#WarOnWomen: Self-loathing “feminists” continue war on stay at home moms
Ah, yes – another “authentic feminist” (author Elizabeth Wurtzel) preaching to stay at home moms, especially those so-called “1% moms”, what “REAL feminism” is (bolded emphasis added by me):
Failing as a feminist is a unique problem of the wealthy, but consequences impact women all the way down the line. It happens that most women — and men — are living feminist lives because of economic necessity, whether they mean to or not. Most families are kind of like Sarah Palin’s was before she made her pit-bull star turn: lots of kids and both mom and dad have to bring in what money they can. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2011 nearly 71 percent of women with children under 18 worked. Most mothers have jobs because they need or want the money and fulfillment; only in rare cases are they driven by glory. To be a stay-at-home mom is a privilege, and most of the housewives I have ever met — none of whom do anything around the house — live in New York City and Los Angeles, far from Peoria. Only in these major metropolises are there the kinds of jobs in finance and entertainment that allow for a family to live luxe on a single income. In any case, having forgotten everything but the lotus position, these women are the reason their husbands think all women are dumb, and I don’t blame them. As it happens, fewer than 5 percent of the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, 16 percent of corporate executives, and 17 percent of law partners are female. The men, the husbands of the 1 percent, are on trading floors or in office complexes with other men all day, and to the extent that they see anyone who isn’t male it’s pretty much just secretaries and assistants. And they go home to…whatever. What are they supposed to think? They pay gargantuan American Express bills and don’t know why or what for. Then they give money to Mitt Romney.
Seriously: Did Romney actually tell his wife that her job was more important than his? So condescending. If he thought that, he’d be doing it. Being a rich mom — even with five sons, bless her heart — is not even sort of a job. Housekeepers there, servants there: it’s not just that being a wealthy wife is not work in the way that being a corporate litigator or a corporal in the Army is work, it’s that it doesn’t even involve picking up Lego pieces and putting away GI Joe dolls or much of any of the stuff that makes being a mom a job.
Hilary Rosen would not have been so quick to be so super sorry for saying that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life if we weren’t all made more than a wee bit nervous by our own biases, which is that being a mother isn’t really work. Yes, of course, it’s something — actually, it’s something almost every woman at some time does, some brilliantly and some brutishly and most in the boring middle of making okay meals and decent kid conversation. But let’s face it: It is not a selective position. A job that anyone can have is not a job, it’s a part of life, no matter how important people insist it is (all the insisting is itself overcompensation). Even moms with full-time jobs spend 86 percent as much time with their kids as unemployed mothers, so it is apparently taking up the time of about 14 percent of a paid position. And all the cultish glorification of home and hearth still leaves us in a world where most of the people paid to chef and chauffeur in the commercial world are men. Which is to say, something becomes a job when you are paid for it — and until then, it’s just a part of life.
What this (obviously envious) witch fails to consider is that, “rich” or not, most stay at home moms are there because they WANT to be there – not because they’re being forced to be there by “the patriarchy.” And furthermore, most find being able to stay at home and raise your children to be the most rewarding job there is. Not only that, but if the author would get out of her seemingly “rich” environment of LA and NYC -where she no doubt has encountered many a rich liberal mother who meets her definition of “stay at home mom” (that is – leaving kids to be raised by their nannies while they themselves are out getting mani/pedis and playing tennis) – she’d see what the average life of a stay at home mom, whether they have a nanny or not, is really like.
The writer really is a ball of idiotic contradictions, though – think about it: She spills her scorn all over “1% SAHMs” for “not having a real job’ because they “hire nannies” to do their work. And even those SAHMs who are at home, she implies, aren’t really working because it’s a lifestyle choice and nothing more. REAL feminism, she asserts, comes from economic equality – the translation, of course, being that a woman actively being out there in the working world earning a top dollar living is THE definition of feminism. But what she doesn’t mention in her breathless rant is the fact that many of the women who are out there in the working world earning that top dollar have to hire nannies or daycare to take care of their children so they can stay out there being “real feminists”, because dad isn’t home, either – he’s also out there earning a living.
At some point, even the so-called “pampered” stay at home moms who are out getting those mani/pedis end up spending quality time with their children. On the other hand, being out there in the working world trying to be a “real feminist” as promoted by the author makes it that much harder to do because you often come home emotionally and physically drained from work, but most working mothers are like most stay at home moms in doing the best they can at motherhood – and I am in no position (nor do I want to be) to judge the choices these moms have made to work inside or outside of the home. Some work outside of the home because they have to. Others, because they want to. They made those choices, and I respect them for it – because being able to make your own choices in life when it comes to home, family, and work, and to be viewed as a valuable and EQUAL member of the community without being ridiculed by a stereotypical society that sees only one chief “role” for women ultimately is what first wave feminists fought for.
“Feminists” who claim to know what “real feminism” is are so amusing, aren’t they? Over the last several decades (especially since the late 60s), they’ve turned into that which they abhor: they no longer fight for simple “equality” – they fight for dominance and superiority over the “patriarchy” because “stupid men have ruined the world.” They preach that society shouldn’t be judgmental of “women’s choices”, but that’s exactly what they themselves do (Wurtzel is a classic case in point) when a woman makes a choice they don’t like (such as keeping her baby, deciding to be a SAHM, etc). And the ultimate flip off to first wave feminism is to have modern “feminists” who are supposedly champions of “limitless roles” for women (in contrast to the primary role of the old days being a homemaker) do the very role limiting they claim to be against by suggesting that the only equality is “economic” equality, which translates into: get off your a**es, put away your bon bons, get out there into the workforce or else you’re not a real woman/feminist.
Never, ever let liberal “feminists” fool you into believing they are all about “freedom of choice” and “respecting women from all walks of life.” Their “freedom of choice” is entirely subjective, which is not really freedom at all. And as far as that “respecting women” goes? Well, Wurtzel demonstrates the deeply false nature of that claim much better than I could ever possibly explain.