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A friend of mine – I’ll call her Kathy – recently attended a conference for women researchers in our field. She enjoyed speaking with the older researchers at the conference, who she felt were incredible role models and had important stories to share about being a woman in this field. She enjoyed presenting her research and learning about the research of others. However, there was a strong component of the conference that made her feel unwelcome and out of place: the way that feminists at the conference, who seemed to be a majority of the participants, expressed their views toward non-feminist lifestyles.
This image makes me horribly uncomfortable, but that response is not universal.
In particular, Kathy experienced a great deal of judgment about her chosen path in life. She is a member of a socially-conservative religious congregation. Getting married is of central importance to her, as is raising a family, and while she hopes to have meaningful work as she does so, she considers her primary obligations as being to her future children and husband. Kathy desires a home in which her future husband is the head of the household – she wants him to respect her, and she wants to have an active part in making decisions that impact their life together, but she also wants him to be the main seat of authority.
At the conference, Kathy told me, she felt like her choice to live by these values was under attack. She did not mind discussion about how these values can impact women’s lives. However, she felt alienated by the seemingly unanimous, agreed-upon attitude that her way of lifestyle was oppressive and harmful to women, that no woman would ever choose this lifestyle if she had a true choice or an awareness of the alternatives, and that women who choose this lifestyle are not living up to their full potential.
I am willing to bet that many of you delightful disruptors agree with at least one of the components I just mentioned, even if you can’t admit it out loud. Maybe you’re thinking, “Hey, that’s not fair! I totally support women working in the home if that’s what they want. It’s their choice.” But when most of you folks think about supporting a woman’s choice to work inside the home, I bet that you envision and support that setup only if both partners are exactly that: full partners, with equal decision-making power, simply pursuing different occupations. Be honest: I bet you squirm, just a little, to think of supporting a woman’s choice to make a home in which a man, by virtue of nothing other than being a man, calls the shots.
Or at least, I know I have trouble with that. While I grew up in a conservative-religious background, I will never willingly choose to be a part of a home with firm, binary gender roles, in which men automatically rule. However, there are still several issues I have with a common feminist approach of judging those who voluntarily choose a conservative family lifestyle, especially the components that Kathy encountered at the conference:
1. A conservative family lifestyle is inherently oppressive toward women, in 100% of cases.
2. A woman who chooses this lifestyle must have been brainwashed or forced into it.
3. Women who choose this lifestyle are not fulfilling their potential.
First, I agree that a conservative family lifestyle is a big problem if your main goal for a relationship is equality. But what if your main goal for a relationship is happiness? And what if a woman personally enjoys having someone else make the decisions for her and take the lead in family affairs? Consider: if we feminists support people who feel satisfaction with a submissive role in a kink setting, why are we quick to judge a patriarchal household if (and only if, mind you) the woman desires and feels satisfaction with a submissive role in her family life?
We could answer that the power differential in a conservative family structure, however voluntary, is an unhealthy way to have a relationship that leaves one partner vulnerable to abuse. However, then we must address why we believe that this argument can be applied to the power differential in conservative households without being applied to the power differential in households where partners have BDSM relationship(s). I’m not saying that a distinction can’t be made, and I encourage you all to share your views and any statistics you may know about in the comments. I simply mean to point out that citing the power differential can be a double-edged sword if we value people’s rights to choose BDSM-oriented relationships.
Second, it is painfully true that there is enormous pressure in conservative religious and non-religious communities for women to take a subservient role to men. That being said, I think we need to carefully examine the claim that any woman who chooses a subservient role in her household is brainwashed, doesn’t truly understand the ramifications of her choice, or else was under too much pressure to make a true choice. Although we do need to acknowledge powerful social pressure, this approach is awfully condescending toward women in conservative societies.
