Tangential Spin-Off from Kitchen Pass thread: " I'm not a feminist"

[Anonymous]

What does that even mean? I get saying you are not an activist, but how can you not be a feminist if you are a woman? So many woman say this as if feminism is a dirty word--as if wanting equal rights and treatment is something to run away from.

Enlightenment anyone?

[Anonymous]

I think the feminist label - to some people - has the taint of "I am a shrill, strident woman with a butch haircut and big giant 70's glasses who will snarl at you if you open the door for me."

I'm ok with the feminist label, and I love having doors held open for me. I just don't like glass ceilings or making less money than guys for the same job.

[Anonymous]

I don't want equality. I just want to burn the women who burned their bras that day...

I only wish I could just stay home, be with the kids and have no stress while DH works and brings us the big bucks.

Now back to reality. Bye.

[Anonymous]

Well I consider myself somewhat feminist, but here's how I have viewed the topic since I wrote my senior thesis for my history degree on the changes that occurred between WWI and WWII that enabled so many women to go to work during WWII when they hadn't during WWI. (This was a few years ago.) Anyway what I have observed is that women want equal rights and all of that...which is GREAT....but in reality what they get is A LOT more work and to me that not really an improvement on the situation.

When most women stayed home, for the most part their only responsibility was homemaking and rearing children. When women went to work they still had the home keeping and child rearing responsibilities but then had the added stress of a job. Some husbands (when one is present in the home) are great at helping out while others aren't. In some ways it seems like women took a step back by going to work because they have so much more stress and responsibility whereas mens lives for the most part remained the same. How is that progress? Real progress will occur when everybody shares the responsibilities equitably and men don't run out on their families (and men and women work TOGETHER to solve problems rather than get divorced or whatever.)

Anyway that's my 2 cents. I'm happy to have anyone tell me why I'm wrong...I'm still learning and growing and I'm sure there are lots of things I haven't thought of.

[Anonymous]

i think it's for the same reason why no one likes unions anymore. there's a negative crazy-activist connotation there and people don't realize how their own lives have benefited from the trailblazers and crazy-activists who fought the battle for progress before them.

[Anonymous]

"Well I consider myself somewhat feminist, but here's how I have viewed the topic since I wrote my senior thesis for my history degree on the changes that occurred between WWI and WWII that enabled so many women "

Blah, blah, blah.

"I'm sure there are lots of things I haven't thought of. "

Duh! Is this for real?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Well I consider myself somewhat feminist, but here's how I have viewed the topic since I wrote my senior thesis for my history degree on the changes that occurred between WWI and WWII that enabled so many women "

Blah, blah, blah.

"I'm sure there are lots of things I haven't thought of. "

Duh! Is this for real?

actually i thought that the poster you were quoting made a bunch of really thoughtful points. of course those were not the things you chose to highlight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Well I consider myself somewhat feminist, but here's how I have viewed the topic since I wrote my senior thesis for my history degree on the changes that occurred between WWI and WWII that enabled so many women "

Blah, blah, blah.

"I'm sure there are lots of things I haven't thought of. "

Duh! Is this for real?

I expected someone to pick apart what I wrote, but sadly I thought they might actually have something useful to say and make a valid contribution to the conversation.

[Anonymous]

If somewhat feminist got more than a C on her "thesis," it was an easy grade school. What she neglected to mention is that women did not work outside the home but most of the work was at the home. Until the 20th Century a good deal of the country was engaged in agrarian work. Women did child rearing and housekeeping AND had kitchen gardens, fed chicken, ducks and geese, did bookkeeping for the farm and anything else they could do to help make some household income. They also cooked meals for farmhands, took care of many medical needs and sometimes had to even home school their children. I think the women of yesteryear worked just as hard if not harder as most of the women who "do it all" today. And they did it without the many labor saving devices and outsourcing that many women now have at their disposal.

[Anonymous]

"I expected someone to pick apart what I wrote, but sadly I thought they might actually have something useful to say and make a valid contribution to the conversation. "

Perhaps the pp was in shock over your sophomoric reasoning. Was this a COLLEGE thesis?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If somewhat feminist got more than a C on her "thesis," it was an easy grade school. What she neglected to mention is that women did not work outside the home but most of the work was at the home. Until the 20th Century a good deal of the country was engaged in agrarian work. Women did child rearing and housekeeping AND had kitchen gardens, fed chicken, ducks and geese, did bookkeeping for the farm and anything else they could do to help make some household income. They also cooked meals for farmhands, took care of many medical needs and sometimes had to even home school their children. I think the women of yesteryear worked just as hard if not harder as most of the women who "do it all" today. And they did it without the many labor saving devices and outsourcing that many women now have at their disposal.

