from the feminist whom Mr Gray addressed,
there are those feminists who want this to be a highly paid
career.  These often confuse "necessary" with "economically 
scarce", and fail to realize that any task which many people can
do, and which many people are willing to do for little or no pay,
is for that reason not going to become a great source of income, 
regardless of how important the task is.  

Russell