The reality is that there are women who, like Kathy, choose this lifestyle and are fully aware of the ramifications of their choices. Like all the other researchers at that conference, Kathy is an adult. She is well-educated and clearly able to think for herself. She is financially independent and does not require a husband to provide for her, though she prefers that model of a relationship. Kathy uses the internet and has classmates from different walks of life; she is clearly aware of other options.
As for whether Kathy has been pressured to adopt this lifestyle, her perception is that this is her choice, that she has considered and decided for herself. Arguing that women only feel that this is their choice, and that they really choose a conservative family life because of brainwashing or external pressure, treats adult women as though they lack the ability to make adult choices for themselves. It portrays women from conservative societies as weak pushovers, incapable of having their own opinions about what is best for them. And, if the women at this conference were any indication, we enlightened feminists know the right ways for women from conservative societies to shape their lives: needless to say, it’s not how they themselves have chosen to do it. Colonialist much?
As for the third issue, that women pursuing a more conservative home structure are not fulfilling their potential, I’m not really going to go into it. The “can women have it all / should they try?” conversation has been going on for a while. I think most of us already agree that the conversation about women’s appropriate roles boils down to “whatever the heck a woman wants to be her role is her appropriate role.” Although, the conference participants seem to have missed this point.
Instead, I’m going to ask you to consider what it might have felt like for Kathy, an accomplished researcher and graduate student, to attend a conference in which her chosen role was routinely bashed in front of her. A conference whose members appear to have assumed that only women who have chosen liberal lifestyles would be in attendance. A conference whose stated mission was to support and build connections among women in our field, yet made Kathy feel alienated and looked down upon by her women colleagues because her chosen way of life does not match their expectations.
Am I still opposed to patriarchal households? For myself, absofreakinglutely. And yes, I want equal partnerships for all the people I care about. But I think Kathy’s experience raises some important questions for us to consider. Does feminism have room for values in addition to equality — can happiness and personal preference also play a role? Can we build feminist communities in which we maintain our beliefs about what kind of lifestyle is right for us, and at the same time, support others who make different choices? Perhaps the more important question, as part of a movement striving toward meaningful and lasting social change: should we?
My partner and I, by virtue of where our strengths and weaknesses lie, end up falling into something that looks a lot like a patriarchal conservative relationship– I, who am trans-masculine, am the type of person who makes quick decisions and has no problem sticking to them. I am the forger of the path, the one who is interested in adventures, and the one who finds long hours spent running a business (and, hopefully, being the breadwinner as I do so) meaningful and interesting.
She, on the other hand, is more anxious and prone to be a follower. Whereas I am the fire, she is the fuel– once a course has been decided on, she will stick it out long past the point I’d have gotten bored and moved on to the next thing that grabbed my admittedly short attention. She is prone to leave decisions up to me because it doesn’t make me anxious to make a decision, and it doesn’t make her anxious to figure out how to operate within the framework of the choice I’ve made based on my gut feeling of what is right for us. She also finds spending her energy cleaning, cooking, and being a caretaker meaningful and interesting, particularly if I am working to be the primary breadwinner.
Would your argument, then, be that my partner’s work is either less important than mine, or that she doesn’t make her own choices? Keep in mind, she’s leaving a highly conservative Baptist background to date someone who has a female body still, and in doing so breaking with most of her family and almost all of her traditional upbringing. We are a modern, queer partnership. To say that my partner’s choice to run my household so I can focus on running my small business is inherently less worthy than my choice to focus on running my small business to provide a household for my partner to run seems to me essentially the epitome of what feminism was supposed to fight.
This is getting super long, so I’ll just say this last bit before I have to make this a whole response blog: Happiness and personal preference must play a role in building our relationships and our communities. Or we have become just another type of oppression. And I, for one, am tired of being told what I can and cannot do, find meaningful, find enjoyable, or think because of my gender.
Hi there Khai! Thanks for your comment. Regarding your question, “Would your argument, then, be that my partner’s work is either less important than mine, or that she doesn’t make her own choices,” that’s actually the exact opposite of what I’m trying to say here. Could you help point me to the places in my post where you feel that that’s what I’m arguing? Thanks!
