Q.: When is feminism like homeschooling patriarchy?

[MamaJunebug]

A.: When it saddles the woman of the house with two jobs while her husband continues to have only one.

I was thinking about it. One of the things the feminist movement promised but couldn't deliver on, in its early years, was making husbands/fathers more responsible within the home. So I, as one of the earlier feminists, wound up being homemaker AND corporate employee. Where was the liberation in that kind of women's liberation?

(Note well: that didn't last very long. I told my The Spousal Unit he had to start kicking in big time on the homefront or I would quit my job. As I was bringing in 50% of the income by then, he shaped up.)

The homeschooing patriarchs also dump two careers on the moms: Homemaker AND schoolteacher. And while it's true that the older children quickly get deputized as unpaid laborers, the SAHM will never come close to having the kind of financial leverage over their lord'n'master that I did over my TSU.

Meanwhile, as far as I can determine, the patriarch himself continues with his day-to-day work.

So for all the P/QF talk of how submission liberates a woman, it doesn't. In fact, it places a double load on her as sure as working outside the home doubles up on the rest of us if we aren't able to insist on division of labor at home.

I'm not posting this to complain about WOHMs or to whine about when I was a WOHM without a plan.

I'm posting it because for all their posturing about how they venerate and cherish women, their plan of making the wife and mother into wife and mother and teacher is every bit as anti-woman as a household where the mom works and get no domestic support from the dad.

So there! :angry-soapbox:

[liltwinstar]

You know, I never thought about it quite that way, but you're totally right!! Homeschooling, when done well, is a lot of work for even 1-2 kids...if you're trying to do it for 5 or 10 kids, that's a huge amount of work. And being a homeschooling mother doesn't let you off the hook for domestic duties, that's for sure, and even if it did, what non-royalty fundie family has the money to hire help anyway?

I did see this a lot with my own mom - she felt that since she was "just a housewife" she should/could pile her plate with all kinds of unreasonable projects for church and for other people. At various points, she kept the books for church, did a lot of sewing for church and for people in the community, would be on the phone "helping" people for hours a day, stepped in when a family we knew had a pretty big crisis, stuff like that. None of which was bad in and of itself, of course. But the pressure to do all that was immense - because after all, she didn't have a job so she didn't do anything all day.

[maybeizfundie]

ummm...while homeschooling is a lot of work, and moreso as the kids hit higher level academics, that's not my experience at all, and I do not feel at all overburdened. Nor are my children household slaves. They do supper dishes, and pick up after themselves, and that's it. Their "job" is learning. Dh isn't particularly domestic, but I don't mind.

Of course, I also do not feel it necessary to polish kitchen cupboards daily, grow/harvest/grind my own grain, raise goats, sew all my own clothes, heat with wood, and create a home in which every corner is sparkly and decorated into magazine-worthiness. So maybe I'm just a failure. :p

[margiebargie]

I told my The Spousal Unit he had to start kicking in big time on the homefront or I would quit my job. As I was bringing in 50% of the income by then, he shaped up.

That's exactly the leverage that feminism earned for some women anyway. I found myself in a similar situation with my own SU. It's amazing how quick he got the message. (He wanted a boat really bad.) Money talks.

she felt that since she was "just a housewife" she should/could pile her plate with all kinds of unreasonable projects for church and for other people. At various points, she kept the books for church, did a lot of sewing for church and for people in the community, would be on the phone "helping" people for hours a day, stepped in when a family we knew had a pretty big crisis, stuff like that

That's too bad. Nobody should feel like they're "just a housewife" who has to make up for that somehow. Nothing wrong with being a "housewife".

[margiebargie]

ummm...while homeschooling is a lot of work, and moreso as the kids hit higher level academics, that's not my experience at all, and I do not feel at all overburdened. Nor are my children household slaves. They do supper dishes, and pick up after themselves, and that's it. Their "job" is learning. Dh isn't particularly domestic, but I don't mind.

Of course, I also do not feel it necessary to polish kitchen cupboards daily, grow/harvest/grind my own grain, raise goats, sew all my own clothes, heat with wood, and create a home in which every corner is sparkly and decorated into magazine-worthiness. So maybe I'm just a failure. :p

Lol. I think the fact that you have reasonable expectations of yourself and your kids helps a lot.

[emmiedahl]

I think the best part of being a housewife would be the ability to shower your children with attention and take them interesting places, etc. That is a job and a noble one at that. If you are taking on a lot of projects, then you are a WAHM without a paycheck. I don't appreciate when housewives go on and on about it being the hardest job, cuz it isn't. But it is a worthy job.

