Dependence is the ultimate freedom
April 9, 2024 9:47 PM Subscribe
"Davis doesn’t doubt that the housewife’s lifestyle is desirable; she merely regrets that it has been made inaccessible."
Moira Donegan reviews Housewife by Lisa Selin Davis in Bookforum
When Davis tries to live as a tradwife, she imagines “taking over the cooking from my husband” and “cleaning way more than I normally would”: dutiful little projects that don’t matter very much. Men’s role in this fantasy seems hazy, and indeed, men are largely absent from Davis’s book.I've always thought that these crypto-Catholic 'trads' don't want to be wives, what they in fact describe as the most desirable lifestyle is a kind of monasticism-without-the-church---and if they actually found a remnant convent they'd discover very soon the actual 'responsibility in the public sphere' that flesh-and-blood nuns actually have always engaged in.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:39 PM on April 9 [20 favorites]
I haven't read the book that she's reviewing, so I can't speak to the specifics of how this woman handles it, but I find myself deeply, deeply bristling at the review, because it is both deeply insulting to women who enjoy care labor in the home and also assumes that the way that American nuclear-family capitalism has suggested things operate is the way that they always must operate.
Being a 'housewife' in an alienated and unnatural nuclear-family structure is a very diffferent thing than being a wife and a mother in an intergenerational household where you have essentially collective assistance with a lot of the tasks of daily living. And I find this aspect of the review particularly ludicrous:
"The housewife lifestyle abandons the struggles of feminist advancement, community building, justice, and political engagement."
In what world? Have they, I don't know, ever met a woman of color who doesn't have an official job outside the home?
posted by corb at 10:52 PM on April 9 [22 favorites]
Being a 'housewife' in an alienated and unnatural nuclear-family structure is a very diffferent thing than being a wife and a mother in an intergenerational household where you have essentially collective assistance with a lot of the tasks of daily living. And I find this aspect of the review particularly ludicrous:
"The housewife lifestyle abandons the struggles of feminist advancement, community building, justice, and political engagement."
In what world? Have they, I don't know, ever met a woman of color who doesn't have an official job outside the home?
posted by corb at 10:52 PM on April 9 [22 favorites]
A separate section, on trans women, makes only the weird claim that they don’t do chores.
I'm a bit surprised by this line because Donegan strikes me as the sort of person who should be able to read that and understand that it's simply a way of saying that trans women are men.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:00 PM on April 9 [21 favorites]
I'm a bit surprised by this line because Donegan strikes me as the sort of person who should be able to read that and understand that it's simply a way of saying that trans women are men.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:00 PM on April 9 [21 favorites]
@corb, I think in that line Donegan is referring to (gah) "tradwives" who do not have a job outside the home and who are entirely dependent on their husbands.
On a separate note, wow it is great to see some Donegan out in the wild. She writes wonderfully clear-eyed editorials for the Guardian, and coming across them always feels like a breath of fresh, insightful, incisive air in an environment of stifling media mediocrity. I just worry that one day her and David Brooks will both be in the same room together, and will annihilate each other and the surrounding hemisphere in a cascading intelligence/anti-intelligence explosion.
posted by Balna Watya at 11:21 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
On a separate note, wow it is great to see some Donegan out in the wild. She writes wonderfully clear-eyed editorials for the Guardian, and coming across them always feels like a breath of fresh, insightful, incisive air in an environment of stifling media mediocrity. I just worry that one day her and David Brooks will both be in the same room together, and will annihilate each other and the surrounding hemisphere in a cascading intelligence/anti-intelligence explosion.
posted by Balna Watya at 11:21 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
When Davis mentions what she calls “LGB families,” she does little more than to note—with a straight woman’s typical defensiveness—that a lot of lesbians get divorced. A separate section, on trans women, makes only the weird claim that they don’t do chores.
At this point in 2024, we all know what it means when someone leaves the "T" off "LGBT", right? Anyway, the major tell of all these reactionary conservatives who claim to be feminists is that they are always transphobic. Despite any claim of equality, what they want is a return to traditional gender roles and that works as well as every other "separate but equal" policy.
At one point, Davis takes to Reddit to understand modern online tradwives.
Never trust any publication that anecdotally cites social media. This is literally what the "do your own research" crowd thinks what scholarship is: determining reality based on social contact with how-much-do-I-personally-like-them as the measure for credibility. That's fine for taco joint recommendations, but not for anything more serious.
Thank you for posting this.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:48 AM on April 10 [17 favorites]
At this point in 2024, we all know what it means when someone leaves the "T" off "LGBT", right? Anyway, the major tell of all these reactionary conservatives who claim to be feminists is that they are always transphobic. Despite any claim of equality, what they want is a return to traditional gender roles and that works as well as every other "separate but equal" policy.
At one point, Davis takes to Reddit to understand modern online tradwives.
Never trust any publication that anecdotally cites social media. This is literally what the "do your own research" crowd thinks what scholarship is: determining reality based on social contact with how-much-do-I-personally-like-them as the measure for credibility. That's fine for taco joint recommendations, but not for anything more serious.
