Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!aero-c!nadel
From: alansz@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Alan Schwartz)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Housewives...
Summary: Freedom of choice is at issue.
Message-ID: <1991May14.011212.3767@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 14 May 91 01:12:12 GMT
References: <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET>
Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root)
Organization: Institute of Cognitive Studies, U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 33
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Originator: nadel@aerospace.aero.org

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.
|
|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.  I was amazed when she said
|this.  She thought that any women that sayed at home with
|the children was *ignorant* and needed to see the other
|side of the fence, and once she did she would leap to greener
|pastures.
|
|Well, I'm not sure how many feminists believe this, but
|sorry folx.  There are women who like their lives and
|their lives would make you sick.  Also, if you want others
|to have an open mind to your beliefs you should be the
|first to have an open mind to theirs.


I think the issue is less what women do with their lives than
what women have the opportunity to do with their lives.
Women should not be restricted from pursuing non-housewife
roles, but this does not imply that the domestic role, freely
chosen, is a bad thing.  Marxists are welcome to disagree.

Alan Schwartz
UC Berkeley Women's Studies/Cognitive Science
alansz@cogsci.berkeley.edu