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 Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:46 am
(will be moved to general discussion on January 25 2008, Toadies_soarys )
What do you ladies (and gentlemen) think? For, or against? How do you think the perception of housewives has changed? Is it good or bad? Love to hear your opinions!
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:05 am
I think the image of the housewife is absolutely romantic. Even though I do consider myself a feminist, I believe that being a feminist is about women doing whatever it is they want to do without being told they're crazy for it.
I would love to take care of a house and babies while my husband goes and wins bread, brings bacon and all that jazz. I want to raise my adopted babies and teach them in my home. blaugh
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High-functioning Werewolf
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:37 am
*Resists the urge to glomp you*
I completely agree. I'd like to be "barefoot and pregnant", and have my husband have a career, while I bring up the babies, keep the home tidy, and homeschool the kids. I don't think its romantic though. It just feels right. I know there will be days the kids will drive me nuts, the washer will break, the dog will have diarrhea, the cat will be clawing furniture, and dinner will burn, but...I'm ok with that smile
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:57 pm
I've always thought that there was a great deal to respect in running a household.
I've had a serious amount of people, usual female authority figures; tell me this is a horrible thing to think and I could do so much more and even thinking about this is wasting myself and if I don't shape up and go to college I'll wind up in a trailer with a man named Bubba.
Hearing someone else say this makes me feel so gratified.
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Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 9:04 am
I think that the role of a housewife has been underrated. True, it's nice that women are able to have careers and all, but housewives should also be respected just as much if not more. They really do work hard.
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Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 1:39 pm
I'm glad I'm not the only one to feel this way. ^^ I never say anything about it because of extreme feminists who would get angry at being tied down by having a family and having to stay at home all day.
But a woman doesn't need to be tied down at all. And besides, "behind every great man is a woman." wouldn't that apply to the housewife lifestyle? haha
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Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:33 pm
Exactly. I'd rather be the woman behind the great man than a great woman with a man behind me.
Children are the future, so who affects the future more, the businesswoman or the woman who raises her children to be good citizens?
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:32 am
First I'd like to say I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist.
And while it's true that I'd enjoy being a mommy and a housewife with the perfectly pressed curtains, I think I like the idea of being a teacher a bit more.
A mother has a limited scope on which to impress the importance of manners on children. A teacher may see hundreds of children and have the ability to imprint upon them many things. Perhaps being a teacher is somewhat like being a mother in that respect.
As for the messier aspect of homemaking, I do enjoy that part a bit. Especially using old fashioned methods of cleaning, like lemon juice and baking soda to clean a carpet or making dinner for a husband when he comes home from work.
So I guess what I'm saying is I like both ideas, I just agree with the working aspect more. I just had to play devil's advocate, ha.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:08 am
I would like to do a bit of both , being a house wife is a tough job ,if you do it right (know to many that slack off and spend all day at home and still have the worst houses Iv ever seen). I want to be in a pro fashion (and working on it) Where Ill be working only 20-25 hours weekly and be able to be home the rest of the time to take care of my man , and the child that I desperately want (at some point).
I think most of the down play on modern house wives is that some of them , either have horrible looking homes despite their being there all the time (simple lack of effort , or stupidity ) , or the other end of the spectrum where they do have perfect everything and it kinda scares people into not wanting to be there , where children never learn to clean because mommy clean everything , even their bedroom when they are in high school.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:09 am
In my community (not the whole town, just the little subculture in which I chiefly interact), a homemaker is a highly exalted position, for precisely the reasons that you're all enumerating. "Housewife" is perhaps a term that becomes underrated because people hear it so often that it ceases to mean much, and "homemaker" is rapidly going that way because it sounds more like a pleasant euphemism than an actual description. But for myself, it's a title exactly equivalent to what it sounds like: home maker. The work I do is what changes an empty space into a living space -- both in the sense of "people live here," and in the sense of "this space is (practically) alive."
My whole life, I fought against the notion that being a homemaker could fulfill anyone; it was simply a series of chores that needed to be done, in between the things I was doing that would make me happy. I'm not at all sorry I went to college, though I sort of wish I'd chosen a more practical major so I could get steady work, rather than do what excited me and only find work a few times a year (I majored in music; should've majored in English).