Thank you for posting this.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:48 AM on April 10 [17 favorites]
(Amend that: taco joint recommendations are also too important to escape rigorous scholarly study.)
posted by AlSweigart at 4:51 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]
posted by AlSweigart at 4:51 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]
The review may have been trying to be fair, focusing primarily on the text in front of the reviewer, however, it's probably good to point out that Lisa Selin Davis is on the Nice But Concerned side of the TERF spectrum. I don't mean that in some vaguely accusatory way ("she left off the T!") but that she very specifically has a schtick around this, as seen in her Substack. It's like conservatism with a sheen of plausible deniability. You should be able to dress however you want, she'll say, and if you go a step further than that, there will be long missives of concern, what is our world coming to, etc. If you write a book about how you're concerned about Kids These Days And Their Pronouns, she will probably excerpt you in your mailings.
So the subject of this new book is really really not a surprise. "Well, I just think--" she will begin in a nice voice, and then suddenly she's dreaming about slaves and petticoats.
posted by mittens at 5:06 AM on April 10 [10 favorites]
So the subject of this new book is really really not a surprise. "Well, I just think--" she will begin in a nice voice, and then suddenly she's dreaming about slaves and petticoats.
posted by mittens at 5:06 AM on April 10 [10 favorites]
it's probably good to point out that Lisa Selin Davis is on the Nice But Concerned side of the TERF spectrum
well_there_it_is.gif
posted by AlSweigart at 5:25 AM on April 10 [5 favorites]
well_there_it_is.gif
posted by AlSweigart at 5:25 AM on April 10 [5 favorites]
I've always thought that these crypto-Catholic 'trads' don't want to be wives, what they in fact describe as the most desirable lifestyle is a kind of monasticism-without-the-church---and if they actually found a remnant convent they'd discover very soon the actual 'responsibility in the public sphere' that flesh-and-blood nuns actually have always engaged in.
I think the key fantasy is around situations like the main couple in that Vikings show, or any number of depictions of lord/lady of the manor. So you would be married to a studly, high-status guy who works outside of the house, and you get to be the high-status, powerful woman with complete domination of the domestic sphere, including having a crew of servants and/or slaves who do the dirty work. And I agree, as a fantasy that is really close to monastic life, especially being the Mother Superior of a convent, where just like in the fantasy about being half of the ruling couple, you get to preside over a closed-off mini society and other people still do the cooking and cleaning.
A while back I followed a link in some post here and that led to another link and so on, until I ended up in a subreddit that was entirely posts of memes of semi-erotic portrayals of 1950s relationships. Things like, the hot housewife preparing the husband's drink for when he comes home from the office. I understand the fantasy, but it is just so disconnected from how relationships back then actually worked that it feels off to me.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:27 AM on April 10 [9 favorites]
I think the key fantasy is around situations like the main couple in that Vikings show, or any number of depictions of lord/lady of the manor. So you would be married to a studly, high-status guy who works outside of the house, and you get to be the high-status, powerful woman with complete domination of the domestic sphere, including having a crew of servants and/or slaves who do the dirty work. And I agree, as a fantasy that is really close to monastic life, especially being the Mother Superior of a convent, where just like in the fantasy about being half of the ruling couple, you get to preside over a closed-off mini society and other people still do the cooking and cleaning.
A while back I followed a link in some post here and that led to another link and so on, until I ended up in a subreddit that was entirely posts of memes of semi-erotic portrayals of 1950s relationships. Things like, the hot housewife preparing the husband's drink for when he comes home from the office. I understand the fantasy, but it is just so disconnected from how relationships back then actually worked that it feels off to me.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:27 AM on April 10 [9 favorites]
The thing is that when people write like that, they're always writing present fantasy as past. I suspect a huge motivation for interest in history is as grist for such ideation mills.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 5:48 AM on April 10 [4 favorites]
posted by Typhoon Jim at 5:48 AM on April 10 [4 favorites]
@corb, I think in that line Donegan is referring to (gah) "tradwives" who do not have a job outside the home and who are entirely dependent on their husbands.
I realize retrospectively that what I said could be read both ways, but actually I was doing something a little differently; it is *both* true that women of color have often worked outside the home in paid employment more than white women, and *also* true that women of color have often integrated outside work *into* the home as well as community engagement in a way that I think the reviewer fails to acknowledge or engage with.
In essence - and I think this is why the review upset and angered me - I think that the reviewer is one of a number of people that are really missing out on a real swell of what could be anti-capitalist anger here, and because they're dismissing it as 'ugh, gross, reactionary gender politics, everyone involved must be gross', they're driving those people further to the right and missing out on genuine populist anger at the failures of industrial capitalism.
Because while I'm full anti-capitalist, the plain fact is that under non-industrial capitalism, women often could still achieve independence in the domestic sphere much more than the thin slice of life that gets elevated would have you believe. Think even to 'classic' American literature that showcases the early to mid 1800s - you have married women with children "taking in piece sewing", which they would accomplish in their home and then return for cash. Or having "egg and butter money", which would be under their own control, not that of their husbands, and would generally fund side projects. The sale of scrap metal is considered normative - there are a *ton* of little side projects that generally go on, and on which people make their own hours and participate in and around their own choice of life. Women and yes, even married 'housewives' are portrayed as *extremely* involved in their community and absolutely politically involved and integral to its functioning. So there's forms of capitalism than were less worse than the hell we live under now, even though I still think it's bad and we should do another way.
However, it is during the 1900s - and I would actually argue that it is no coincidence that this occurred after the rise of suffrage and leftist political movements that you see this sudden push for women to withdraw and be 'protected' and to remain at home while they are carrying out their 'housewife' duties. Ie, "stay at home away from the commies, don't go to political rallies!" And then suddenly there's these high rates of depression and overmedication. There are other explanations than "the gender politics!" for why this happens.