I understood that your main point was that your colleague’s experience showed a bias, and I think I phrased my comment wrong; not YOUR argument, but THEIR argument, I should have said. You do a fairly good job of arguing for inclusivity, saying things like “whatever the heck a woman wants her role to be is her appropriate role.”
I suppose I was a little confused, though, which direction you were going, when you started by supporting Kathy’s right to make her choice, and then explained why you opposed that choice– for instance, you said that you “want equal partnerships for those you care about.” And I suppose mostly I was wondering what about the relationship Kathy and her husband, or my partner and myself, have is “unequal” prima facia.
Oh, I see the disconnect!
That’s a great question. To be perfectly honest, I am a little confused myself as to how I feel about this issue. On the one hand, I strongly support every person’s right to make their own decisions about what is going to make them happy. On the other hand, as I said above, I have to admit that the idea of a relationship in which one partner calls all the shots just because of their gender role makes me really uncomfortable.
But then like you said, I think that often people confuse strict equality with fairness. For example, if you have three partners who have a child together, and one prefers changing diapers, and one is really good at the feedings, and one prefers shopping for the baby’s care items — then I think it is fair to divide up those tasks such that each partner is doing what they prefer, even though every task is not divided up equally into thirds. And that seems very similar to me to what you describe in your relationship: you and your partner each have different things that you prefer doing, so you each take care of different aspects of the home you have together, and everyone comes out “fairly” if not perfectly “equally” contributing. But then (haha told you I was confused), I think Kate has a great point below, which is that there is a difference between each partner choosing to do what they prefer and think is best for them, versus each partner fitting into pre-determined gender roles. On the other hand, what if fitting into pre-determined gender roles *is* what each partner prefers and thinks is best for them?
And so on and so forth in circles. : ) What are your thoughts?
I like the distinction Kate made between making room for personal preferences, and assuming that everyone should follow pre-determined roles.
But I think my point still stands, as you pointed out, that there is nothing inherently unfair or unequal about my partnership just because our relationship happens to work best with one of us being the final arbiter of decision making. And our decision to divide duties along our strengths and weaknesses so that we complement each other should be celebrated and accepted, even though we might have echoes of traditional gender roles in that division.
Then again, I think this is particularly touchy for relationship groups in which one or more of the parties is transgender; what does it mean that I identify as trans-masculine, if not that I have strengths, weaknesses, personality traits and identity markers that are stereotypically masculine? And is that bad, that my identity as a genderqueer person, or a masculine-of-center person, means that I gravitate towards relationships in which those stereotypically masculine strengths are of best use? Even if I don’t consider them to be strengths because of their masculinity, but I understand that they are typically associated with masculinity?
Tbh, I’m still kind of wrestling with that. But the point is, an equitable relationship is not the same thing as a 50/50 divide of all duties.
Thank you for this article, and especially the second-to-last paragraph! I feel like I see and experience many examples in the world where well-meaning groups of people lose sight of the broader goals of support and connection because they’re so focused on what they see as the “right” point of view on a single issue. I was an outsider at a conference last fall and am sure that I was not the only person present who was made profoundly uncomfortable by the heavy-handed treatment of the issue in question. In my opinion, the world needs to spend more time thinking about the issues you raise so that we as individuals and groups can share information and express opinions without ending interesting discussions before they can even begin.
I think there’s an important difference between “She chooses to let her husband make the decisions because she doesn’t like making decisions/she finds decisiveness attractive/he’s a particularly wise individual whose decisions she trusts/[any other personal preference]” and “She wants her husband to make decisions because she believes men should make decisions and women should follow them.” The first is about personal preference and what works in your partnership. The second is about generalizing which genders should do what, which I find threatening and will fight back against because it affects me and my own life…AND it totally erases the existence of same gender partnerships.