[clibbyjo]

I think the best part of being a housewife would be the ability to shower your children with attention and take them interesting places, etc. That is a job and a noble one at that. If you are taking on a lot of projects, then you are a WAHM without a paycheck. I don't appreciate when housewives go on and on about it being the hardest job, cuz it isn't. But it is a worthy job.

I agree. I am a homeschooling mom and yes I spend a lot of time doing cool things with my kids,but its not coal mining or brain surgery. Its also MY choice to stay home and homeschool which also makes all the difference.I think when women are forced(like the fundies) to stay home they have to make it something fancier than it is to show their lives have meaning. We can all cook and clean dear fundies.Some of us have the choice if we want to or not.

[helloemi]

It is interesting...

Some women on the other hand are forced into working full-time jobs and then doing the majority of housework/childcare. I'm very thankful for the feminist movement...but corporations used it to their advantage and as a chance to pay men less money because they were no longer "breadwinners". It backfired on us. There are women who would love to stay home and be SAHMs or homeschool, but financially can't justify it because of the husbands salary.

[emmiedahl]

I don't believe that men are being paid less because they are not breadwinners. They are being paid less because companies don't give a fuck.

[Evie Teale]

In my own case, it is not that I have unreasonable expectations for myself, but that unreasonable expectations have been heaped upon me, which, coupled with my episodes of major depression, have left me feeling completely overwhelmed.

I completely agree that I have been working 2 full time jobs, while my husband, like many (but not all) fundy men I know, works one 40 hr a week job and spends his off time doing as he pleases, which usually involves lots of "Bible study" (code word for nap) and "Bible research" (code word for wasting time surfing the internet).

I really don't think my experience is different from a lot of other fundywives.

[emmiedahl]

Evie Teale, I am really sorry. If it makes you feel better, you are not the only woman who feels overwhelmed. I feel totally overwhelmed and I am an evil feminist in a relatively modern marriage.

[bananacat]

It is interesting...

Some women on the other hand are forced into working full-time jobs and then doing the majority of housework/childcare. I'm very thankful for the feminist movement...but corporations used it to their advantage and as a chance to pay men less money because they were no longer "breadwinners". It backfired on us. There are women who would love to stay home and be SAHMs or homeschool, but financially can't justify it because of the husbands salary.

Ugh, I am so sick of this myth so I'm gonna get a little cranky. Listen, there was never an ideal time when men made so much that wives could just stay at home and be housewives. Women ALWAYS worked to support families; they just didn't get the credit for it. In farming societies, women worked on the farm just as much men did. During the industrial revolution, women and children had to work in factories just to make ends meet. Mothers left their kids with grandparents, neighbors, or on their own as soon as they were old enough. A woman was lucky to get a home-based job like sewing so she could be around her kids.

Even in the idyllic 50s, women worked. Both of my grandmas had jobs. My maternal grandma worked as a presser in a dry cleaning place until she had her first kid. They scraped by until my mom was old enough to take over the housework jobs. Then her mom got a part-time job as a janitor in the school that she went to. Her dad worked worked shifts so he often wasn't home after school and my mom had to watch her younger brother and sister and also cook dinner. Her dad had a full-time job in the steel industry, and it paid reasonably well. But he was a blue-collar worker and not an executive, so he couldn't make enough to support a family on one salary. My paternal grandmother did back-breaking labor as a clothes washer. Her situation was different because her husband was blind and couldn't find work. But she certainly wasn't the only mother in that situation where her husband was unable to contribute financially.

Things weren't so much better back then. Only upper-class men could afford to have wives that didn't work. The real difference between then and now is that when women contribute financially like they have always done, they now have the power to earn better money and working conditions. This is better for women, but also for their children and their husbands. Empowering women to get an education and a career doesn't take away from men as much as you think it does. It just helps them to better support their children in the same way they have always done.

[desertvixen]

Ugh, I am so sick of this myth so I'm gonna get a little cranky. Listen, there was never an ideal time when men made so much that wives could just stay at home and be housewives. Women ALWAYS worked to support families; they just didn't get the credit for it.

Bananacat - Thank you. I love you.

I also think emmiedahl is right on the money:

I don't believe that men are being paid less because they are not breadwinners. They are being paid less because companies don't give a fuck.

Because, let's face it, they don't. A lot of jobs still seem to assume that all homes have an adult who is taking care of all the pesky little details like who's going to cook dinner and take care of the kids and monitor homework and so on and so forth.