Then I lost my job this past October, and suddenly I found I had both time and energy to get those "annoying chores" done. Lo and behold, having a clean, organized home that smelled great and looked shiny suddenly made me feel good about myself. I could invite people over without apologizing, find anything I needed because it was exactly where it was supposed to be, and answer the question of "But what do you do all day?" with pride.
I also had great incentive to spend time figuring out exactly what needed to be bought and didn't need to be bought, learning what places to save money, and deciding to go ahead and spend because it would serve me better than trying to scrimp. I find I can save 90% of the cost of laundry detergent, dish washing detergent for the machine, dish soap for hand-washing, and cleaning supplies for mopping and cleaning just about anything, just by making my own -- and my recipes, unlike the vast majority of what's sold in grocery stores, are all-natural and environmentally friendly. I can do the same with facial cleaners and toners, moisturizers, shaving creams, and hair care products. No kidding. Those things alone will save me about $500 a year, to say nothing of what happens when you replace paper products with fabric products (paper towels, facial tissues, disposable dish sponges). I do have more laundry -- about one extra load per week -- but that makes much less environmental impact, and still costs less than constantly replacing things that one can only use once and then must toss into the garbage.
It's a game I play. Where can I save, where can I do more, where can I go green (or greener)? It's fun. I enjoy my life. And I enjoy my home, too, because I take pride in everything about it. Isn't that what we're all looking for, really? Joy, pride, fun, and a feeling that we are in control of our lives? Yeah, I'm a homemaker! Woohoo!
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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High-functioning Werewolf
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 11:07 am
WiseWillow *Resists the urge to glomp you* I completely agree. I'd like to be "barefoot and pregnant", and have my husband have a career, while I bring up the babies, keep the home tidy, and homeschool the kids. I don't think its romantic though. It just feels right. I know there will be days the kids will drive me nuts, the washer will break, the dog will have diarrhea, the cat will be clawing furniture, and dinner will burn, but...I'm ok with that smile Glomping is completely appropriate! *glomps you* ^_^ I'm not so sure "romantic" was exactly the word I was looking for so much as right, as you put it. Of course I'd like to get out and experience the world (and I have plenty of time for that, since I don't plan on settling down for quite some time and don't plan on having any children of my own) live my dream job and all, but then completely embrace motherhood.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 11:41 am
I think things have changed for the better as far as a feminist (non femi-nazi) perspective. Women are no longer forced to live at home to take care of children and clean house. House work can be shared by both no matter if one or none stay at home. My only issue is (when I worked in an attorney's office) many women if they wanted to leave their husbands whether they were jerks or abusive found that they couldn't because they either didn't have the money, the skills for a job, or were too afraid of losing the kids. Most of the time, the wife was just too lazy to get a job and used it as an excuse to be a housewife. This makes for a bad housewife. Or Househusband for that matter.
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea and it's a job in itself. But I believe that with issues in community, a person should have at least a temporary or part-time job for at least part of the year. Why? If you have kids, then stay with them until their about seven. When they go to school for longer hours and days, get a job. If you get a job, you pay taxes. You pay taxes, you fund the education of your kids. How? Government budget. Taxes gets spread out across a plain of many needs--roads, schools, government workers, ect. If you put in some work, you put in a bit more money in the pot. And money can be the difference in a good school and a bad one. As for home schooling your kids, I think it's the worst idea ever unless you live in the boondock hills with a population of twelve to work with. Every person I've talked to about homeschooling said that it was the worst experience in their lives. They didn't have the social skills they needed to deal with basic public situations. Even when they went to the little day camps and get togethers that are set up for home schooled kids. Kids need to learn how to deal with different authorities besides their parents from actual experience. They also need to learn how to deal with mean f*ckin kids whose parents don't care enough to make them nicer.