Agreed that it erases the existence of same gender partnerships, and I dislike that part too. Also, that’s a really helpful distinction you make there, about partnership preferences vs. adhering to gender roles.
Regarding your earlier point, many homoantagonists (a.k.a. homophobes, for those who use that terminology) argue against same-sex couples with the argument that a same-sex pairing will affect them and their children. The typical response is that “of course my same-sex pairing does not affect your opposite-sex pairing.” In that line of thought, I’m curious, in what way does another couple’s choice to live a conservative family lifestyle affect you and your own life? Is it because you’re worried that their approach to that will extend to how they treat people beyond their family unit?
The truth is, the research shows that men who have marriages based on traditional gender roles are more likely to discriminate against women in the workplace. (You can read the study for yourself here.) So it can affect the rest of us. I know I would worry about being treated fairly if my boss were a man in a traditional gender role marriage.
That’s an amazing study. I especially like that they made sure to demonstrate that men’s attitudes toward women do change if they have a marriage structure that contradicts their gender-role attitudes. If conservative family structures based on gender roles rather than personal preferences cause the men involved to discriminate against women they have authority over in work environments, then that is a very good argument for why feminist circles should not condone them. I think you just won the comments section.
I agree that if being in a “traditional” marriage CAUSED attitudes of the men in them to deteriorate with respect to women in the workplace, feminism should clearly act to discourage such relationships. But this study doesn’t show that; it shows that those two things are correlated. Which makes a considerable amount of sense; a man who doesn’t think women should be in the workplace, or make that their primary life focus, is more likely to seek out a wife who thinks similarly, and build a marriage that looks like that. The discussion at the end of the study makes precisely this point; while their data would be consistent with causation, it doesn’t actually prove it without longitudinal data.
Also, the study defined “traditional” vs “modern” marriages solely on the basis of how much the wife did or didn’t work. Where does that leave a hypothetical marriage in which both spouses work full time, but one takes the lead in household decisions? The study doesn’t address that point, but the conversation here seems to be focusing in the relationship as a whole, which does include the relative career/family focuses of the participants but also the, for lack of a better phrase, power dynamic between them.
All in all, this study is very interesting, but it doesn’t strike me as a sufficient reason to discourage women from making choices they find more compatible with their personal preferences, especially if it really is about their personal preferences (which happen to be in line with traditional gender roles) rather than their support for traditional gender roles (which happen to be in like with their personal preferences).
Oops! I used “demonstrated” way too loosely above. Great points here! What I should have said rather than demonstrated is that I thought they did a good job of partially addressing the causality concern by citing the longitudinal study by Kroska and Elmon (2009) showing that men’s attitudes toward women change if they have a marriage structure that contradicts their gender-role attitudes. Of course, that study is also correlational, but short of randomly assigning people to different marriage conditions, I think that’s about as close to showing causality as we could get for something like this. Of course, in the next breath they also point out that aside from that study there is next to no research on this, and there’s ample evidence showing that researchers have a pretty strong bias to find what they expect to find. So I guess we should hold out for more research, and/or I need to look more into the Kroska and Elmon study.
Regardless of gender or marital status, I have a problem with people who believe women should be subservient to men because it affects their social/public choices and interactions and votes and treatment of others. That social/public problem doesn’t disappear just because you’re enacting it consensually in private.
This is a great post. It gets at one of the central problems with liberation struggles and liberal pluralism in particular; we want to make people free to choose the life they want, but what happens when they choose the “wrong” choice, in our minds, with that freedom?
For indeed, some educated, self-aware, not-brainwashed women do prefer this arrangement, for a variety of reasons. That preference, I think, should be recognized as legitimate as long as it actually that; a preference and not something that has been imposed on them through repressive practices. But we should not be so surprised that some women do in fact prefer such an arrangement, as odd as it may seem to some of us. Because we don’t want to fall into the irony of, in our struggle to create a space where non-traditional identities and arrangements are accepted and not stigmatized, setting up an alternate “normative” scheme which only frees some by excluding others. It’s a tough line to walk, but as long as violence (of the physical or emotional sort) is not involved, I think we have to be more open minded about the type of arrangements that can make people happy.
