I had a discussion with a friend a while back about how truly intelligent women could be religious but would generally not want to fall under any organized religion. They could identify as part of that organized religion, but if they actually followed it, it meant they had no real interest in being intelligent. Any truly intelligent woman will be mad about the position most organized religions give her in the world.
For example, a degree in homemaking. Because gosh darn it, if you’re not popping out a man’s babies, you’ll be sewing his clothes and making the family dinner by the time your husband gets home from his oh-so-hard day in the real world.
I think it’s important to understand that I come at this issue from the position of someone who was largely raised by a stay-at-home mom. Most of my aunts are or have been stay-at-home moms. My mother attended some college classes while we were in school and worked some while we were in school, too, but she was usually at home. When she wasn’t taking care of household matters like laundry, finances, groceries, insurance, etc, she was there to engage us in discussion, to supervise us having friends over, to drive us home from after-school activities, and to help us with our homework.
My mother turned out some pretty okay kids, if I can flatter myself, because she was there to listen to us, not because she was there to sew our clothes and make us dinner. We could make our own dinners and sew our own clothes, all of us, boy or girl. And, had my dad been the one at home, he would have been just as useful as my mother. The problem isn’t that the womenz aren’t staying home – it’s that no one is, because we can’t afford to. That’s a problem with our society, and not one that’s fixed as easily as offering some new courses at your local college.
I will never belittle the work that anyone – man or woman - undertakes while they’re at home. Home-making is hard work. It demands good financial sense (working out budgets, paying bills), creativity, time, energy and a great deal of emotional involvement. You can’t just leave your job at the end of the day and drive home and step inside your house and feel relieved.
But any group that organizes itself around a woman staying home and bending to the will of her husband is a group that does not truly value the work that goes in to making a home and raising children. It’s a group that no self-respecting woman would choose to be a part of.
K.
The contents of this blog may not reflect the views of the Webmaster of Doom, Michael.
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