There's this segment of feminism that I can only describe as feminina-capitalism, which describes the highest and best form of feminism as participation in capitalism in all of its forms. (You may have seen it memed as More! Women! Prison Guards!) That form of feminism argues that it's a betrayal of feminism to withdraw your labor from the capitalist workforce, because it betrays your gender and tells men that they're better than you. But I think that argument betrays the working class, by telling women that they have no other option than to work for the boss forever, what are they doing putting their tools down, get back out there!
I think that a lot of people are realizing that capitalism doesn't work for them. And yes, they're fantasizing - a lot - about other forms of economies that aren't industrial capitalism. But I think it's a mistake to just assume it's because they're just selfish or infantile. Why do people dream of feudalism? Because feudalism is the thing that capitalism replaced and capitalism sucks so they think feudalism must have been better. Because in this hell world we live in, even the dream that your boss might have a solitary *shred* of loyalty to you seems like a miracle.
Instead of calling them stupid children, we should teach them to dream of revolution. And leave the way that they fuck at home alone.
posted by corb at 6:40 AM on April 10 [14 favorites]
I realize retrospectively that what I said could be read both ways, but actually I was doing something a little differently; it is *both* true that women of color have often worked outside the home in paid employment more than white women, and *also* true that women of color have often integrated outside work *into* the home as well as community engagement in a way that I think the reviewer fails to acknowledge or engage with.
In essence - and I think this is why the review upset and angered me - I think that the reviewer is one of a number of people that are really missing out on a real swell of what could be anti-capitalist anger here, and because they're dismissing it as 'ugh, gross, reactionary gender politics, everyone involved must be gross', they're driving those people further to the right and missing out on genuine populist anger at the failures of industrial capitalism.
Because while I'm full anti-capitalist, the plain fact is that under non-industrial capitalism, women often could still achieve independence in the domestic sphere much more than the thin slice of life that gets elevated would have you believe. Think even to 'classic' American literature that showcases the early to mid 1800s - you have married women with children "taking in piece sewing", which they would accomplish in their home and then return for cash. Or having "egg and butter money", which would be under their own control, not that of their husbands, and would generally fund side projects. The sale of scrap metal is considered normative - there are a *ton* of little side projects that generally go on, and on which people make their own hours and participate in and around their own choice of life. Women and yes, even married 'housewives' are portrayed as *extremely* involved in their community and absolutely politically involved and integral to its functioning. So there's forms of capitalism than were less worse than the hell we live under now, even though I still think it's bad and we should do another way.
However, it is during the 1900s - and I would actually argue that it is no coincidence that this occurred after the rise of suffrage and leftist political movements that you see this sudden push for women to withdraw and be 'protected' and to remain at home while they are carrying out their 'housewife' duties. Ie, "stay at home away from the commies, don't go to political rallies!" And then suddenly there's these high rates of depression and overmedication. There are other explanations than "the gender politics!" for why this happens.
There's this segment of feminism that I can only describe as feminina-capitalism, which describes the highest and best form of feminism as participation in capitalism in all of its forms. (You may have seen it memed as More! Women! Prison Guards!) That form of feminism argues that it's a betrayal of feminism to withdraw your labor from the capitalist workforce, because it betrays your gender and tells men that they're better than you. But I think that argument betrays the working class, by telling women that they have no other option than to work for the boss forever, what are they doing putting their tools down, get back out there!
I think that a lot of people are realizing that capitalism doesn't work for them. And yes, they're fantasizing - a lot - about other forms of economies that aren't industrial capitalism. But I think it's a mistake to just assume it's because they're just selfish or infantile. Why do people dream of feudalism? Because feudalism is the thing that capitalism replaced and capitalism sucks so they think feudalism must have been better. Because in this hell world we live in, even the dream that your boss might have a solitary *shred* of loyalty to you seems like a miracle.
Instead of calling them stupid children, we should teach them to dream of revolution. And leave the way that they fuck at home alone.
posted by corb at 6:40 AM on April 10 [14 favorites]
In essence - and I think this is why the review upset and angered me - I think that the reviewer is one of a number of people that are really missing out on a real swell of what could be anti-capitalist anger here, and because they're dismissing it as 'ugh, gross, reactionary gender politics, everyone involved must be gross', they're driving those people further to the right and missing out on genuine populist anger at the failures of industrial capitalism.
I'm a homemaker because of capitalism. After spending roughly ten years working in the animation trenches, I burnt out, and when my spouse got a job offer on the other side of the country, we moved out there and I officially quit working. Full time positions for me were drying up, and job hunting for short-term freelance gigs was stressful. It didn't help that, at the time, more and more computer animation was being outsourced. I had started my career working on some famous projects and ended it cleaning up badly-done crowd scenes for the worst corporate client which were originally slapped together somewhere on the other side of the world. I was done, more depressed that usual, probably had PTSD, and became one of those people who aren't counted in unemployment statistics anymore because they dropped out of the workforce.