All that being said, I do feel that women who choose this role and are educated about the history of feminism need to consider where such deprecations and general attitudes come from, and lower their expectations accordingly in light of the historical background and corrective need for such spaces. I would compare it perhaps to a white woman coming to a black space and then feeling awkward when they make jokes about white people; should she really expect them not to make those jokes?, or decide to take it personally when they do? Such expressions of shared experience is one way people in an oppressed category get some degree of relief from those conditions; and I imagine a lot of the women making those jokes have a few stories to tell about how they arrived at their feminist consciousness.
So in other words, while I totally agree that feminists need to work on understanding that there is no inevitable connection between non-traditional arrangements and personal happiness — and learn to accept those choices when they are made under non-violent conditions — I also think conservative women in majority-feminist spaces need to recognize the historical background of why communities populated by mostly feminist women turn into spaces for an expression of those feminist perspectives. Which is, I guess, nothing more sophisticated than saying they should not take it personally but, I suppose, that is easy for me to say and harder to do if you are the person in that awkward situation.
In what way is a white woman going to a primarily black space anything like a conservative woman going to a primarily feminist space?
I’m going to go ahead and say that attitude– or at least the way you phrased your expression of it in this comment– is precisely why conservative women would maybe not feel comfortable in feminist gatherings. Should they understand that all the women there have different backgrounds that led to their feminist consciousness? Absolutely. But so should all the liberal feminists understand that being conservative does not mean being anti-feminist.
And yes, taking it personally is an appropriate reaction, when we want to talk about creating inclusive spaces for all…
“But so should all the liberal feminists understand that being conservative does not mean being anti-feminist.”
I agree; as long as “being conservative” refers to a personal preference/lifestyle choice, as was the case in this story, and not say, voting against abortion rights etc, just to clarify. But yes, in the sense we are talking about in this story, I totally agree.
But people aren’t perfect, and when we expect people who are subject to a powerful, and widespread, form of oppression to be perfect exemplars of sensitivity at all times, I think that is a request lacking in empathy. I agree liberal feminists could and need to do better; that was why I liked the post. But I don’t think that it is as simplistic as saying – look!, you’re being as oppressive as your oppressors! – when historically, the two backgrounds are not at all identical. At the moment, we have thousands of years of a history of violence and oppression directed against women who are *not* traditional (or against women who, by all appearances, were, but lived in traditional societies that condoned abusing them), and on the other hand, we have some women feeling awkward and stigmatized at a gathering for being traditional. I am not saying it is ok for us to disregard the feelings of the latter; but at the same time, I would expect any woman educated about the lopsidedness of this history to understand that her own feelings of exclusion are not the equivalent of what women, when they mistakingly assume they are in completely feminist space, are trying to express by making jokes about traditional lifestyles.
Which is simply to say that discussions about inclusivity need to be rooted not just in our personal feelings but also a consciousness of historical reality. You are right that we are trying to create an all-inclusive space; but what happens when my subjectivity inherently excludes or judges yours? This is a huge problem that I do not have an answer for. But what I do think is that solving the problem by assuming a completely imagined and false equality of suffering — where everyone has as much of a need for a space to express their personal preferences as every other person — is not the way to go. It obliterates the reality of power inequalities on the ground, which is not a just thing to do to those subjected to the short end of that stick.
I am not arguing that there are not power inequalities, but I am arguing that women who choose a more conservative/traditional lifestyle share the history of those who choose a more liberal lifestyle insofar as being women in this culture causes a shared history.
