Forgiven former feminist

[JenniferJuniper]

If she can't boil an egg, she probably belongs in a group home where they teach basic life skills like how to brush your teeth and make toast.

[MissA]

How many people grow up in houses where kids are so free of responsibility that you have no idea how to do these elementary tasks like boil an egg or sew on a button? And if so, is that *really* the fault of feminism? Because my feminist housewife mother insisted that all of us who lived in the house, boys and girls, contribute to making the place run, so that by the time we left home we could do it on a smaller scale by ourselves. It seems like these women who pride themselves on their "servant's hearts" are more likely to take on all of the tasks rather than distributing them.

I'm no Martha Stewart but I figured out the more advanced cooking that I didn't learn at home by reading the directions. Ditto sewing, and I actually am quite good at that (for some reason I can't make the "follow the directions" thing work for knitting). With the help of the husband the house is clean. And I did this while getting an education which gave me the career so that I can pay someone else to launder and iron my shirts. Because, really, eff ironing.

[ilovetchotchkes]

I am a stay at home mom. I sew, can, knit and garden as my hobbies.

And yet... I consider myself a feminist. One of my all time favorite quotes is "Feminism is the radical idea that women are people". Feminism has given me the CHOICE to stay home, the CHOICE to work or not work. I choose not to work because I honest to G-d LOVE taking care of my kid (s). However, any of my working mom friends? I have a lot of admiration for them because they've made a choice and are fulfilled too! Some of them, dad is "Mr Mom" and LOVES every damn second of it. I love seeing parents of all kinds say "you know what? we LOVE what we've chosen" :)

Or hell, if you DONT want kids period, and you know this, good on ya! Don't have kids for the sake of having them or because you perceive that your religion is telling you that you must be a breeding factory for "Jesus' Army". Have kids because you yanno, WANT EM. If you don't, there is nothing wrong with you!

[MonkeyMomma]

Anyone woman who has the gall to claim feminism ruined her life gets one disdainful Margaret Cho.

Oh, girl. Giiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrlllllllllll.

[pixydust]

I am a stay at home mom. I sew, can, knit and garden as my hobbies.

And yet... I consider myself a feminist. One of my all time favorite quotes is "Feminism is the radical idea that women are people". Feminism has given me the CHOICE to stay home, the CHOICE to work or not work. I choose not to work because I honest to G-d LOVE taking care of my kid (s). However, any of my working mom friends? I have a lot of admiration for them because they've made a choice and are fulfilled too! Some of them, dad is "Mr Mom" and LOVES every damn second of it. I love seeing parents of all kinds say "you know what? we LOVE what we've chosen" :)

Or hell, if you DONT want kids period, and you know this, good on ya! Don't have kids for the sake of having them or because you perceive that your religion is telling you that you must be a breeding factory for "Jesus' Army". Have kids because you yanno, WANT EM. If you don't, there is nothing wrong with you!

This!!!

[thoughtful]

Anyone woman who has the gall to claim feminism ruined her life gets one disdainful Margaret Cho.

Oh, girl. Giiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrlllllllllll.

Bieber-leg Jesus agrees:

[FlorenceHamilton]

How many people grow up in houses where kids are so free of responsibility that you have no idea how to do these elementary tasks like boil an egg or sew on a button? And if so, is that *really* the fault of feminism? Because my feminist housewife mother insisted that all of us who lived in the house, boys and girls, contribute to making the place run, so that by the time we left home we could do it on a smaller scale by ourselves. It seems like these women who pride themselves on their "servant's hearts" are more likely to take on all of the tasks rather than distributing them.

I'm no Martha Stewart but I figured out the more advanced cooking that I didn't learn at home by reading the directions. Ditto sewing, and I actually am quite good at that (for some reason I can't make the "follow the directions" thing work for knitting). With the help of the husband the house is clean. And I did this while getting an education which gave me the career so that I can pay someone else to launder and iron my shirts. Because, really, eff ironing.

