“Second wave feminism was initially focused on the boredom and isolation experienced by middle and upper-middle class stay at home mothers” --> I wonder how much this was also a response to geographic mobility and technology. In earlier societies, people moved around less. They were more socially connected, with all of their childhood friends nearby. Thus, stay at home mothers likely spent much more time with friends. Hence, less boredom. Also, without modern technology, house work was much more taxing: washing clothes was not a 2 second chore of pressing a button, but a 45-minute chore of hand washing. Hence, less boredom.
However, in my opinion, the feminist movement is BEST explained by the rising value of intellectual labor with technology. With the rise of automation, the most valuable jobs became jobs which involved thinking (rather than physical labor), something men and women are equally good at. Thus, the culture evolved toward that which maximized productivity: having both genders work.
Yes, I think the increased mobility likely contributed to that isolation as well.
You're right that the opportunity cost to women staying out of the labor market increased as a higher percentage of well compensated jobs became either "thinking oriented" or "service oriented". I'm definitely not against women working and there are lots of highly productive ambitious women that wouldn't be satisfied staying home with kids who we want to contribute economically. But some women are most satisfied staying home with kids and that choice should be respected. I think most women I know would ideally take several years off of working while they have young kids (or at least work less) and then return at some point.
Agree that choice is ideal. Unfortunately, I think people are quite status oriented. And status is zero sum: if someone is high, another must be low. The cultural shift which drove women to work branded working as high status and empowered (in liberal areas, at least). This inevitably branded non-working women as low status and unempowered. Thus, I think it is quite difficult to achieve a culture which encourages and celebrates female labor while not denigrating its inverse (stay-at-home moms).
I agree feminism is not just about increasing female status because of low status of domestic work. It was also, as you say, about the fact that many women simply do not want to be SAHMs and have other interests/desire freedom. But feminism was also about very basic things like women not having equal rights. In terms of control over their financials or even their bodies (marital rape was not punishable by law until recently). One has to wonder why women, despite performing their womanly duties, did not get granted these rights until feminism (which also challenged heteronormativity) came along! If domestic work was equally valued then I would have expected women to be constrained yes, but at least have equal rights given that they were performing the duties assigned to them.
I tend to agree that today women, even if they choose to be SAHMs have equal rights to men in the West. But that's largely due to feminism. And if women suddenly all dropped out of the workforce and we had no representation in the public sphere I think these rights would slowly get eroded again.
I’d also add that coming from a country where motherhood is largely celebrated and there isn’t a lot of late stage feminist rhetoric, the highest status women are still the ones who are professionally successful so to me it seems like there is an intrinsic relationship between being active in the public sphere and status
I agree that women had less rights in general (beyond just voting rights) before feminism, and you give some important examples. I do think you’re right to point out that women need some sort of public voice if they’re going to maintain the rights that they’ve gained (largely as a result of feminist activism). But I don’t think that voice has to come about through equal participation in the economic sphere. In fact, I think this is precisely why we need a continuing feminist movement in the west, despite the fact that women have, for the most part, gained equal rights to men here. I think there are average sex differences which will make it very difficult to get fully equal representation of women in the economic sphere. I also think these differences mean that men will fail to adequately represent women politically without a feminist movement. However, I think that feminist movement needs to represent the needs and desires of the “typical” gender conforming woman and that currently, it’s too focused on representing gender non conformers only. Supporting women who want to engage in high level careers and questioning heteronormativity are important issues that feminists need to continue to represent. But liberal feminists need to do a better job of also representing the needs of mothers and respecting their role in society. Right now the only women who are talking seriously about the needs of mothers are on the right and tend to support solutions that I find regressive and which don’t adequately appreciate the importance of the freedoms that feminist activism has worked so hard for. I think liberal feminists should not leave that niche to the right!
makes sense. I do not think there needs to be "equal representation". There is a spectrum between SAHM and CEO, which I think a lot of women can occupy. I am just saying that if all women were to become SAHMs then these rights would be rolled back.