That was more than ten years ago. I recovered, mostly, over time, though I am still bitter about the entire animation industry. Homemaker life has suited me fairly well, and my spouse does take care of some of my less favorite stuff himself (like talking to and handling contractors, repairmen, etc.; it's worth noting we're both introverts). I genuinely enjoy some parts of it, others are just things to do or annoyances that I put off, much like any regular paid job. I have hobbies which I indulge in during the off-times, and am active in related communities online. We don't have kids, which is what gets me the most weird looks whenever I mention what I "do". That said, between that and my spouse's well-paying job, I realize I'm in a very privileged position and try and treat it as such. I personally believe that being a homemaker is a valid choice if you have the financial means for it, but it is absolutely not for everyone, and shouldn't be bound to gender (I have a cousin-in-law who has done the househusband thing for his veterinarian wife).
I read most of the review linked in the OP, and this book does sound weird and muddled, and the revelations in these comments about the author being a TERF provide a bit more context. I don't see much of myself in either the book or the review. There's bits and pieces in there related to capitalism and how homemaking-- sorry, "housewifery"-- "has not so much been discredited as placed cruelly out of reach." I agree with that! I think that with all the stresses of the modern world, homemaking should be an option for more people! Where's the book about homemakers like me? Are there other homemakers like me?
posted by May Kasahara at 7:15 AM on April 10 [7 favorites]
I'm a homemaker because of capitalism. After spending roughly ten years working in the animation trenches, I burnt out, and when my spouse got a job offer on the other side of the country, we moved out there and I officially quit working. Full time positions for me were drying up, and job hunting for short-term freelance gigs was stressful. It didn't help that, at the time, more and more computer animation was being outsourced. I had started my career working on some famous projects and ended it cleaning up badly-done crowd scenes for the worst corporate client which were originally slapped together somewhere on the other side of the world. I was done, more depressed that usual, probably had PTSD, and became one of those people who aren't counted in unemployment statistics anymore because they dropped out of the workforce.
That was more than ten years ago. I recovered, mostly, over time, though I am still bitter about the entire animation industry. Homemaker life has suited me fairly well, and my spouse does take care of some of my less favorite stuff himself (like talking to and handling contractors, repairmen, etc.; it's worth noting we're both introverts). I genuinely enjoy some parts of it, others are just things to do or annoyances that I put off, much like any regular paid job. I have hobbies which I indulge in during the off-times, and am active in related communities online. We don't have kids, which is what gets me the most weird looks whenever I mention what I "do". That said, between that and my spouse's well-paying job, I realize I'm in a very privileged position and try and treat it as such. I personally believe that being a homemaker is a valid choice if you have the financial means for it, but it is absolutely not for everyone, and shouldn't be bound to gender (I have a cousin-in-law who has done the househusband thing for his veterinarian wife).
I read most of the review linked in the OP, and this book does sound weird and muddled, and the revelations in these comments about the author being a TERF provide a bit more context. I don't see much of myself in either the book or the review. There's bits and pieces in there related to capitalism and how homemaking-- sorry, "housewifery"-- "has not so much been discredited as placed cruelly out of reach." I agree with that! I think that with all the stresses of the modern world, homemaking should be an option for more people! Where's the book about homemakers like me? Are there other homemakers like me?
posted by May Kasahara at 7:15 AM on April 10 [7 favorites]
I'd agree with you corb, but then why isn't it widespread for men to have this fantasy of domestic life?
I don't think we can untangle the gross reactionary gender politics from this issue, especially when it's so explicitly self-unaware and let's-go-back-to-the-1950s in its presentation. It's like people who are really into the Nazi aesthetic just because Hugo Boss designed cool uniforms.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:18 AM on April 10 [7 favorites]
I don't think we can untangle the gross reactionary gender politics from this issue, especially when it's so explicitly self-unaware and let's-go-back-to-the-1950s in its presentation. It's like people who are really into the Nazi aesthetic just because Hugo Boss designed cool uniforms.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:18 AM on April 10 [7 favorites]
There was an AskMe question posted this morning about being a primary breadwinner, sort of the inverse to what the main link here is about, so it is interesting to read them back-to-back.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:26 AM on April 10 [2 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 7:26 AM on April 10 [2 favorites]
Why do people dream of feudalism? Because feudalism is the thing that capitalism replaced and capitalism sucks so they think feudalism must have been better.
Additionally, no one fantasizes about being the slave in the feudal household who sleeps in the pigsty and eats scraps, they fantasize about being in the fun feudal roles at the top of the food chain. Aside from the lack of medical care and prevalent violence, people at the top of the hierarchy back then lived pretty sweet lives, unlike the peasants under their boots.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:30 AM on April 10 [9 favorites]
Additionally, no one fantasizes about being the slave in the feudal household who sleeps in the pigsty and eats scraps, they fantasize about being in the fun feudal roles at the top of the food chain. Aside from the lack of medical care and prevalent violence, people at the top of the hierarchy back then lived pretty sweet lives, unlike the peasants under their boots.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:30 AM on April 10 [9 favorites]
Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub's podcast In Bed With the Right just released their latest episode on tradwives, and I think it pokes in a useful way at some of corb's criticisms - like, linking feminism with capitalism, with having money and corporate power, is often a problem! Donegan frames the tradwife fantasy as a bit of a reaction against "girlboss / lean in" culture.
Which I think is true, and - "girlboss/ lean in" is not per se feminism. It's the version of feminism that capitalism and the mainstream media find acceptable.
(But - the fantasy of being a tradwife is only accessible to those who have access to money through their husbands or other male relatives; the tradwife fantasy is about the cute clothes and the fancy kitchen and the children with matching outfits, not JUST about being out of the paid workforce.)
