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When I first heard about feminist housewives, my first impression was positive. Finally these women are gaining independence and thinking for themselves. But that attitude just showed my ignorance of what being a housewife or homemaker is all about. My personal, anecdotal experience with so called feminist housewives within my own small circle of family and friends has been somewhat annoying, while giving me new respect for the role of the traditional homemaker. I know my experience may not be representative of feminist housewives, but this is why I'm annoyed. The feminist housewives that I know use the words of the prophets and other church leaders as justification for why they should not work outside the home, while using feminism as justification for why they shouldn't do housework. So the end result is a woman who spends most of her day on Facebook, and then complains that her husband doesn't get the kids ready for school, doesn't help her clean the house when he gets home from work, and doesn't make dinner. And I'm not complaining about my wife, because she works part-time in addition to getting the kids off to school, picking them up, etc, so I don't expect her to also do all the housework. I hate to paint all the feminist housewives with a broad brush. Maybe I'm just getting older and more conservative, but if a woman wants to be independent, and have a career, and both partners work, then of course they need to share in maintaining the house, but if the woman wants to stay home and be a homemaker, then that is her job. Be proud of it. You can still be a feminist and a homemaker. There is nothing demeaning about housework, cooking, and taking care of kids. It's an important job that needs to be done by someone. And of course if the husband isn't working and the wife is, I would expect the same from him.

Time magazine recently had an article about how much time men and women work, counting both paid work and work in the home. Overall men and women work close to the same amount if I remember right the difference was a matter of minutes. The only exception was in families with SAHM's, in these cases men were working more.

café crema wrote:Time magazine recently had an article about how much time men and women work, counting both paid work and work in the home. Overall men and women work close to the same amount if I remember right the difference was a matter of minutes. The only exception was in families with SAHM's, in these cases men were working more.

How can this be possible, when a SAHM is on duty 24/7?

And I agree with darkhelmet. I'd take it further though: if the woman isn't doing her job as a SAHM, then she's not a feminist. She's a leech.

harmony wrote:

café crema wrote:Time magazine recently had an article about how much time men and women work, counting both paid work and work in the home. Overall men and women work close to the same amount if I remember right the difference was a matter of minutes. The only exception was in families with SAHM's, in these cases men were working more.

How can this be possible, when a SAHM is on duty 24/7?

And I agree with darkhelmet. I'd take it further though: if the woman isn't doing her job as a SAHM, then she's not a feminist. She's a leech.

I think it's because the dads in these families take on work at home so they are 24/7 too, and that once all the children are school age SAHM's can make time during school for "not work". There was a lot more in the article, (I read it in line at the store, at the kids dentist and doctors offices) the quality of leisure time was one. The article said women's leisure time activities often includes children making it less of a "get away" than men's leisure time. It was an interesting article.

café crema wrote:I think it's because the dads in these families take on work at home so they are 24/7 too, and that once all the children are school age SAHM's can make time during school for "not work". There was a lot more in the article, (I read it in line at the store, at the kids dentist and doctors offices) the quality of leisure time was one. The article said women's leisure time activities often includes children making it less of a "get away" than men's leisure time. It was an interesting article.

I'm sure there are dads that work 24/7. The men in my world are farmers, and yes, they work 16 hour days for 9 months of the year, but they do virtually nothing when they're at home but recover from their farming. SAHMs here are on duty, even if she's getting a pedicure (which, incidently, I never had as a SAHM... didn't even know there was such a thing). She's the mom; she's the one the school calls when the kid is sick or in trouble; she's the one who thinks grocery shopping with the hubby is a date; she's the one who takes at least 2 kids with her everywhere she goes (this is my experience as a SAHM of 8 kids for 18 years... when my youngest started school, I went back to college, got my degrees, and have had a career for 17 years. Helluva lot easier to be a career woman, even in a job that requires the amount of time and dedication that mine does, than it was to be a SAHM and a whole helluva lot less boring). So pardon me if I don't buy this.

harmony wrote:

café crema wrote:I think it's because the dads in these families take on work at home so they are 24/7 too, and that once all the children are school age SAHM's can make time during school for "not work". There was a lot more in the article, (I read it in line at the store, at the kids dentist and doctors offices) the quality of leisure time was one. The article said women's leisure time activities often includes children making it less of a "get away" than men's leisure time. It was an interesting article.

