Radical Homemaking Week: (1) Beyond Housewives and Feminism
Welcome to Radical Homemaking week here at Dreaming Aloud! For an introduction to the Radical Homemakers book see here…
I have nothing against housewives: I just never intended to be one. For good reason: I am a TERRIBLE housewife (see here and here). I cultivate cobwebs and laundry mountains in my home with as great success as the courgettes and coriander I grow in my garden. I try to breathe mindfully whilst I do “my duties”, rather than fuming against my family, my husband and biology. I would not class my domestic skills (except cooking) anywhere in my top twenty of “things I’m good at”. They don’t come naturally. I don’t enjoy them. In fact, often I feel like I would rather gnaw off my own arm than empty the dishwasher or tidy the toys for the umpteenth time today.
A brief history of housewives
Housewives, argue Hayes in Radical Homemakers, are an aberration of our consumer culture. According to her“the household did not become the ‘woman’s sphere’ until the industrial revolution.” Housewife and husband were related terms. Husband meaning bonded to his own house, rather than to a lord. In the past men and women shared a home based life with a division of labour according to tradition and skills passed down over generations. Men doing leather work, chopping wood, butchering animals, threshing, fire making, woodworking. Women would play their part childrearing, cooking, preserving, tending kitchen gardens, healing. Domestic work was valued, requiring skill, creativity and ingenuity, and was satisfying. But economics changed this, first drawing men, then women out of the home. No longer would home be a place of family, food production, education, work and leisure – instead all of these functions were externalised, and bought, requiring money, and thus further work outside the home, and round the circle goes.
Friedan details ‘housewife syndrome’ thus: ‘“American girls grew up fanticising about finding husbands, buying their dream homes and dream appliances, popping out babies and living happily-ever-after.” In truth, pointed out Freidan, happily-ever-after never came.’
She documented the loss of potential, the depression, boredom and bewilderment of post-war American housewives, and spoke of ‘the problem that has no name’. Her words hit the American psyche deep, helping to spark the second wave of feminism in the 70s, and sending women out to work, and away from their homes, in droves.
“Before long, the second family income was no longer an option. In the minds of many it was a necessity. Homemaking, like eating organic foods, seemed a luxury to be enjoyed only by those wives whose husbands garnered substantial earnings…At the other extreme homemaking was seen as the realm of the ultra-subjugated, where women accepted the role of servants to their husbands and children….” (Radical Homemakers)
I remember clearly reading The Feminine Mystique at university, as part of my self appointed women’s studies. I may have been studying a degree, but also found myself doing far more than my fair share of housework. My head may have been full of feminist furore, but my heart was heavy with the knowledge that my ovarian ownership meant that our culture would expect the domestic sphere to be mine, especially if I were to ‘opt’ (for me it is not a choice, but a pre-requisite) to ‘stay home’ (it’s WORK people, just not paid!) with my children for their early years. I had put so much of my time and being into attaining top academic achievements through to graduate level, I was not prepared to give up my creativity or life of the mind to keep house. Nor was I prepared to sacrifice my deep soul need for a homemade home and loved family and kitchen garden for a glittering career and loadsa money.
Like this? Then you might also like…
Book Review
Part Two – Value beyond Money
Part Three – Dispelling the Myth of Self Sufficiency
Part Four – Niggling Issues
Call Yourself a Feminist?
Material Memory: Women and Quilting
Mothers Meeting: Women’s Sacred Circles
Hey anon, that sounds SHIT! Really SHIT! It doesn’t sound like the situation is OK with you…so take action…If I were you I’d be having BIG conversations right now, about money, work, and where your energy is going and how things can change. Thinking of you, whoever you are! Go well x
I just started reading this book, and I came across your post on a google search. You sound just like me in the facts of cringing from housework at the same time aspiring to be more sustainable in my living practices. I just wanted to say thank you, since I appreciate hearing from people who have similar struggles.
I’ve been reading essays in Feminist Mothering along with a great new blog called Maternalselves, and in both of these the theme of the false separation of the public and private spheres keeps coming up. I’m fascinated by the historical perspective on the construction of this separation offered by Radical Homemaking. Having studied early American history in college with feminist scholar Nancy Cott, I’ve long been aware that current ideas about women, men, work, the economy of the home, and what’s *natural* are completely ahistorical and bogus.
Thanks for the book review! I’ve seen references to this book before, and now it’s on the to-read list.
P.S., I’m going to be quoting a few sentences from this post in the post I’m writing for the upcoming Thursday. I’ll be giving credit and linking back, of course!
Thanks for the resources Rachael, they sound too clever for my currently still slightly fuzzy mama brain, but will follow them up at a later date.