Agreed on most counts. However, I think what the "somewhat feminist" was getting at was that for many women, working outside the home, at a job that had a paycheck, did not result in a more equitable distribution of household responsibility. I don't think she was talking about farm women or pioneers - she was talking about post-Betty Draper working moms from the 1970s and 1980s.

I cannot speak to the PP's situation, but I know that what she said about working moms who have 40+ hour per week jobs outside the house having to also do the lion's share of the household and childcare tasks (that are not managed with the labor saving and outsourcing you mention) applies to my situation much of the time. If I had chosen not to go back to work, I would actually have been working fewer hours per day than I am now. As it is, I am up at 5:30 and don't get to sleep until 11 or 12 at night because even though I am at my office all day, there is still laundry that needs to get done, lunches that need to get made, dishes that need to get washed, etc. My husband and I try to split the household chores and evening childcare and I like to think that our arrangement is working pretty well, but the reality is that I am still doing more of the house and baby stuff than he is.

[Anonymous]

"Agreed on most counts. However, I think what the "C was getting at was that for many women, working outside the home, at a job that had a paycheck, did not result in a more equitable distribution of household responsibility. I don't think she was talking about farm women or pioneers - she was talking about post-Betty Draper working moms from the 1970s and 1980s. "

Agreed on most counts. However, I think what the "somewhat feminist" was getting at was that for many women, working outside the home, at a job that had a paycheck, did not result in a more equitable distribution of household responsibility. I don't think she was talking about farm women or pioneers - she was talking about post-Betty Draper working moms from the 1970s and 1980s. "

"somewhat feminist" said " here's how I have viewed the topic since I wrote my senior thesis for my history degree on the changes that occurred between WWI and WWII that enabled so many women to go to work during WWII when they hadn't during WWI."

[Anonymous]

I usually see this line in this kind of context:

"I'm not a feminist but I think women can stand up for themselves and be counted."
"I'm not a feminist but I think it's fine for women to out-earn their husbands"
"I'm not a feminist but I believe in abortion rights"

It's a way of saying "I'm a nice, normal, feminine woman about to say something that could be considered controversial or unfeminine; please still see me as nice and normal and feminine."

[Anonymous]

I think that those who are bemoaning the loss of the good old days when they were only responsible for the household, etc. etc. have largely forgotten the harm that was done to women in those days and the major benefits we get from the world having changed. I think of my aunt who not too many years before I went to law school graduated from law school near the top of her class but could not work for a law firm AT ALL because none of the big law firms would hire women. Period. Her career was limited solely because she was a woman (and a single one at that so no issues with children or family at that point). We also forget that the world then was such that women who wanted to work and didn't like having their world limited to the domestic sphere were simply stuck. My mom for one was not at all happy with being at home full time but it was only the changes that happened between the mid 60s and mid 70s (i.e., the feminist movement) that let her feel like she could go to work when her kids were in school. Until there was feminism, women (especially middle class women because poor women always had to work at very limited and low wage jobs) were forced to stay at home whether they wanted to or not, whether it was the best thing for the family or not, and were precluded from doing lots of jobs simply because they were women (or sometimes because they were married women, or pregnant women, or moms).

Now each family has a choice about whether a woman works or not and women who choose to work are not articially restricted in the jobs they can choose from. It's not perfect, but it is better. To the extent that women end up doing more, that is an issue that only will improve to the extent women demand that it does and men begin to expect that it is so. I know for me, while I certainly do more than I did when I didn't have kids, I can't really say that I do mucn more than my husband does. That is what our expectation has always been and it works for us. Without the feminists I could never do what I do and earn what I earn and our family would be much worse off for me being at home and my husband bearing all the responsibility for supporting our family.

[Anonymous]

Women were not all SAHMs prior to WWI. There wasn't a middle class. You were either wealthy and didn't have to work or poor and had to work, whether at a sweat shop or out of the home (or farm as someone stated). The SAHM was a product of post WWII when there was a growing middle class. what the feminists did was try to equalize pay for equal work; what is wrong with that?