I was a little taken aback when I realized I have a more supportive working environment in the military as a dual-military couple member and now, a single mother, than I would ever have on the outside.

[Evie Teale]

Evie Teale, I am really sorry. If it makes you feel better, you are not the only woman who feels overwhelmed. I feel totally overwhelmed and I am an evil feminist in a relatively modern marriage.

Thanks, emmiedahl. Whenever I post on here, I envision everyone reading it with sad violin music in the background because I'm just so pitiful. :violin: Don't feel obliged to pat me on the back, but I do appreciate the encouragement.

When all is said and done and I come out of the feminism closet, my future ex-husband's head will literally explode. :angry-fire:

I look so forward to that day. :lol:

[finleeport]

You know since we're on the subject of Feminism, I have a question to ask; is it wrong to call myself an Equalist and not a feminist?

I have no objection but I just don't want to support only women's rights, I want to support the rights of every creature on this planet both human and animal rights regardless of gender, race, creed, sexual orientation etc.

But when it comes to Vision Forum or QF, I would fully support Feminism and a woman's individualism.

I also think Feminists should claim the title Feminist back, because too many conservatives and the media caricaturize Feminists as antagonistic, irrational, man-hating or ridiculous. You should watch a youtuber called Feministfrequency, she makes good points on how feminism and women are portrayed in films and in the media.

[emmiedahl]

Thanks, emmiedahl. Whenever I post on here, I envision everyone reading it with sad violin music in the background because I'm just so pitiful. :violin: Don't feel obliged to pat me on the back, but I do appreciate the encouragement.

srsly, I whine all the time about being poor here. I think any encouragement you get is 100% genuine.

[desertvixen]

I also think Feminists should claim the title Feminist back, because too many conservatives and the media caricaturize Feminists as antagonistic, irrational, man-hating or ridiculous.

We're working on it. It's a lot harder than one would think, especially since there are a lot of groups identifying as feminist and not all of us agree with the other groups.

I don't hesitate to identify myself as a feminist, but I see a lot of the younger women I work with (and I'm only 32) have issues with it.

Right now, though, to be honest, I'm more worried about women's rights, especially on the pro-choice front. Never mind that a lot of the things feminists are calling for - more family-friendly workplaces, maternity leave, better daycare options - would NOT just benefit women, but everyone.

[emmiedahl]

Family friendly workplaces, parental leave and childcare are not some gift to women. They are gifts to children. I think children are entitled to the very best we can give them and that they should be the priority of our society and government. We pay everyday for shortcomings in other people's upbringings--prisons, unemployable people, etc. That's not feminism, that's common sense.

My children deserve the world. I can't be the only one who thinks that about their kids. So why do we feel differently about other people's children?

[desertvixen]

Family friendly workplaces, parental leave and childcare are not some gift to women. They are gifts to children. I think children are entitled to the very best we can give them and that they should be the priority of our society and government.

I agree. But it seems to me like feminists are doing the most calling for them. But then we get into media-fueled BS like the "Mommy Wars", because opponents of these causes realize that the longer they can keep each individual woman thinking that childcare is ONLY her problem, making your work somehow WORK around everything else in your life is ONLY her problem, and the fact that we have no universal maternity benefit is ONLY a problem for her because she's not smart enough to have a job where she has it as a benefit. If it was tackled as OUR problem or EVERYONE's problem, I think we would get farther. But it's always a "woman's issue".

My children deserve the world. I can't be the only one who thinks that about their kids. So why do we feel differently about other people's children?

Because those other kids should have been smart enough to get born into good families, or they should grab onto their bootstraps. /major sarcasm

[Sola]

A.: When it saddles the woman of the house with two jobs while her husband continues to have only one.

I was thinking about it. One of the things the feminist movement promised but couldn't deliver on, in its early years, was making husbands/fathers more responsible within the home. So I, as one of the earlier feminists, wound up being homemaker AND corporate employee. Where was the liberation in that kind of women's liberation?

(Note well: that didn't last very long. I told my The Spousal Unit he had to start kicking in big time on the homefront or I would quit my job. As I was bringing in 50% of the income by then, he shaped up.)

The homeschooing patriarchs also dump two careers on the moms: Homemaker AND schoolteacher. And while it's true that the older children quickly get deputized as unpaid laborers, the SAHM will never come close to having the kind of financial leverage over their lord'n'master that I did over my TSU.

Meanwhile, as far as I can determine, the patriarch himself continues with his day-to-day work.

So for all the P/QF talk of how submission liberates a woman, it doesn't. In fact, it places a double load on her as sure as working outside the home doubles up on the rest of us if we aren't able to insist on division of labor at home.