Therefore, I would argue, it does not obliterate that history of inequality and oppression to say that it is every individual’s responsibility to be careful to create spaces which are welcoming and inclusive. Hence, the beauty of intersectionality– and hence why I think liberal feminists need to support the right of women to take any role they so choose for themselves, including that which may appear to be “traditional” or “conservative”
A better comparison might be trans* specific spaces, where those who are genderqueer or otherwise non-binary-identified are often excluded or mocked, as though we had no idea what it was to be transgender because we are not transsexual. Is that right? Should we not take it personally? Even though we also share in the burden and beauty of being transgender, yet are excluded by people who ought to be our siblings?
My argument is, a woman who freely chooses a lifestyle that suits her, ought to be able to find space in a gathering of feminists.
I personally would never choose a BDSM lifestyle. Or a poly one. Or a relationship with a man. Yet I recognize that each of those works for other people, and that those relationships are no less legitimate than mine. Why can’t this be the way we look at it?
I think that is a great way to look at it. We agree about what we would like to see.
The only thing I am trying to do is avoid the liberal discourse that posits a kind of idea of the ideal in a way which implicitly papers over the fact that we are far from that ideal. Simply put, I think those of us in any category of privilege have a greater responsibility to be empathetic and consider other factors other than our personal feelings when confronted with the expressions of those struggling under those oppressions than those without our privileges have to be careful not to offend the privileged person in the room.
But you point out here that just by being a woman, a traditional woman is, in fact, under at least some of the same oppressions as feminist women. This is a good point; certainly it is true there is a shared history, regardless of her personal choices in terms of her marriage arrangements. But by the same token, I’m not sure that her simply being a woman trumps every other aspect of her subjectivity — or that being sure not to offend her would be compatible with others feeling free to express their own frustrations, thoughts, desires, etc…..again, we have subjectivities at odds here. If all we want is a space where no one is offended, that is one thing; easily enough done. But if we want spaces where people really feel like they are in a community — where they connect on the level of humor, feelings, thoughts, and feel, therefore, free to express those openly and in comfort — then I think, to a certain degree, we are encountering one of the myths of “sisterhood” that we would do well to reconsider.
As for whether it was appropriate for the feminists at the conference to expect the second kind of community in this particular circumstance is a more particular question. I would be curious to know what the conference was about, exactly the nature of the feminists statements, etc…it sounds like it was quite possibly an inappropriate place to assume solidarity or similarity on a number of lines and that was what was so upsetting for Kathy. I think that is totally legit.
I think I have a different view from you, Barbie, and most of the comments above. Radical change will always leave some people uncomfortable, and that’s a wild understatement. Kathy might make the choice to live in a patriarchal household right now. And I don’t particularly care that she makes that choice, nor would I look down on her for it. But in the society I fight for, she would be very, very unlikely to make that choice, even though it’s a free choice right now. And, if I attended a conference where most people agreed that our society should not encourage people to make the choices that I make in life, and that I want to make in life, I think that would make me uncomfortable, even if none of them looked down on my personally for making those choices.
And when you turn the tables, and ask, what do we think of her husband (or would-be husband), who deliberately seeks a marriage that privileges his position over hers, I’m totally fine with looking down on his choices. His preferred way of life is harmful to society and perpetuates patriarchy. And it’s a “choice” that just happens to benefit him, because he has a penis (and is straight, cisgender, etc). I want to live in a world where men do not make the choices that he makes. And that world would mean Kathy would find it much harder to find the partner she wants.
I think there are some interesting parallels between Kathy’s situation and an argument I see from some people who support ads or magazine covers I think are sexist. Mostly-naked female models for various products are selected because they meet certain patriarchal standards for how their bodies should look (and get photoshopped into near caricatures of those standards). They’re often presented sexually, far more than ads with men, etc. Some people think that decrying this sexism is shaming those women for expressing themselves in their chosen career of modelling. Just like some people might think that openly decrying patriarchal family structures is shaming Kathy for making the choice to live in one of those family structures. But what I really oppose is a world where women models must always be thin, mostly white, and sexualized, and where editors and others choose to only portray women that way. In the world I fight for, there simply would not be as much opportunity for women to appear in sexualized magazine ads, because magazine ads would not have to be sexualized every. single. time. they. include. a. woman.. And that might very well make some people uncomfortable, but radical change always does.
