IO92142%MAINE.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu (James Gray) (05/14/91)
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. *Note* This last post was intended to be general and not in the least an attack. Just pondering. ================================================================ James Gray "Don't drink T+T right after eating pudding. Trust me. IO92142@Maine - You know...where all the trees are. ================================================================
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) (05/14/91)
----- In article <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET> IO92142%MAINE.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu (James Gray) writes: > ... 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. ... There are also men who want this. I have known men who enjoyed being househusbands, and others who clearly would if they could. Indeed, while I would not want to give up career entirely, I would gladly work part-time out of my home so that I could spend the majority of my time raising children, were only I to meet the right woman with whom to arrange such a lifestyle. (Direct enquiries to e-mail address above.) I suspect that one's attitude toward this depends greatly on how much one enjoys being around children, and one's patience in dealing with the work they entail. On the other extreme from the feminist whom Mr Gray addressed, there are those feminists who want this to be a highly paid career. These often confuse "necessary" with "economically scarce", and fail to realize that any task which many people can do, and which many people are willing to do for little or no pay, is for that reason not going to become a great source of income, regardless of how important the task is. Russell
alansz@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU (Alan Schwartz) (05/14/91)
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
cook@rpi.edu (Cathi A Cook) (05/14/91)
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. I daresay that this comes as no surprise to most women, no matter what choices we ourselves have made. >Well, needless to say she didn't believe me, =============== I am unsure what you are implying by this use of "needless to say". Should it be instantly obvious to all of us _why_ this woman didn't believe you? The only reason I can think of that she wouldn't have believed this is if she is very young and had only career women as role models. > 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. In any area of life you will find people who are so excited by what they are doing and enjoy it so much that they can't _imagine_ how anyone could feel any different. Some music lovers can't imagine how anyone could ever stomach "elevator music" (read "classical"), others think that rock'n'roll is atonal garbage. Apparently you simply encountered a fanatic. Fanaticism can, in some cases, be countered by wider knowledge and experience, in other cases it is a lifelong philosophy. >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. Again, you jump to unwarranted conclusions based, apparently, on a sample space of one. I admire women who can make homemaking their life, they have a skill that I don't. Housework bores me, and I'm terrible at it. I've tried being a housewife, and I simply can't find enough to do to fill the hours. My sister has chosen to be a housewife and mother full-time. My quarrel with her lies not in her choice to do so, but in that she just doesn't seem to put a lot of effort into trying to do it well. She refuses to send her children to public school, but spends very little time teaching them herself. She hates math, so she simply doesn't bother teaching it to them. They score very low on standardized tests, though they are all demonstrably bright children. > 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. And again, you are basing the idea that we _don't_ have an open mind on a sample space of one. Are there any readers out there who are genuinely disgusted by the thought of a woman choosing to make motherhood and homemaking her sole career? >*Note* This last post was intended to be general and not in >the least an attack. Just pondering. Indeed, you made quite a few generalizations. >James Gray -rocker
owen@csli.Stanford.EDU (Elizabeth Bratt) (05/14/91)
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
cindy@solan.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf) (05/15/91)
actually, i've had the same problem. i want to have kids and i hope i can afford to stay home, at least until the youngest is old enough to start school (7 years old here). if i go to work while the kids are still small, it will be out of economic necessity, not from wanting to. why? because i love kids, pure and simple. i have had to explain this to friends, though, some of whom can't understand that i would want to stay home. a couple of weeks ago i got into a discussion with a (female) friend who didn't actually say i was *crazy*, but asked... you're sure? i mean, you've thought about it? if you have two kids, two years apart, that's NINE YEARS of staying at home with little people whose tempers are subject to change at any moment, and who won't be very intelligent company... etc. i KNOW all this, and i STILL WANT to stay at home with my kids, but convincing other people that i want to can be hard sometimes. not that this decision is in the immediate future... i have to finish school yet and we definitely will need a bigger place to live (i know of a couple who had themselves and a baby in an apartment the size of ours, 35 m^2, but i think they were a little loopy 8-))... incidentally, women so commonly work outside the home here that there is a slang term for women who do stay home... "luxus-kone", meaning "luxury wife". this attitude does not make it any easier.... -cindy kandolf cindy@solan.unit.no trondheim, norway
pettit@decwrl.dec.com (Teri Pettit) (05/16/91)
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 call myself a feminist, and agree with you that there are women who like staying at home taking care of the house and kids. There are men who like it too. Most feminists I know think that men and women should be equally free to make this, and other, lifestyle choices, and that they should not be differentially educated in what is appropriate, nor differentially judged on the choices they do make. "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" is a pretty good summary of feminism for me. As for having an open mind to the beliefs of others, I am not quite sure what you are advising. I cannot see myself ever being open to, say, a Nazi's belief that genocide is an acceptable solution to "the Jewish problem." By and large, I find pleas for open-mindedness to be rather free of content. Do you feel that you ought to be more "open" to your feminist friend's belief that women who choose not to have paying jobs are deluded and ignorant? I doubt it. We do the best we can to find a set of beliefs which are consistent with our experience, values, etc., and we are not generally "open" to contradictory beliefs. I do