So - really, the question isn't girlboss vs. tradwife, and it's not working outside the home vs. inside the home. It's about how we keep getting marketed highly gendered and very expensive lifestyles, and how these lifestyles get marketed as gender performance in a way that's very weird, and I don't have the solution but I think it starts with being really skeptical of that marketing, and understanding that it's a fantasy of Winning At Capitalism that's out of reach for the vast majority of us.
posted by Jeanne at 7:52 AM on April 10 [11 favorites]
Which I think is true, and - "girlboss/ lean in" is not per se feminism. It's the version of feminism that capitalism and the mainstream media find acceptable.
(But - the fantasy of being a tradwife is only accessible to those who have access to money through their husbands or other male relatives; the tradwife fantasy is about the cute clothes and the fancy kitchen and the children with matching outfits, not JUST about being out of the paid workforce.)
So - really, the question isn't girlboss vs. tradwife, and it's not working outside the home vs. inside the home. It's about how we keep getting marketed highly gendered and very expensive lifestyles, and how these lifestyles get marketed as gender performance in a way that's very weird, and I don't have the solution but I think it starts with being really skeptical of that marketing, and understanding that it's a fantasy of Winning At Capitalism that's out of reach for the vast majority of us.
posted by Jeanne at 7:52 AM on April 10 [11 favorites]
A related 35 minute video from a few months ago on the Books n Cats channel: "How Shirley Jackson exposed the horror of home life":
Shirley Jackson previously.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:12 AM on April 10 [8 favorites]
In her fictionalized memoir, Life Among the Savages, Jackson gives us a little taste of this as she recounts her experience at hospital prior to the birth of her third child. A member of staff asks her:This tradwife thing that's having a moment right now is like the inherently-conservative fantasy of having eugenics but, you know, without all the icky genocide and racism parts. Women have already seen what this life is like in reality and have rejected it for good reason. To speak a quote that we often said in the post-9/11 Bush Era: "Those who sacrifice freedom for security will get neither."
‘“Age?” she asked. “Sex? Occupation?”
“Writer,” I said.
“Housewife,” she said.
“Writer,” I said.
“I’ll just put down housewife,” she said’
Housewife first, writer second. Raising a family and keeping house was a woman’s duty; suppress your desires and live to serve. But what if you wanted more? This question is at the heart of the ‘problem that has no name’, as put forward by Betty Friedan in her seminal 1963 publication, The Feminine Mystique:
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered [...] Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffered Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—"Is this all?”
Shirley Jackson previously.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:12 AM on April 10 [8 favorites]
From what I've seen on social media, "tradwife" is a genre of influencer. It's posting videos of yourself "cooking" while wearing an immaculate, cleavage-baring sundress and stirring an empty pot. At least one popular tradwife influencer is a former OF model. Just another side hustle.
posted by LindsayIrene at 8:41 AM on April 10 [7 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 8:41 AM on April 10 [7 favorites]
Oh Lord, if you're a woman from 7 to 77 you're doing something wrong and the media will be sure to tell you what it is. Then when you change, they switch it up! You don't have to read about it, though.
posted by kingdead at 12:11 PM on April 10 [7 favorites]
posted by kingdead at 12:11 PM on April 10 [7 favorites]
>And then suddenly there's these high rates of depression and overmedication.
I just have to point out that the higher rates of diagnosed depression and more adequate medication are a result of women becoming more able to access care, and cannot be used as a measure of happiness.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 12:56 PM on April 10 [9 favorites]
I just have to point out that the higher rates of diagnosed depression and more adequate medication are a result of women becoming more able to access care, and cannot be used as a measure of happiness.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 12:56 PM on April 10 [9 favorites]
The last paragraph of the review:
I don't know if the being married part would have been particularly appealing to me then. And now, the state of being married is still not part of the appeal of not having to work. If I had a trust fund or was one of those NYT/The Cut essayists who "retired" at age 35 through speculative real estate deals, I wouldn't need to have a spouse who was funding the food and rent for me.
Being wholly financially dependent on my spouse wouldn't be soothing for me. I was already grumpy enough when we did the marriage paperwork in a rush because I needed to get on their health insurance.
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:14 PM on April 10 [4 favorites]
And here we return to Davis’s initial characterization of housewifery’s appeal: “I might have liked to hitch my wagon to someone, confident that he loved me enough that I could be comfortable in a state of financial dependency,” she writes.The fantasy of being a "lady who lunches" -- non-wage earning woman who has a full social and volunteer schedule -- has lingered in my mind ever since I managed to fund this for myself in my 20s for a whole year (in a bygone era I realize, but also I planned for my savings to last longer by living in the living room of a 2 bedroom apartment so we could split the rent 3 ways instead of 2. I also unashamedly cadged meals out at restaurants from friends who had jobs in the tech industy, or the "dot com" sector as it was termed in those prelapsarian times).
I don't know if the being married part would have been particularly appealing to me then. And now, the state of being married is still not part of the appeal of not having to work. If I had a trust fund or was one of those NYT/The Cut essayists who "retired" at age 35 through speculative real estate deals, I wouldn't need to have a spouse who was funding the food and rent for me.
Being wholly financially dependent on my spouse wouldn't be soothing for me. I was already grumpy enough when we did the marriage paperwork in a rush because I needed to get on their health insurance.