I also became a fairly accomplished cook and baker when my kids were small. I also worked full time plus throughout their childhood. House got cleaned by everybody. (With occassional hired help when it was feasible.) I can swe a button or a hem (and ironically-people) but I just cannot sew beautiful things to wear. however, I can knit anything you like...fancy stitches, intarsia, socks, all of it. Weird how that works out.

[luckystone]

"Housewife has always been a dirty word for me. There was no better way to make me really angry than to say that a woman’s place was in the home. In fact, I went the opposite direction entirely and joined the feminist front. There I was taught to abjure all things feminine, especially domesticity. We were taught that working in a home was beneath you, in fact there isn’t much lower in the mind of many feminists. Being a woman who stays at home with her children is for lazy women who can’t do anything else. Unfortunately, that mantra was pretty well embedded in my mind."

"I am 23 years old and at a serious disadvantage. I went to college, I am well educated. I can regurgitate important dates from wars across the globe and through time, but I can’t boil an egg. I can write a 50 page paper over the symbolism in medieval artwork but I can’t sew a button on a shirt. I can be the floor supervisor of a restaurant but I don’t know how to plan a menu for the week."

Is this real, or made up? Obviously, that is not the things feminists "teach". Also, most 23 year olds with a degree can also do simple things like cooking and minor sewing, if they can't then they have some pretty huge problems. Those are basic adult skills that everyone should learn in their childhood, teens or early adulthood, not special unique housewife skills. They're not even particularly feminine skills - buttons and eggs?! All the boys I know at uni can do that too.

Of course, then there are the amazing women, like my friend's Mum who is a doctor, a cook so good that her food is practically professional standard and she often caters for large parties, oh and she would also get patterns and sew whole outfits from scratch for her kids. How do they explain those women?

How many people grow up in houses where kids are so free of responsibility that you have no idea how to do these elementary tasks like boil an egg or sew on a button? And if so, is that *really* the fault of feminism? Because my feminist housewife mother insisted that all of us who lived in the house, boys and girls, contribute to making the place run, so that by the time we left home we could do it on a smaller scale by ourselves. It seems like these women who pride themselves on their "servant's hearts" are more likely to take on all of the tasks rather than distributing them.

Exactly. Who brought her up? (If this is even real.) Even my laziest friends can make pasta, do their own ironing etc. I really can't tell if this is all made up (assuming uni grads are like that), or if it's major exaggeration about her own failings. Also anyone who can read can follow simple instructions or recipes or youtube tutorials or ask yahoo for household questions so it's not hard to remedy your problems in about 5 minutes.

[Minerva]

Just to add a bit more about her homemaking skills, I grew up with an ideological aversion to all things homemake-y (thankfully I wasn't stupid enough to conflate that with feminism), and as such ended up on my own knowing pretty much nothing about how to feed myself or tend to my living space. The first time I did laundry in university I had to ask for help. You fucking teach yourself it, and depending on your priorities you'll end up better or worse at it than average, but you don't sit there whining about how you can't do any of it, because that's pretty a pretty damn normal situation to be in, whether you're a feminist or someone who thinks there's a gene for liking pink that's turned off by the Y chromosome.

ETA The only people for whom it's normal to have all the skills necessary to be a SAHM to a brood of kids at 18 are fundies. It's not because she was a feminist that she didn't learn these things, it's because she wasn't raised fundy enough for her liking. Not the same thing.

[MamaJunebug]

How many people grow up in houses where kids are so free of responsibility that you have no idea how to do these elementary tasks like boil an egg or sew on a button? And if so, is that *really* the fault of feminism? Because my feminist housewife mother insisted that all of us who lived in the house, boys and girls, contribute to making the place run, so that by the time we left home we could do it on a smaller scale by ourselves. It seems like these women who pride themselves on their "servant's hearts" are more likely to take on all of the tasks rather than distributing them.