It's a great ideal. But I would rather run my own business from home than just be a housewife. If my hubby were a househusband, he'd have our yard turned into a race track and the attic turned into a pub. stare
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 11:59 am
KudaKitsuneRikku First I'd like to say I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist. Actually, a real feminist is an equalist. You're thinking of what we (in my area) call "femi-nazis." Ultra crazy: "Women are better than men - I'm not staying at home for anything - We don't shave our armpits or wear deodorant (because regular feminists sometimes shave, they just don't care how long they go before they do it again, and are hygiene conscious rather than thinking smelly-good-stuff is a conspiracy) - bra burning - Reversible Vasectomies should be enforced on all males after fourteen - I should be able to replace my tampon in public - Breast feed without a blanket in public - I can wear as low cut a shirt/ as high cut a skirt as I want and NO MAN should be staring - The v****a Monologues is the greatest stage performance but I've never actually seen it - I don't watch shows with male stars - I won't vote unless there's a female candidate (which is sooo contradictory I couldn't see straight from that one) - I say I'm a lesbian but my girlfriend and I never had sex - Women are always right when they say the sky is green when really it's blue but only when a man contradicts us - Women can't wear skirts that hang below the knee anymore because men want us to ( Oo I always thought that one was for the amish?) - I convince men they're wrong the moment they're born - I would have an abortion if I were going to have a boy --- And so much more but it hurts my head. This is the crap I put up with on the college network. These "feminists" give feminism a bad name and rep. They're the ones you see portrayed in the college-grad movies even though for just going to college as a female makes you feminist. If you make your own decisions as a women for your future whether it's to be a housewife or a CEO, then you're a feminist. If you let a male tell you, or rather, command you to do something or forbade you to do something (and you're over 18 because both mommy and daddy have a say until then) then you're not a feminist. If you say or do the craziness I described above, then you're a femi-nazi. I don't encourage that but to each their own; just don't throw things.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:21 pm
First off, its amazing how many thoughtful responses this topic has gotten...
*Hugs you all*
My roommate had a great insight, she said true feminism isn't saying women MUST have careers, it is saying that women should have a choice about whether they want a career or a family or both.
On a side note, for some odd reason the idea of a house husband really bothers me. Maybe its because there's one in the family (not my dad) and he is...well, he's a jackass. Hasn't worked in 5 years, doesn't really do much cleaning, lets the kids run rather wild...grr. And his wife barely ever sees the kids. Any thoughts on househusbands, ladies?
I agree, Girlie Hero, I'd love to have a career and kids. Not in that order, though. I'd like to get married after grad school, do some work from home while the kids are young, then teach at a college, but schedule my classes so I'm home when the kids get back from school.
Hmmm, any general opinions on childrearing, ladies?
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:25 pm
Girlie Hero KudaKitsuneRikku First I'd like to say I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist. Actually, a real feminist is an equalist. You're thinking of what we (in my area) call "femi-nazis." Ultra crazy: "Women are better than men - I'm not staying at home for anything - We don't shave our armpits or wear deodorant (because regular feminists sometimes shave, they just don't care how long they go before they do it again, and are hygiene conscious rather than thinking smelly-good-stuff is a conspiracy) - bra burning - Reversible Vasectomies should be enforced on all males after fourteen - I should be able to replace my tampon in public - Breast feed without a blanket in public - I can wear as low cut a shirt/ as high cut a skirt as I want and NO MAN should be staring - The v****a Monologues is the greatest stage performance but I've never actually seen it - I don't watch shows with male stars - I won't vote unless there's a female candidate (which is sooo contradictory I couldn't see straight from that one) - I say I'm a lesbian but my girlfriend and I never had sex - Women are always right when they say the sky is green when really it's blue but only when a man contradicts us - Women can't wear skirts that hang below the knee anymore because men want us to ( Oo I always thought that one was for the amish?) - I convince men they're wrong the moment they're born - I would have an abortion if I were going to have a boy --- And so much more but it hurts my head. This is the crap I put up with on the college network. These "feminists" give feminism a bad name and rep. They're the ones you see portrayed in the college-grad movies even though for just going to college as a female makes you feminist. If you make your own decisions as a women for your future whether it's to be a housewife or a CEO, then you're a feminist. If you let a male tell you, or rather, command you to do something or forbade you to do something (and you're over 18 because both mommy and daddy have a say until then) then you're not a feminist. If you say or do the craziness I described above, then you're a femi-nazi. I don't encourage that but to each their own; just don't throw things.
Thanks for that. heart
On this topic, I believe that a woman should be able to choose the career that she wants to choose. If she wants to be a housewife than she should be encouraged to do so, if something else - then the same for that. I forgot where it was exactly, but recently I read an article by a femi-nazi who stated that if a woman chose to become a housewife it's because she was manipulated by religion and the men around her into thinking that she wants to do that. They said that no "sane" woman who, when left to their own devices without the evil manipulations of others, would ever choose to be a housewife. The article was WTF-worthy, to be sure.
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