Are women reverting?
Women are so divided on this issue. Does one stay at home, rearing your offspring, cooking, cleaning and mending for your family? Or do you focus on your career and enter the working-women-with-children juggling act? Or do you simply forego procreation and make the rest of your life about your career?
Personally, I’m not sure. Household work was shared equally between my working parents, and seems to be a viable option. While I’d love to spend a couple of years at home, watching my (possible) future sprouts growing, I know that I’d ultimately get bored and want to run screaming back to work in search of some adult, intellectual conversation.
If we’re herded back into our homes to become housewives yet again, will the pendulum swing making all the hard work done by feminists in the last 50 years redundant?
Ultimately it’s an individual decision. But I do hope that the resurgence of the notion of housewife does not make the world a harder place for all those women who would rather be doing something else.
If you’re curious to read more, get the book by Caitlin Flanagan:
To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife
Jamzilla – I hope so to!! Feminism was meant to give us options previously disallowed to us for no other reason than our ‘social’ gender.
I think that these days it is not cut & dried into those 3 options. I think these days women have the space to jump between all 3 roles whenever they like/ need to.
My friend who has JUST had a kid suddenly does not want to take up her job again, but she might find that in a few months/ years/ decades (I think each case is unique) the necessity of her being with him 24/7 will wear away to the point she will want to (or perhaps financially need to) resume a job. As long as she is allowed to make that decision & does not have society dictate her role to her.
As for me – I do not think I am the baking housewife type, so don’t expect any homebaked(edible) pies & bratty kids in my future household. I think I am more “lounge @ the pool, reading a good book, drinking a martini for breakfast” housewife type
Ja, I also think each person differs in their ‘post productive’ phase. I see myself somewhere between the baking super-mom and the ‘go and play, mommy wants to be in peace now!’ types. I guess I will be the type who shows them how to entertain themselves, and works from home or something. Kinda in the middle. Being a writer, at least I have a lot of freelance options. As long as my study has a lock on it, then I am sorted!
What are the options for men then? Hehehe…
There are more and more house-men these days too.
Well it has been a bit of an issue with kids having both parents working full time jobs that the kids do not get enough attention. Instead the TV becomes the new nanny. This is giving rise to a generation of ADD brats – I’m all for having a stay at home mother/father – especially in the formative years.
I’m just glad we have the option at least. Previous years women were housewifes by default, if you are a housewife today, it’s your choice to be there. I don’t know how I feel about this, guess I’ll know when I’m there and it will depend on the situation.