Not everything is about a patriarchal conspiracy. The arrangement became commonplace for a reason. What you enjoy now is the product of centuries of “patriarchy.” Without men obsessing over technology without the worry of chores we may very well still be in the stone age. In a majority of cases women feel more inclined to tend to the children because they want to, not because of patriarchy. You may be an exception but that doesn’t mean the old system was “bad” or “wrong.” No system is perfect.
Without Ada Lovelace, we wouldn’t be typing this
I see the very lack of proper respect for SAHMs (and, by extension, also SAHDs) as a consequence of patriarchy, too. The jobs that have been traditionally done by women, such as childcare, are so often looked down on. It’s wrong and unfair.
I urge you to try and find a single post I have ever made in which I deprecated SAHMs.
Also, thank you for the typical feminist insult to us stay at home moms that we are not intellectual. I guess since your husband stays at home you don’t see him as an intellectual. That’s the ugly face of feminism. Backhanded insults to justify the female ego. Few stay at home moms isolate themselves to contact with the kids only. Who do you think does all the school trip chaperoning and PTA stuff? Whose driving YOUR kids around because you are too busy? Who do you think is researching / making phone calls about family financial planning etc? Whose learning about nutrition / health issues so the family stays well? Yeah us “unintellectual” SAHMs!
Wow. First, I apologize for using “stimulation” where I actually wanted to use “stimulating interaction.” I used “intellectual” in the sense of “pertaining to the intellect,” not as a value judgment.
Some humans need to talk to other humans about subjects that interest them intellectually. Others don’t and prefer to, say, read and write in private. This has much less to do with one’s level of intellectual competence than it does with personality traits such as extroversion/introversion. One of my most brilliant male friends tends to see other people only once a week or even once a month, for example. He does not need intellectual interaction with others, as he prefers to work on his own.
My husband is an introvert and enjoys spending time at home. It certainly does not mean he’s “not an intellectual.”
My job allows me to spend several hours every week discussing issues that greatly interest me with other people. As an extrovert, I find this stimulating and re-energizing.
Let’s put the shoe on the other foot: I could say “thank you for the typical SAHM insult to us working moms that someone else is driving OUR kids around and caring for them because WE’RE too busy for them,” but only to show how stereotypes hurt people, including SAHM/WOHM stereotypes. I will only say that your stereotyping of me and my family life is not a good representation of our reality.
I dabbled with a little feminism in college and those girls were anything but respecting of men. Men don’t need feminism to be respected. No guy I have met feels feminism did him any good. If I was still a feminist I wouldn’t be married to my husband. In fact feminism does quite the opposite and today’s brand of feminism makes sacraments out abortion and contraception. I think its naive to use that label and think it has any good motives behind it.
Feminism, according to most dictionaries, means “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” Why wouldn’t one be a feminist?
Every label, especially a label that has been around for a while, has different ideas and different humans holding these ideas under its umbrella.
The Westboro Baptist Church, for instance, labels itself “Christian”
A voice of reason.