believe, though, that it is almost always preferable to view other people as sincere in believing what they do, and approach them with respect rather than hostility, sarcasm, or scorn, if that is what you mean by having an open mind. Perhaps if you emphasized to your feminist friend that you were making the point that some *people*, men as well as women, honestly prefer being able to devote their attentions to homemaking and parenting without the distractions of a separate career, she would be more willing to see your point. Probably she personally finds the idea of not having a paid job so distasteful that it is hard for her to imagine anyone liking it unless they had been brainwashed. But it would be very hard to claim that men had been deluded by cultural expectations into thinking that it was what they wanted, so the existence of men who choose this lifestyle should tend to imply that people can prefer it without having been duped. And if men can, why not women? Also, it would do well to concede to her the point that girls and boys are still raised very differently in regards to what is expected of them, and that these differential expectations are largely responsible for the fact that many more women feel comfortable staying at home with the kids than do men. At this point in time, I actually think boys have the worse end of this particular deal now, since women are rarely put down any more for trying to mix a career and motherhood, while men are much less respected for choosing to be exclusively homemakers while a partner is the sole source of family income. Ideally both choices should be presented as valid for both genders, and not as more natural for one than the other. Teri Pettit pettit@adobe.com
farmerl@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu (lisa ann farmer) (05/16/91)
In article <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET> IO92142%MAINE.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu (James Gray) writes: > >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. >James Gray As many of us know the other side of the fence isn't so beautiful either. Women in the Soviet Union long to be able to stay home with their children but they aren't allowed. I think it may have something to do with the forced careers - when you don't have options, you always want what you don't have. Besides the Soviet Union, women in the states are also reevaluating their careers and are opting to stay home to have children around the age of 35-40. I think this discussion was brought up with respect to women in science so this may not apply to women in all fields. If this is happening it brings up the question of why. Academia and industry seem to be ignoring the fact that some employees are women. Especially with the information "explosion" a person can't take a year or two off of work without expecting to "fall behind" their collegues. This sends some messages to women: 1)They can't get pregnant and expect to keep up. 2)Having children and being a parent are not important. I think many feminists promote the idea that motherhood is not important. Instead we should be trying to get corporations/universities to understand why it is important to have daycare centers for their employees. Sorry that I don't have any sources for the above stuff but I think a lot of it came up in discussions. Lisa farmerl@handel.cs.colostate.edu "If people want to make war they should make a colour war and paint each other's cities up in the night in pinks and greens." Yoko Ono (_Louder than Words_)
rivero@dev8b.mdcbbs.com (05/16/91)
In article <19894@cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes: > > ----- > In article <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET> IO92142%MAINE.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu (James Gray) writes: >> ... 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. ... > > There are also men who want this. I have known men who enjoyed > being househusbands, and others who clearly would if they could. > Indeed, while I would not want to give up career entirely, I > would gladly work part-time out of my home so that I could spend > the majority of my time raising children, were only I to meet the > right woman with whom to arrange such a lifestyle. (Direct > enquiries to e-mail address above.) This is a common situation. The image of men as a "I want my sex now and let the women handle the kids" beast is a greatly over-used misrepresentation. I've always wanted a family, and have arranged my career direction to allow for time to spend with my eventual offspring. In some cases, this meant trading some job excitement for long term stability and predictability. Unfortunatly, the person I married abrubtly changed her mind about having children, aborting her only pregnancy without explanation. We are now separated. and heading for a divorce. She cannot understand why I am angry and hurt by what happened. Her stated opinion is ,"All men want women to get an abortion", "Only women really want kids","Men always stick the women with the kids". These are clearly sexist biases. Her father took a large part of the care of my wife and her siblings, and I was raised to believe that a man takes good care of his home. My wife's reponse to this is that both her father and I are "weird" anyway, and "don't count". Same notation, any family type women can send e-mail inquiries to the above address. ========================================================================== \\\\ Michael Rivero | "I drank WHAT!" | "THIS PORTION OF SIG | \ (. rivero@dev8a.mdcbbs | Socrates ------------------- UNDER | )> DISCLAIMER::: |-----------| | CONSTRUCTION | == "Hey man, I wasn't | | | (pardon our | ---/ even here then!" | | | white-out) | ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------------+++++++++++++++
jfh@cs.utexas.edu (John F. "Mr. SYSCK" Haugh II) (05/16/91)
In article <19894@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes: >There are also men who want this. I have known men who enjoyed >being househusbands, and others who clearly would if they could. >Indeed, while I would not want to give up career entirely, I >would gladly work part-time out of my home so that I could spend >the majority of my time raising children, were only I to meet the >right woman with whom to arrange such a lifestyle. (Direct >enquiries to e-mail address above.) I have to agree 100 percent with Russell. I want nothing more than to be able to spend a few years at home with my children, and do expect my wife to be understanding and supportive. Most of my financial planning is oriented towards making us able to survive on a single income, and I hope that when the time comes that she not so selfish as to think that the single income we will be living on is mine. My SO and I have talked about this at some length and she hasn't completely warmed up to the idea yet. Part of equality for men is an equal oppurtunity for men to raise their children. Until feminists catch on to that one, there is less hope for men to accept women as equals in the work place after the women have taken extended leaves for childrearing.