I'm no Martha Stewart but I figured out the more advanced cooking that I didn't learn at home by reading the directions. Ditto sewing, and I actually am quite good at that (for some reason I can't make the "follow the directions" thing work for knitting). With the help of the husband the house is clean. And I did this while getting an education which gave me the career so that I can pay someone else to launder and iron my shirts. Because, really, eff ironing.

Well put, MissA.

My mom was raised in fairly abject poverty. Her mom had all she could do to feed the household of 8 whilst cooking on a 14"-diameter, wood stove; there was no time for her to instruct her daughters in the dainty feminine arts of cooking, etc..

To that end, when my mom married, her father-in-law gave her a book entitled, "You can cook if you can read." I still have it and the continued existence of myself, my siblings and our parents as happy, well- and properly fed humans. Mom took a sewing course that came with the Singer that Dad bought her and none of us ever went to school nekkid nor tattered. Well, until it became cool to be tattered.

Some folks teach that house/women's work is simple, worthless and beneath themselves. My husband - not known as a paragon of progressivism - is one of these. They're only 1 for 3 in accuracy: It is simple. It's vitally important to get it done, no matter how well it's done.

As others have said, I feel stabby when blogs begin to bring up the old "I can perform brain surgery but I don't know how to boil water" b.s. The first place to use it, IIRC, was the ever lovely Jennie Chancey, boasting that broken-hearted college graduates (like herself) came weeping to her doorstep asking how to turn on the stove and where the water comes from to fill a kettle.

Thus I am entirely skeptical of all these blogs. I think either they're spam or simply repeating boilerplate.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

Like most people here, I don't understand the "not truly a women because I can't sew a button or boil water."

These are really just basic day-to-day things. I think most men could do them, too, so I don't know why the most basic household chores are the paragon of womenhood.

[desertvixen]

"I am 23 years old and at a serious disadvantage. I went to college, I am well educated. I can regurgitate important dates from wars across the globe and through time, but I can’t boil an egg. I can write a 50 page paper over the symbolism in medieval artwork but I can’t sew a button on a shirt. I can be the floor supervisor of a restaurant but I don’t know how to plan a menu for the week."

You know there is an easy way to fix that. It's called learning.

Although the basic idea behind feminism is a good one (equality in voting, wages, and employment opportunities) the spinoff of this good idea is dark and ugly. The idea of equality has morphed into a desire to not only make women equal to men, but to actually make women into men.

I'm a pretty ardent feminist and I have not noticed that I have turned into a man. I'm pretty sure my lover would have informed me of the fact. God forbid we want to not be at a huge disadvantage.

Women are encouraged to seek out high powered careers and to put having a family on hold, if not altogether removing that possibility.

No, workplaces are still way too centered on the outmoded idea that all households have an adult who stays home and runs it. This attitude in the workplace actually hurts both men and women, and lack of adequate childcare and other resources only hurt workers, both male and female, who have children.

Feminism has taught women that we need to reject the traditional feminine roles because they are constricting.

No, feminism has taught us that we could get out of those roles.

[Minerva]

but to actually make women into men.

I'm confused. I thought fundies thought your gender was determined by your genitals. Now it turns out that subverting gender roles is enough to change one's gender? So gender is actually determined by your role? Either I'm reading into this too much, or Former Forgiven Feminist's (presumable) cissexism is at odds with her gender essentialism. Maybe I should just go to bed...

[Guest Anonymous]

I'm confused. I thought fundies thought your gender was determined by your genitals. Now it turns out that subverting gender roles is enough to change one's gender? So gender is actually determined by your role? Either I'm reading into this too much, or Former Forgiven Feminist's (presumable) cissexism is at odds with her gender essentialism. Maybe I should just go to bed...

I think she means *hushed, conspiratorial voice* lesbians.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

So reading a little farther down... :?

In Sex and the City a high powered lawyer gets pregnant after sleeping with her ex-boyfriend. Miranda debates having an abortion because she doesn’t want the baby to interrupt her life. She ends up having the baby and yet she doesn’t treat the baby in a nurturing or loving way. She continues to act as though she isn’t a mother, going out and having multiple relationships.

