Recently, an article in the liberal/feminist themed 'zine Jezebel surfaced on their website, indicating the fundamental difference between the statuses of feminist and housewife in response to an article in New York Magazine. In this story, two women who professed formerly satisfying personal careers in activism and social work are articulated as liberated in their choice to be stay-at-home moms. While many mothers choose to put their jobs on hold in order to rear children, the article flat out fibs that this choice is a trend for young American women. In fact, the more trending family adjustment is for men to take on the role of domestic manager and to become house husbands.
What's troublesome about the original article is that it touts postfeminist rhetoric and the liberation of the modern woman as being fulfilled within the domestic space. Now that women can have careers, they can also actively choose domestic life. What's troublesome about the Jezebel piece is that it scoffs at the very notion of the blending of feminist identity and housewifery, therefore alienating both housewives and feminist housewives from more mainstream liberal feminist rhetoric. The false dichotomy of feminism and homemakers as opposing creates regression for feminism, ignoring the role of the housewife as head of labor production from socialist and industrial or working class feminist perspectives. Intersectionally, this separation causes the erasure of many women's experiences.
In Amy Swerdlow's Women Strike for Peace, it is that precise blending of feminism (through the onset of radical individualism, not liberal feminism) and traditionally feminine roles of housewives and mothers that made the WSP movement as widespread and successful as it was. Like Clara Lemlich in Common Sense, the radicalization over time of motherhood and the appeal of the peace movement to mothers nationwide lead to a powerful resistance movement that included boycotts, successful evading of the Red Hunt/House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and deliberate rejection of female assimilationist (liberal) feminism. The WSP movement was based in deliberately feminine tactics as a protest to the brand of masculinized war-mongering capitalist patriotism that young American boys were raised on at the time.
The direct challenge WSP placed towards liberal feminism, the most recognized form at the time of patriarchal resistance, was to value more highly traditional femininity. In seeking equality with men, second-wave feminism alienated housewives by allowing internalized misogyny to proclaim that housewifery isn't enough for women to be fulfilled and so therefore is valueless. The reaction of WSP was to form a distinct discursive "women's culture" movement, operated in a non-hierarchal grassroots manner and geared towards a less radical, more common purpose of peace. Inciting and revaluing their roles as mothers, creators of life, and rearers of the future, women like Dagmar Wilson and Gerda Lerner, as stated here, created networks in which "the ground upon which women stand in their resistance to patriarchy and their assertion of their own creativity in shaping society, in other words, the ways in which women, as a group, have historically re-defined and recast male-imposed roles and tasks on their own terms and from their own vantage point"(234).
This reclaiming of feminine space and asserting its crucial importance, not just to peace, but to child-rearing and the betterment of society overall, was coded more subtly in the beginnings of the movement. It became clear, however, after the WSP's evasion of HUAC condemnations (116, 117), that their specific brand of radical individualism and the empowered feminist housewife spoke volumes in public spaces. The WSP movement rejects the binary that the Jezebel and New York mag places before us today, and we must remember the critical importance of housewifery in feminist discourse and calls to action. Housewives aren't liberated by anything other than the agency afforded by personal choice. The reason the WSP movement was so widespread, so appealing to so many, was that rather than invalidate the middle class white housewife the way the Feminine Mystique did, the movement revalued the role of the housewife and mother as stewards of culture and the nation's well-being.
Swerdlow addresses these tensions, as well as the effectiveness of "self-marginalizing" (234) feminized political tactics. The successful appropriation of femininity into the WSPers' personal politics is what she sites as the source of the movement's original success. Combined with the economic mobility afforded to them by their class status, the WSP ladies were able to combine direct action with indirect, using petitions to their congressmen and eventually Lobby by Proxy to demand disarmament (85) but also my staging a proactive, "feminized" educational campaign that involved a wildly successful boycott of milk (80). These combined with many more acts, revolutionized the role mothers played in political and public spheres and led to many reforms by congress in education and the prolonging of war.
So yes, I believe it's possible, if not just plain common sense, to be a feminist housewife. The WSP activists realized this and harnessed the power of the housewife as the head of child-rearing and familial consumption. By empowering women through their originally male-assigned roles, the WSP ladies reached new heights and made revolutionary strides towards a more feminine inclusive public American culture.
I agree with your assertion that Swerdlow does an applaudable job of showing the nuanced, logical, and conscious mobilization of housewifery as a specific tool of the movement, which served feminist aims. So, yes, these women were feminist housewives. I'm wondering, too, if women are even more poised as mothers to implement feminist aims in childrearing itself. It seems that Swerdlow implies that the contours of WSP women's mothering changed as a result of their involvement in the movement, not only in their being active in public space but also in their talk of the movement within their own home. It seems these women changed the ways in which they were raising their children simply by being part of the movement and modeling this usage of mothering as political and activist tool. Thus, I think feminist housewives/mothers are particularly poised to raise their children using feminist ideals and have the agency, the smarts, and the "feminine" caring and compassion to impact future generations through home/domestic life. Annie, do you see this as a possibility? Since you mentioned the Jezebel article, are there other articles out there that hail housewifery in feminist ways?
ReplyDeleteLook folks I understand you take pride on your anti kitchen status but that isn't gonna help us ANY when Martians decide to create human farms, with the express purpose of creating more Humans to help feed their children.
ReplyDeleteThere is a devil hiding somewhere in my mouth, but you don't know where.