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From: owen@csli.Stanford.EDU (Elizabeth Bratt)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Housewives...
Message-ID: <19234@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 14 May 91 03:50:56 GMT
References: <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET>
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In article <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET> IO92142%MAINE.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu (James Gray) writes:
>During a conversation with a friend of mine who is a feminist.
>She (no xx), and I were discussing various topics.  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.

On this issue, I think Betty Friedan's books "The Feminine Mystique"
and "The Second Stage" are really illuminating.

"The Feminist Mystique" explores the problems of women being forced by
societal pressures to think they should get all of their self-worth
through motherhood and cleaning house and such.  These pressures
have no doubt decreased tremendously in the last 30 years, but they're
still around.  I think a woman who wants to stay home with children or
otherwise be a housewife should read this book, where Friedan searched
in vain for one happy, fulfilled housewife.  Feminism shouldn't be about
forcing a certain role onto women, but it should be about making them
aware of cultural pressures and helping them choose what they want
without guilt.

"The Second Stage" is the term Friedan uses for what we have to do now
that we as a society have recognized that women have the capacity to
be professionals and have identity apart from their families, just as
men have always had.  Now that we've moved to equalize the workplace,
we need to address issues of home, marriage, and family.  We need to
allow men to share the pleasures and responsibilities that have been
associated with these things, as well as women.  And we need to
recognize that the old structure of jobs without flex-time, without
daycare facilities, and without parental leave policies cannot let men
or women realize their natural human tendencies toward wanting
individual respect and accomplishment through work as well as personal
satisfaction and joy through family.

The discussion about whether women can stay home to raise children or
whether they have to work outside the home is hard to resolve if it's
left in terms of these two distinct roles.  If you allow people to
combine time spent taking care of children and time spent working
at a job, either all at once, or with separate chunks of their lives
spent at each task, then they don't have to approach a question like
this by deciding which part of themselves to sacrifice.

Liz