In Grey’s Anatomy Dr. Christina Yang gets pregnant in the first season of the show, by man she is not even dating. She chooses to terminate the pregnancy because she isn’t ready for that stage in her life yet. This woman is so focused on her career that she is able to overcome “this problem†and continue to be successful. (Yang ends up having a ectopic pregnancy and the “problem†goes away.)

I didn't watch either of these shows closely, but, on S&TC, wow, double standard much? A decidedly feminist women gets pregnant...but she ribs on her for keeping the child? :? I distinctly remember Miranda breastfeeding, too, so I call bull on the not loving and nurturing.

GA, I may be wrong, but didn't Doctor Yang have an ectopic pregnancy, not an abortion?

So, we have covered the issues of what these feminist ideas show women, but what does it show to children? Feminism teaches women that children are a hindrance, something to drag you down. It teaches kids that they have ruined their parent’s lives. It leaves children feeling like they have to make up for the fact that they altered their parent’s chosen paths...

I am the result of the unplanned pregnancy. Let me tell you, it makes a difference. Instead of looking at the child as an inconvenience or the side effect of a one night stand, women (and men!) need to be shown that even unplanned children are blessings from God...

Mommy issues much?

I don't think she realizes that most unplanned pregnancies happen to couples that are not married. Either 1) Mom will stay single, and have to work to support them 2) Mom and Dad will get married, likely be unhappy, and the happy life for the kid goes out the window even if she does stay home.

So how did this change my life? I was sitting in the mall with my charges Beth and Bill (I am a nanny) at the play center. Belle and Bo are two and a year old respectively and incredibly active. As I sat and watched the other women with their kids I was amazed at the discontentment evident on the faces of the mothers. They spoke to their children with angry voices and sharp words. I watched one mother roll her eyes after her child handed her a crumpled piece of paper. As I watched this I began to think to myself how sad our society has become when our greatest asset, our future generation is viewed as an inconvenience.

News flash. No parent is going to stay sweet for their kid 100% of the time, especially not "incredibly active" kids. By the end of the day when the offspring has been "incredibly active" I am usually thinking, "Oh no, get that barbie the hell away from me, I just fixed her dress two minutes ago. Parents getting annoyed with kids does not equal feminism ruined society!

[Renting with Raggles]

As others have said, I feel stabby when blogs begin to bring up the old "I can perform brain surgery but I don't know how to boil water" b.s. The first place to use it, IIRC, was the ever lovely Jennie Chancey, boasting that broken-hearted college graduates (like herself) came weeping to her doorstep asking how to turn on the stove and where the water comes from to fill a kettle.

Thus I am entirely skeptical of all these blogs. I think either they're spam or simply repeating boilerplate.

This is the worst straw-feminist that fundy women construct. Sorry, there's no way that someone who lacked the research skills to pick up some simple cookery books could get awarded multiple degrees by accredited universities. I agree with whoever said that a woman lacking such basic life skills is either a case for early intervention special needs classes or grew up ridiculously privileged, in which case the problem is your money, not feminism.

I always want to ask women who make such claims if their university minded the eunuch who wiped their arse for them sitting in on lectures in case they had to cover a WC emergency.

[NjoyingNsanity]

It amazes me that she went to college and is apparetly quite bright, but can't learn how to do simple things I learned in a 9th grade home ec class. Seriously who is too stupid to boil an egg? Sewing on a button isn't rocket science either. I dropped out of college, but I'm smart enough to Google a how to article or video on things I'd like to learn how to do. Also I can cook, sew on a button and crochet, but I'm also a huge history geek who used to be shift manager at a bookstore. Most people can be a bit more well rounded in their interests and talents than this ex-feminist.

[BravaAmica]

23 and fully educated and already full of hate for her sex. wonder what flipped her over the edge?