I agree with this a lot. I’m much more inclined to judge men who choose this type of marriage than women – for the reasons you’ve mentioned as well as those in the comment I made above.
And that is a very interesting study. Makes you think about how our private, family lives really aren’t some separate world, but an integral part of how we interact with others.
I really liked this article. I think far too often the absolutist mentality inspires a sort of reverse-intolerance that has just as much of a negative impact on society as the intolerance in the first place. It’s important to consider both points of view, and I thought this article really gave a good nod to the idea that a “traditional” family can work and has worked in a way that does not make women into objects. My absolute favorite line was:
“First, I agree that a conservative family lifestyle is a big problem if your main goal for a relationship is equality. But what if your main goal for a relationship is happiness?”
This is a great article. I feel a special sympathy for women in conservative religious contexts who choose that life. As long as they are cognizant of the importance of individual choice and supportive of alternatives to that choice I think they are awesome. It shows feminism’s true tolerance.
I promised Kate ten million opinions on this subject, so here they are:
I think the best way to understand patriarchy in general is as a system that evolved in a technologically backward environment to ensure that men have sex with women, women produce babies, babies grow to adulthood, and there are a few surplus people to sacrifice in war/childbirth. This had to override individual preference, or else the society would die out.
Some people want to perpetuate that model even though in modern days it is not necessary, and its downsides now outweigh its benefits. If Kathy is one of them (if she, for instance, thinks that her religion is the one true religion that everyone should follow, and also that her religion requires patriarchy), then she should not expect feminists to agree with her.
However, I think feminists often pay too little attention to the question of what model should replace patriarchy. After all, no matter what feminists do, civilization will likely continue in some form. If it is going to be a feminist civilization, then we have to find a way to remain feminist while ensuring that men still have sex with women, women still produce babies, that babies are still raised to adulthood, and that we have enough people to account for expected population loss (in this day and age and location, usually from traffic accidents).
Of course, technically that’s not exactly right – we have better reproductive technology now, so men don’t have to have sex with women. They can, for example, be sperm donors instead. But we don’t have gestation pods yet, so women have to produce babies. And somebody has to raise the kids. The better the job they do, the better off this feminist civilization will be.
And, of course, this system must be entirely voluntary, or else it’s not very feminist.
The obvious thing to do is socialize every woman to have between 1-3 children, and provide all kinds of support networks so that they can both work and raise those children without killing themselves trying. For example, a large amount of parental leave for all genders and free, high-quality healthcare and daycare available to all. In addition, in every occupation in which it makes sense to do so, take the pressure off so that each employee, regardless of gender or parental status, has enough flexibility so that they could take care of children if they wanted to. In other words, don’t make people work too many hours.
The biggest challenge to feminism is that we don’t have those networks in place yet.
But even if we did, some people, like Kathy, would prefer the patriarchal model. Now, if you use violence or the threat thereof (i.e. law) to override their individual preferences, you are not being very consistent with feminist values, but patriarchal families do cause some problems.
The first problem I see here is that while Kathy may personally romanticize the patriarchal family model, she is also part of a religious group that reinforces that preference, along with, likely, a lot of other values that are definitely not feminist. If such people both out-breed feminist families and successfully transmit their values to their children, they will eventually out-vote feminists.
Even if the problem isn’t quite that dire, patriarchal-style families can still create an atmosphere that discourages feminist lifestyles. If most women stay home with their kids, what’s the use of having a nation-wide network of free government daycares? If most women stay home with their kids, obviously it doesn’t make sense for the men to do so as well. So there are more men in the workplace, more men in politics. Men have more money than women, more influence than women, more power than women. Etc.
