http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/magazine/14fob-wwln-t.html?scp=4&sq=gardening&st=cse
Femivores have salient points: one workplace does not fit all, domestic labor is expensive and valuable, and primary caretakers have greater incentive (and perhaps greater ability) to provide a high quality of life for their family than large corporations. Femivores provide necessary products and services that their family would otherwise need to buy, substituting their personal labor for the paycheck they would need to earn to buy necessary products.
I have to wonder whether this willing return to household employment is becoming socially acceptable (even hip) because we’re in a time of higher unemployment, strong valuation of (expensive) environmentally-friendly organic produce and products, and widespread internet communities that support disparate individuals with similar interests. Are femivores greenwashing their housework to legitimize their actions in the eyes of a politically-correct and often unsympathetic public? Is femivorism only possible in upper middle-class enclaves where one paycheck can pay the bills, making domestic work the new leisure activity of the bourgeois? And would men who are interested in being their family’s femivore gain an equal level of acceptance and support for their choice to stay at home and milk the cows?
I’d love to answer these questions myself, but I have a load of towels to fold.
I have mixed emotions on this. On the one hand, if these women truly enjoy this sort of backyard farming, then go for it. We (Americans in general) could stand to be more environmental, and these women are doing it. On the other hand, this kind of smacks of trendiness. I could see a bunch of Brookside mothers who shop exclusively at Whole Foods attempting this because it seems 'hip' and because they can already pay the bills and then some. It would be really hard for these women to make their households truly self-sufficient, and, while this may have some pluses, it seems more like a niche movement for the bourgeois.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to assume the role of the male chauvinist pig for a moment:
ReplyDeleteGo for it. You *should* take control of the domestic arena. You're good at it, and you have the ability to nurture and support your family better than a man does. Own that superiority!
...and stay in the kitchen!
I presume you're speaking in generalities, meaning the second person plural and referring to ladytypes. I think you, JonMarke, would toast me in a housework-childcare competition because of your extensive experience with several siblings and a chaotic household. "You're good at it" because of this practice, which I lack.
ReplyDeleteResponding to the implication: let the aptitude fit the crime. If the person can afford it on financial and social levels, they should be able to domestic-vore it up. Some people are good at nurturing and supporting their family, some are mediocre, and some are paying child support from a thousand miles away. I'm all for nurturing people taking charge of their families, and I think gendertyping someone's nurturing ability is unfair to those people who are really talented caretakers and domestic workers, but happen to be males. This presumption happens in court cases too - in custody hearings, mothers usually get custody of their small children rather than fathers, even if the father spent more time with the kids and played more of a role in their upbringing.
How much of this reputed woman's "ability to nurture and support your family better than a man does" is precisely _because_ women have traditionally stayed with the family rather than working? (Women required to stay at home spent more time nurturing and supporting their family, and became known for their performance of this role.) Correlation versus causation: if women had been working out of the household for thousands of years and men had been the domestic workers, this debate would probably be inverted.
Allow me to respond to the role of the male chauvinist pig for a moment:
(warning, NSFW)
http://www.xkcd.com/714/
(...what's disturbing is that my office is actually in the kitchen.)