I'm not posting this to complain about WOHMs or to whine about when I was a WOHM without a plan.

I'm posting it because for all their posturing about how they venerate and cherish women, their plan of making the wife and mother into wife and mother and teacher is every bit as anti-woman as a household where the mom works and get no domestic support from the dad.

So there! :angry-soapbox:

Then there are the quiverful/fundie homeschooler mothers who also run home based businesses. For many of these women the business is essential to supplement household income. I see quite a few of them as I lurk on quite a few craft blogs. Most of the craft blogs I know of which are in the USA are of homeschooling mothers with at least 5 kids. They sew, knit, crochet and a whole host of other things and sell on etsy or ebay, or sometimes via their website. So they have three jobs.

[deelaem]

A.: When it saddles the woman of the house with two jobs while her husband continues to have only one.

I was thinking about it. One of the things the feminist movement promised but couldn't deliver on, in its early years, was making husbands/fathers more responsible within the home. So I, as one of the earlier feminists, wound up being homemaker AND corporate employee. Where was the liberation in that kind of women's liberation?

(Note well: that didn't last very long. I told my The Spousal Unit he had to start kicking in big time on the homefront or I would quit my job. As I was bringing in 50% of the income by then, he shaped up.)

The homeschooing patriarchs also dump two careers on the moms: Homemaker AND schoolteacher. And while it's true that the older children quickly get deputized as unpaid laborers, the SAHM will never come close to having the kind of financial leverage over their lord'n'master that I did over my TSU.

Meanwhile, as far as I can determine, the patriarch himself continues with his day-to-day work.

So for all the P/QF talk of how submission liberates a woman, it doesn't. In fact, it places a double load on her as sure as working outside the home doubles up on the rest of us if we aren't able to insist on division of labor at home.

I'm not posting this to complain about WOHMs or to whine about when I was a WOHM without a plan.

I'm posting it because for all their posturing about how they venerate and cherish women, their plan of making the wife and mother into wife and mother and teacher is every bit as anti-woman as a household where the mom works and get no domestic support from the dad.

So there! :angry-soapbox:

Why are you blaming the feminism movement for basically being voted down by every male-dominated institution in the land? Patriarchy is the law of the world, it's not reserved for fundies. In a way, fundies are just more honest about it.

[MamaJunebug]

daelem, I don't understand your reply.

[BravaAmica]

It is interesting...

Some women on the other hand are forced into working full-time jobs and then doing the majority of housework/childcare. I'm very thankful for the feminist movement...but corporations used it to their advantage and as a chance to pay men less money because they were no longer "breadwinners". It backfired on us. There are women who would love to stay home and be SAHMs or homeschool, but financially can't justify it because of the husbands salary.

I'm calling bullshit on this, and will continue to call bullshit on this, until you provide proof this has happened. Seriously.

[Deleted03]

You know since we're on the subject of Feminism, I have a question to ask; is it wrong to call myself an Equalist and not a feminist?

I have no objection but I just don't want to support only women's rights, I want to support the rights of every creature on this planet both human and animal rights regardless of gender, race, creed, sexual orientation etc.

But when it comes to Vision Forum or QF, I would fully support Feminism and a woman's individualism.

I also think Feminists should claim the title Feminist back, because too many conservatives and the media caricaturize Feminists as antagonistic, irrational, man-hating or ridiculous. You should watch a youtuber called Feministfrequency, she makes good points on how feminism and women are portrayed in films and in the media.

I claim the heritage, but I still think some of the 70's feminist who stayed that way are wrong. We need to take the field of men's problems, minority men's problems as well as women and minority women's problems. Or else stupid assholes take the field with their own interpretation.

I'm proud of being a feminist, and because I've read a lot of stuff I also know feminism needs an S, and not all feminisms are overly focused on white women from middle class' rights. :)

True story: we recently had a week on feminism and all the guys said they were expecting crazy stuff in the book and it never happened. People are uninformed about what feminism is, it is so very frustrating! And those people are in grad school! I can only imagine what people in the rest of society think! argh!

[bananacat]

Family friendly workplaces, parental leave and childcare are not some gift to women. They are gifts to children. I think children are entitled to the very best we can give them and that they should be the priority of our society and government. We pay everyday for shortcomings in other people's upbringings--prisons, unemployable people, etc. That's not feminism, that's common sense.

My children deserve the world. I can't be the only one who thinks that about their kids. So why do we feel differently about other people's children?

I just have to say that I completely agree with all of this.