Now, it’s somewhat different if some people still live in patriarchal-style families, but a decent percentage are gender-reversed or queer. That system doesn’t sort people by gender and is a definite improvement.
However, I am not a fan of the uncompensated-laborer model of family structure. I say this as a stay-at-home-mom. We pay a cleaning service to do most of the harder cleaning, and I do have a babysitter over sometimes (like right now, or I wouldn’t have time to express my ten million opinions), but other than that I do most of the cooking and cleaning, and of course the vast majority of childcare. I do not make a single penny. That makes me less objectively free than my husband or anyone else who does make a wage. This does not mean my work isn’t important or enjoyable. Raising small children (mine is nineteen months old, and can tell you so) is one of the most important jobs in the world, and while it does have its difficult moments, it also brings incredible joy. You’ve heard that before, I’m sure.
The problem is that I am poor. I live as though I’m not, because my husband is not poor and he shares his money with me. But it’s still his, and if he decided to stop sharing it with me, I’d be in trouble and perhaps my child would too. That’s a very un-empowering dynamic, and it’s one I want to end soon (hence searching daycares like crazy).
Another issue is that kids grow up and the elderly eventually die, so caretaking can be an awfully short career. When it’s over, you won’t have much of a presence in any professional or academic network, and therefore will continue to be poorly compensated. But you won’t have much to do at home, either.
Even if the US government enacted all the policies I’ve just advocated, and even if most people agreed with me and lived the way I wanted them to, I’m sure there would still be people who would choose to stay home. That wouldn’t upset my perfect feminist world as long as they were in the minority.
I suppose one could try and keep the patriarchal family style to a minimum by deriding it, but I prefer carrots to sticks. So, personally I would say that while I prefer that people not stay home to do uncompensated labor, and I’m always happy to debate the merits of different kinds of choices, I will always be polite to people no matter what their (non-violent) lifestyle choices.
Alternatively we could use some of our tax dollars to pay people directly for taking care of their children or other relatives, and then it really doesn’t matter who stays at home.
This.
This should really be a blog post of it’s own. The uncompensated labor is such an incredibly huge issue.
I love this article. I have only one thing to say/add: Without feminism there wouldn’t *be a choice*. I am glad that Kathy has one.
Thank you folks for such thorough and thoughtful replies! Individual replies are pending to some of the longer comments (have to take care of some things in 3D Barbie world), but in short, your comments have really helped me learn more about this issue and consider it from new angles. Much appreciated!
Hi folks! Sorry it took me so long to get back into this thread. I had so many thoughts in reply, but what they all boiled down to is that I have learned a lot from you all through the thoughts and experiences that you shared here, and I’m looking forward to thinking more about this. Thanks for a great discussion and I hope you’re all doing well!
I really do want every individual to be able to choose the lifestyle that best suits them (and doesn’t cause harm to anyone else).
I struggle with the concept of the woman in a heterosexual relationship being submissive to her partner, though – not because I think her choice is faulty or bad, but because I wonder what that means about her partner also preferring that she be submissive. In my mind, it potentially gives her partner space (and support) to think that the *role* of women in society is inherently submissive.
I have very similar issues with porn:: videos and images of sex aren’t inherently bad (and I can enjoy them!), but the industry in general sells a product that clearly demeans women (I’m talking overall trends – I know that good porn exists). How do I reconcile the fact that there are liberated women choosing to work in that industry? I feel like their involvement supports an extremely sexist product which can empower sexist people and perpetuate sexist thought, so I have a hard time supporting their decision to be involved in it.
I really struggle with this stuff, and I haven’t yet found a comfortable position on it that feels right (or self-consistent). I think the key lies in that “doesn’t harm anyone else” caveat, but I don’t know how to make it connect right.
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The problem is that women can’t yet really choose equality in the first place. I cannot make my current or prospective bosses and co-workers believe that my commitment to work is equal to my male colleagues. Every time a woman ‘chooses inequality’, my ability to choose equality is effected.