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:14 PM on April 10 [4 favorites]
Basically, my fantasy is being retired with a substantial pension and getting to jump fully into community organizing and prefigurative politics -- be staff for a childcare collective, help start a community arts space, volunteer at Street Roots or other groups working with unhoused people.
I could do that as a stay-at-home housewife, but the frame of being devoted to my spouse would feel too constricting. I still would want to be the protagonist of my own story.
Retiree can also conjure up the self-focused leisure like RV travel or endless cruises, but it doesn't define a person in terms of their location (in a house!).
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:25 PM on April 10 [2 favorites]
I could do that as a stay-at-home housewife, but the frame of being devoted to my spouse would feel too constricting. I still would want to be the protagonist of my own story.
Retiree can also conjure up the self-focused leisure like RV travel or endless cruises, but it doesn't define a person in terms of their location (in a house!).
posted by spamandkimchi at 2:25 PM on April 10 [2 favorites]
no one fantasizes about being the slave in the feudal household who sleeps in the pigsty and eats scraps, they fantasize about being in the fun feudal roles at the top of the food chain
There's a theme here: the idea that "well, sure, it'll be bad for some people, but not me because I'm special, so screw'em". The preppers think *they* will be the ones who rise up and rebuild society after SHTF, when in reality they'll almost certainly either die miserably in their bunker or die horribly at the hands of someone meaner. No, bruh, you aren't going to be right hand of the King or Peter Theil or whomever, you're going to be shoveling shit in the fields until you die young.
posted by kjs3 at 4:05 PM on April 10 [5 favorites]
There's a theme here: the idea that "well, sure, it'll be bad for some people, but not me because I'm special, so screw'em". The preppers think *they* will be the ones who rise up and rebuild society after SHTF, when in reality they'll almost certainly either die miserably in their bunker or die horribly at the hands of someone meaner. No, bruh, you aren't going to be right hand of the King or Peter Theil or whomever, you're going to be shoveling shit in the fields until you die young.
posted by kjs3 at 4:05 PM on April 10 [5 favorites]
In my extremely liberal, educated, upper middle class social group, there are a whole lot of women who would otherwise be called housewives (including childless ones) except for the fact that they have an artistic pursuit. I don't mean to denigrate what they do at all--I'm just interested in the point at which a person who does not do paid work but does do stained glass starts being introduced at cocktail parties as a stained glass artist. Or the person who had an art installation starts being referred to as an installation artist.
So what makes you a housewife? Is it the lack of paid labor? Is it the presence of other people in your household? Is it the amount of time devoted to activities other than caring for others? What types of other activities count? If you write, do you get introduced as a writer? Or only if you're published? Or only if you're paid living wage for writing? (This last would knock out almost all of the many writers I know.) A lot of people spend as much time knitting as this one lady spends cooking up fiber art installations, but they don't get introduced as knitters.
And what makes these women different from tradwives, other than secular liberalism vs religious conservatism?
posted by HotToddy at 10:07 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
So what makes you a housewife? Is it the lack of paid labor? Is it the presence of other people in your household? Is it the amount of time devoted to activities other than caring for others? What types of other activities count? If you write, do you get introduced as a writer? Or only if you're published? Or only if you're paid living wage for writing? (This last would knock out almost all of the many writers I know.) A lot of people spend as much time knitting as this one lady spends cooking up fiber art installations, but they don't get introduced as knitters.
And what makes these women different from tradwives, other than secular liberalism vs religious conservatism?
posted by HotToddy at 10:07 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
I read the review, but not the book. Am I to understand that the author wrote an entire book about the merits of being a housewife but has not, herself, ever been a housewife? And also doesn't actually know any housewives? But she follows a few on instagram, and read a reddit thread about it?
Her book proposal must've been printed on /very/ expensive paper.
posted by eraserbones at 10:32 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
Her book proposal must've been printed on /very/ expensive paper.
posted by eraserbones at 10:32 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
So what makes you a housewife?
As far as I can tell from observation, if you can't afford a nanny and cleaner you're a housewife, if you can you're an artist/volunteer.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:16 AM on April 11 [4 favorites]
As far as I can tell from observation, if you can't afford a nanny and cleaner you're a housewife, if you can you're an artist/volunteer.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:16 AM on April 11 [4 favorites]
I haven't read the book that she's reviewing, so I can't speak to the specifics of how this woman handles it, but I find myself deeply, deeply bristling at the review, because it is both deeply insulting to women who enjoy care labor in the home and also assumes that the way that American nuclear-family capitalism has suggested things operate is the way that they always must operate.
Being a 'housewife' in an alienated and unnatural nuclear-family structure is a very different thing than being a wife and a mother in an intergenerational household where you have essentially collective assistance with a lot of the tasks of daily living. And I find this aspect of the review particularly ludicrous:
Whether nuclear families are unnatural or not, really depends on where and when you look. It is not the case that it is unique to or even comes from the US. Large parts of Europe1 and other parts of the world have defined family units as primarily nuclear for many centuries. These were often also neolocal (new household does not live with either set of parents) although of course before widespread mobility, they would often still be living in very close physical proximity. Even where parents were old, no longer able to work, and did live with their children's families, there was usually still a very clear view that they were not part of the nuclear unit and at least in those parts of Germany with partible inheritance would traditionally eat separately from their children and their family and have a contract drawn up as to what their child's family owed them in terms of food, seat by the hearth etc. as part of transferring property to their child. In other words, even in circumstances where the house was multi-generational, the household / family unit was not necessarily.