I'm sure there are dads that work 24/7. The men in my world are farmers, and yes, they work 16 hour days for 9 months of the year, but they do virtually nothing when they're at home but recover from their farming. SAHMs here are on duty, even if she's getting a pedicure (which, incidently, I never had as a SAHM... didn't even know there was such a thing). She's the mom; she's the one the school calls when the kid is sick or in trouble; she's the one who thinks grocery shopping with the hubby is a date; she's the one who takes at least 2 kids with her everywhere she goes (this is my experience as a SAHM of 8 kids for 18 years... when my youngest started school, I went back to college, got my degrees, and have had a career for 17 years. Helluva lot easier to be a career woman, even in a job that requires the amount of time and dedication that mine does, than it was to be a SAHM and a whole helluva lot less boring). So pardon me if I don't buy this.

Don't care if you buy into it or not, it was just something I read I thought the OP might find interesting.
I will say though that while your experience may have been the norm when and where you lived, it bears little resemblance to the suburban SAHM's I know. In my experience fathers with stay at home wives do come home from work and start in on household work, primarily child care tasks. The fathers I know with SAHM's come home and start working on meals and homework so both parents can get the kids and their equipment into the car and move on to the various activities they want their children to experience. As a matter of fact the families with SAHM's are the busiest families since these are the families with heavy commitments to their children's many activities and the dads are just as busy in the evenings as the moms. But that of course is just my experience in my time and place.

Incidentally, I've never had a pedicure, not as a single working woman, not as a DINK, not as a working mother or as a SAHM but then I was always weirded out by the whole foot washing thing at church.

café crema wrote:Don't care if you buy into it or not, it was just something I read I thought the OP might find interesting.
I will say though that while your experience may have been the norm when and where you lived, it bears little resemblance to the suburban SAHM's I know. In my experience fathers with stay at home wives do come home from work and start in on household work, primarily child care tasks. The fathers I know with SAHM's come home and start working on meals and homework so both parents can get the kids and their equipment into the car and move on to the various activities they want their children to experience. As a matter of fact the families with SAHM's are the busiest families since these are the families with heavy commitments to their children's many activities and the dads are just as busy in the evenings as the moms. But that of course is just my experience in my time and place.

Suburban SAHMs must be different from the rural ones I know. Dads may help with homework, but they don't cook dinner and they don't change diapers (much) here.

harmony wrote:

café crema wrote:Don't care if you buy into it or not, it was just something I read I thought the OP might find interesting.
I will say though that while your experience may have been the norm when and where you lived, it bears little resemblance to the suburban SAHM's I know. In my experience fathers with stay at home wives do come home from work and start in on household work, primarily child care tasks. The fathers I know with SAHM's come home and start working on meals and homework so both parents can get the kids and their equipment into the car and move on to the various activities they want their children to experience. As a matter of fact the families with SAHM's are the busiest families since these are the families with heavy commitments to their children's many activities and the dads are just as busy in the evenings as the moms. But that of course is just my experience in my time and place.

Suburban SAHMs must be different from the rural ones I know. Dads may help with homework, but they don't cook dinner and they don't change diapers (much) here.

While everyone will avoid diapers given the chance, around here you are just as likely to hear recipes, the best method to cook whatever and, what's the best cooking/kitchen equipment from a dad as you are a mom. As for homework it is de rigueur for both parents to be involved in homework, this is an area where we are extreme slackers. My kids do their homework and tell one of us it's done then hand over the assignment notebook to be signed. We sign it and hand it back we don't ask for the work to check if and how well it's done, just take their word for it. If the kids want us to look at something they've done or if they have a question then we'll have a look otherwise the assumption is they can handle it and we don't have to look at it.

And here again it's the beginning of August and my children have not read the books required over the summer or done the math packets they have to turn in on the first day of school. I haven't read the books and discussed them with the kids or checked the math packets to see that they are done and correct, and even the husbands of the stay at home wives (I see just about everyone at work at the PD during the summer) are somewhat appalled at my lackadaisical attitude, since they have all read the book, talked about it and seen the math packet. Did I mention I haven't even seen the math packet?

I think you are right the suburban SAHM's are different than the rural ones in you world, I also think they are different from the SAHM's of an earlier time. I read A Nation of Wimps and was amazed at the level of involvement of parents in children's lives, most of the women in this book (if I remember right) are SAHM's and most SAHM's in my area lean more to this kind of parenting, and it requires a lot of time and effort from the dads.