But her education involved no critical thinking- just spewing dates.

And if she wants to learn how to boil an egg and plan a menu, she's in luck. There are thousand of SAHD and mommy blogs that will teach her her housewifery.

[crosed]

I have a question. If these things (sewing, cooking, operating a household) are decidedly feminine, what constitutes masculinity? Playing sports and building things? For what it's worth, my father can barely use a hammer and happens to own several seasons of Sex and the City on DVD. What's that make him? If the feminist movement is trying to turn women into men, is there some sort of reciprocal movement?

RE: the SATC thing, I don't know what's up with that. He's not particularly fashion forward and he is, in fact, heterosexual. I thought it was worth mentioning as I think the key demographic of the show is females and gay men.

[bananacat]

I wonder if she's having a quarter-life crisis and is just handling it badly. When I graduated college, it was a weird transition. All my life I had a specific goal ahead of me: pass this test, finish this grade, learn to drive, graduate this school, become old enough to drink, get that degree. And then I graduated and I had a full-time, high-paying position but I felt kind of lost because I had to make my own goals. I wonder if this woman felt the same way so decided to start down a completely new trail of life just to have something to move toward. I wonder if it was also hard on her to graduate into a slow economy where it would be tough to find a job. I can see her having trouble supporting herself and then latching on to the idea that it's not her problem anymore because she'll just be dependent on someone else forever. In her case it does seem very child-like. I hope she eventually gets some insight into her own experiences.

Also, cooking, cleaning, and childcare are not and should not be feminine. Men need to learn that stuff too. I wonder how this woman ever made it through college without cooking her own food or cleaning her own home. Most young adults, men included, manage to figure out these skills the first time they live alone and realize that there isn't some magical cleaning fairy and they'll have to do it themselves.

[fundyfunland]

I just posted a long rant on her blog. It's awaiting approval :roll: That brainless idiot pisses me off!

[ShadowyOne]

I have wanted to QFT at least half of the PPs, but that would be extremely tedious. Of course being feminist/educated doesn't mean that one can't do household tasks; it's so obvious that it's hardly worth stating. As a mature adult, you either suck it up and learn how to do it so that you don't starve or live in filth, pay someone to do it for you, or find a partner whose skills compliment yours. I am a reasonably good housecleaner and seamstress, and a fantastic baker and gardener, and my husband's hopeless at those, so I take on those tasks. However, he loves any kind of washing-up, and is a professional chef, so does dishes, laundry, pet- and child-bathing, and spearheads the more complicated meals. I don't consider any of those tasks gender-qualified, only qualified by each of our preferences and skills. She's an idiot, and I don't believe for a second that she could write a 50 page paper that had any kind of originality or cogent arguments. If she's real, she's only making excuses to cover her own shortcomings or insecurities.

[MonkeyMomma]

So reading a little farther down... :?

I didn't watch either of these shows closely, but, on S&TC, wow, double standard much? A decidedly feminist women gets pregnant...but she ribs on her for keeping the child? :? I distinctly remember Miranda breastfeeding, too, so I call bull on the not loving and nurturing.

GA, I may be wrong, but didn't Doctor Yang have an ectopic pregnancy, not an abortion?

I caught this too. In the end, doesn't Miranda even marry her baby daddy and they buy a house in Brooklyn? OMG TERRIBLE PARENTING.

[fundyfunland]

Oh, she posted my comment...and my other one :p I'm impressed so far.

[emmiedahl]

What does she mean that she cannot plan a menu? Like it never occurs to her that she will have to eat? Or that she goes into a grocery store and does not know the ingredients in grilled chicken? I am so confused.

I don't really plan menus right now because I am too busy, but I know when I go to the grocery store that I will need a certain amount of protein, some starches, some produce, a couple gallons of milk...

I learned how to sew on buttons when I was in elementary school. I informed my (evil feminist working) mother that I needed a new shirt because mine was missing buttons, and she handed me a sewing kit. I think this is a troll.