What definitely is unnatural, and didn't last long historically, is a brief period of time where a large class of women didn't have to work outside of the home but labour saving devices was dropping the amount of work they had to do within it. As others have noted, Tradwife types fantasise about cooking elaborate meals for their families instead of doing wage labour, they don't fantasise about scrubbing their hands red-raw doing the laundry on a washboard.
(1) This used to be called the "Western European Marriage Pattern" but later work has made it clear that it was also pretty common in Eastern Europe as well as in some societies in East Asia, among nomadic societies around the world, and apart from the low countries and England where there is evidence of it in the middle ages, might just be associated with early industrialisation.
I'd agree with you corb, but then why isn't it widespread for men to have this fantasy of domestic life?
I guess the male equivalent of an fantasy economic system that is outside of wage-labour is the fantasy view of off-grid farming / hunting / survivalism? It sits in that same kind of place where you're willing to work, in fact much harder and for less than even quite a poor person in capitalist wage world, but you're not willing to work for a boss.
I think the key fantasy is around situations like the main couple in that Vikings show, or any number of depictions of lord/lady of the manor. So you would be married to a studly, high-status guy who works outside of the house, and you get to be the high-status, powerful woman with complete domination of the domestic sphere, including having a crew of servants and/or slaves who do the dirty work. And I agree, as a fantasy that is really close to monastic life, especially being the Mother Superior of a convent, where just like in the fantasy about being half of the ruling couple, you get to preside over a closed-off mini society and other people still do the cooking and cleaning.
In the fantasy world, they also assume (often implicitly) that despite women's lack of economic interface outside the household, full legal rights, or wealth of their own, they would still have the same relationship they currently have. So they get to not work outside the home, they imagine either just the modern world with all its timesaving energy and capital substitution for domestic labour, or being rich enough to have someone else do it but also still being equal.
This is of course ridiculous because:
a) Power shapes society. On average, women in a society where they have no economic power are not treated as equals!
b) It's quite reliant on the fantasy of how their husband will treat them. The moment the husband is not a great guy who somehow acts like he was raised in a society where women are equals even though in the fantasy they are not, they're stuffed because they are ultimately dependent on him.
What they want is not to be 1950s housewives, what they want is to not work but still have nice things. Which is just being rich. Hey, me too.
And what makes these women different from tradwives, other than secular liberalism vs religious conservatism?
A New Yorker subscription?
posted by atrazine at 2:13 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
Being a 'housewife' in an alienated and unnatural nuclear-family structure is a very different thing than being a wife and a mother in an intergenerational household where you have essentially collective assistance with a lot of the tasks of daily living. And I find this aspect of the review particularly ludicrous:
Whether nuclear families are unnatural or not, really depends on where and when you look. It is not the case that it is unique to or even comes from the US. Large parts of Europe1 and other parts of the world have defined family units as primarily nuclear for many centuries. These were often also neolocal (new household does not live with either set of parents) although of course before widespread mobility, they would often still be living in very close physical proximity. Even where parents were old, no longer able to work, and did live with their children's families, there was usually still a very clear view that they were not part of the nuclear unit and at least in those parts of Germany with partible inheritance would traditionally eat separately from their children and their family and have a contract drawn up as to what their child's family owed them in terms of food, seat by the hearth etc. as part of transferring property to their child. In other words, even in circumstances where the house was multi-generational, the household / family unit was not necessarily.
What definitely is unnatural, and didn't last long historically, is a brief period of time where a large class of women didn't have to work outside of the home but labour saving devices was dropping the amount of work they had to do within it. As others have noted, Tradwife types fantasise about cooking elaborate meals for their families instead of doing wage labour, they don't fantasise about scrubbing their hands red-raw doing the laundry on a washboard.
(1) This used to be called the "Western European Marriage Pattern" but later work has made it clear that it was also pretty common in Eastern Europe as well as in some societies in East Asia, among nomadic societies around the world, and apart from the low countries and England where there is evidence of it in the middle ages, might just be associated with early industrialisation.
I'd agree with you corb, but then why isn't it widespread for men to have this fantasy of domestic life?
I guess the male equivalent of an fantasy economic system that is outside of wage-labour is the fantasy view of off-grid farming / hunting / survivalism? It sits in that same kind of place where you're willing to work, in fact much harder and for less than even quite a poor person in capitalist wage world, but you're not willing to work for a boss.
I think the key fantasy is around situations like the main couple in that Vikings show, or any number of depictions of lord/lady of the manor. So you would be married to a studly, high-status guy who works outside of the house, and you get to be the high-status, powerful woman with complete domination of the domestic sphere, including having a crew of servants and/or slaves who do the dirty work. And I agree, as a fantasy that is really close to monastic life, especially being the Mother Superior of a convent, where just like in the fantasy about being half of the ruling couple, you get to preside over a closed-off mini society and other people still do the cooking and cleaning.
In the fantasy world, they also assume (often implicitly) that despite women's lack of economic interface outside the household, full legal rights, or wealth of their own, they would still have the same relationship they currently have. So they get to not work outside the home, they imagine either just the modern world with all its timesaving energy and capital substitution for domestic labour, or being rich enough to have someone else do it but also still being equal.
This is of course ridiculous because:
a) Power shapes society. On average, women in a society where they have no economic power are not treated as equals!
b) It's quite reliant on the fantasy of how their husband will treat them. The moment the husband is not a great guy who somehow acts like he was raised in a society where women are equals even though in the fantasy they are not, they're stuffed because they are ultimately dependent on him.
What they want is not to be 1950s housewives, what they want is to not work but still have nice things. Which is just being rich. Hey, me too.
And what makes these women different from tradwives, other than secular liberalism vs religious conservatism?
A New Yorker subscription?
posted by atrazine at 2:13 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
And what makes these women different from tradwives, other than secular liberalism vs religious conservatism?
This is a little silly, and I suspect coming from someone who knows much more about (and is annoyed much more by) these kind of women than about tradwives (or the actual housewives, historical or present-day, tradwives are cosplaying as). Tradwives, at least in theory, limit their activities and concerns to the domestic sphere. That's the whole, and scary, point. Working seriously as an artist, whether or not you get paid enough to live on, is the opposite of that. I think you're struggling towards "why do some women get to not work without being characterized in this way," but it's not actually about whether capitalism deems your work worthy of direct pay. Everyone could be on UBIs and they'd still be different.
posted by praemunire at 7:51 AM on April 11 [1 favorite]
This is a little silly, and I suspect coming from someone who knows much more about (and is annoyed much more by) these kind of women than about tradwives (or the actual housewives, historical or present-day, tradwives are cosplaying as). Tradwives, at least in theory, limit their activities and concerns to the domestic sphere. That's the whole, and scary, point. Working seriously as an artist, whether or not you get paid enough to live on, is the opposite of that. I think you're struggling towards "why do some women get to not work without being characterized in this way," but it's not actually about whether capitalism deems your work worthy of direct pay. Everyone could be on UBIs and they'd still be different.
posted by praemunire at 7:51 AM on April 11 [1 favorite]
I guess the male equivalent of an fantasy economic systemI was thinking about just this question, implied in the whole discussion. What does this look like for men, and indeed why don't any men want to be tradwives? When I asked myself why I didn't want it, I ran into a barrier of contempt and revulsion, just at the notion that I could be, which is usually a pointer towards some kind of revealing truth. Ahh, but this is the thing about tradwives isn't it; they're a gender-specific thing in terms of a domestic relationship as well as a macro economy. Trads are dependent, submissive, supplicant, unfree, owned and quasi-metaphorically 'property' in a way that simply doesn't have an equivalent for men, at least outside of a. what are obviously and identifiably sex-fetish practices, things done in private, and b. in the history of forced/unfree labour. It's one thing to be a tradwife and suffer the eyerolls. To be so submissive, in public, and male, just the idea is almost unspeakably shameful and taboo.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:23 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]
I'd agree with you corb, but then why isn't it widespread for men to have this fantasy of domestic life?
This really depends on where you are, I think! Again, I see this a lot with veterans who are able to access their 100% disability - many of them absolutely do this and are happy to do this, because we provide them a socially acceptable path to do this, wherein we call them "retired" and say that they have "already served their country" and "done their time" and now it's okay for them to do so. In the veteran community, there's absolutely this yearning for "when I get my hundred percent", and a lot of it is the functional equivalent of "I'm going to house husband so hard." Now whether they are *good* at it is another story, just as I suspect is the case with a lot of the "trad wives". But I think it's more a matter of being able to access a narrative which appears to be socially acceptable somewhere which still involves withdrawing from capitalism.
You also see these guys, as someone notes above, going off grid and using their money to make it not hard for them, or going out and living on sailboats, or hiking the Appalachian trail. But the commonality is really just withdrawing from the world which has become untenable for them.
praemunire's criticism about tradwives only doing the domestic sphere is a valid one, but again, I think this is because that's the model they're offered, and it's the only one they're offered. Nobody is offering them the opportunity to be at home withdrawn from capitalism and also to be a politically engaged person doing luncheons, because the people that they are around won't support that. If we want them to yearn for that, then we need to offer that as an option that seems plausible.
posted by corb at 6:54 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]
This really depends on where you are, I think! Again, I see this a lot with veterans who are able to access their 100% disability - many of them absolutely do this and are happy to do this, because we provide them a socially acceptable path to do this, wherein we call them "retired" and say that they have "already served their country" and "done their time" and now it's okay for them to do so. In the veteran community, there's absolutely this yearning for "when I get my hundred percent", and a lot of it is the functional equivalent of "I'm going to house husband so hard." Now whether they are *good* at it is another story, just as I suspect is the case with a lot of the "trad wives". But I think it's more a matter of being able to access a narrative which appears to be socially acceptable somewhere which still involves withdrawing from capitalism.
You also see these guys, as someone notes above, going off grid and using their money to make it not hard for them, or going out and living on sailboats, or hiking the Appalachian trail. But the commonality is really just withdrawing from the world which has become untenable for them.
praemunire's criticism about tradwives only doing the domestic sphere is a valid one, but again, I think this is because that's the model they're offered, and it's the only one they're offered. Nobody is offering them the opportunity to be at home withdrawn from capitalism and also to be a politically engaged person doing luncheons, because the people that they are around won't support that. If we want them to yearn for that, then we need to offer that as an option that seems plausible.
posted by corb at 6:54 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]
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“63 percent improved—something people who remember lobotomies only as a medical scandal often forget,”
I honestly thought we were at least a decade away from lobotomy revisionism. This century is going to be a wild, but strangely familiar, ride.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:30 PM on April 9 [10 favorites]