I definitely think you’re right about that. But I don’t fear that outcome so long as we maintain the liberal values that allow women to have choice. There’s sufficient heterogeneity among women that many will want to engage in the economic sphere and some will want to engage at a very high level. Even most women I know who want to stay home with their young kids don’t want to do so forever. But the importance of protecting those liberal values is why I’m concerned about the rise of the trad feminist and think liberal feminists need to do a better job of modeling what the average woman, which includes mothers, cares about.
yeah, I agree. I think women's heterogeneity + the fact that domestic work is harder to assign to status + the fact that the kind of women who are educated etc and have a larger voice tend to be more career orientated makes having a consistent movement hard. Compare to men who all seem to be on the same scale hah
I agree. Many liberal feminists speak about stay-at-home mothers with a sort of disgust -- as if they are the instantiation of all which is holding back feminist progress. Yet this is quite contra the initial message of feminism, which was about CHOICE for women.
Or they speak about them with pity. It's driven by a combination of internalized misogyny and a feeling of betrayal. With slut shaming, a woman is shamed for being promiscuous because it lowers the value of sex for all women. And in an analogous way the stay at home mom, by choosing to find her meaning through her family, betrays pop-feminism which insists that all women primarily want to find meaning through developing themself and/or their career.
"With slut shaming, a woman is shamed for being promiscuous because it lowers the value of sex for all women" --> a very spot on point. I think the deepest evolved motives behind slut shaming are the following: when the supply of sex is increased, men are less willing to settle down with one woman, and thus, this threatens women's abilities to achieve a stable and protective relationship. Of course, now that we live in cities of millions of people, one person sleeping around does virtually zero to your odds of finding a reliable husband. Yet, the evolved instinct is still deeply ingrained.
I wonder too how much the "pity" is disguised envy. Many women I know who denigrate stay-at-home moms endure a lot of career stress. They must rationalize their decision to work rather than prioritize family to themselves (as no one wants to believe they've lived their life wrong). Thus, in their minds, they cast the stay-at-home mom as a revolting and evil creature. And so, they can feel content in not being one. In short: this demonization of the stay-at-home mom is all in order to suppress the nagging fear that maybe the stay-at-home mom life is preferable.
“Second wave feminism was initially focused on the boredom and isolation experienced by middle and upper-middle class stay at home mothers” --> I wonder how much this was also a response to geographic mobility and technology. In earlier societies, people moved around less. They were more socially connected, with all of their childhood friends nearby. Thus, stay at home mothers likely spent much more time with friends. Hence, less boredom. Also, without modern technology, house work was much more taxing: washing clothes was not a 2 second chore of pressing a button, but a 45-minute chore of hand washing. Hence, less boredom.
However, in my opinion, the feminist movement is BEST explained by the rising value of intellectual labor with technology. With the rise of automation, the most valuable jobs became jobs which involved thinking (rather than physical labor), something men and women are equally good at. Thus, the culture evolved toward that which maximized productivity: having both genders work.
Yes, I think the increased mobility likely contributed to that isolation as well.
You're right that the opportunity cost to women staying out of the labor market increased as a higher percentage of well compensated jobs became either "thinking oriented" or "service oriented". I'm definitely not against women working and there are lots of highly productive ambitious women that wouldn't be satisfied staying home with kids who we want to contribute economically. But some women are most satisfied staying home with kids and that choice should be respected. I think most women I know would ideally take several years off of working while they have young kids (or at least work less) and then return at some point.
Agree that choice is ideal. Unfortunately, I think people are quite status oriented. And status is zero sum: if someone is high, another must be low. The cultural shift which drove women to work branded working as high status and empowered (in liberal areas, at least). This inevitably branded non-working women as low status and unempowered. Thus, I think it is quite difficult to achieve a culture which encourages and celebrates female labor while not denigrating its inverse (stay-at-home moms).
I agree feminism is not just about increasing female status because of low status of domestic work. It was also, as you say, about the fact that many women simply do not want to be SAHMs and have other interests/desire freedom. But feminism was also about very basic things like women not having equal rights. In terms of control over their financials or even their bodies (marital rape was not punishable by law until recently). One has to wonder why women, despite performing their womanly duties, did not get granted these rights until feminism (which also challenged heteronormativity) came along! If domestic work was equally valued then I would have expected women to be constrained yes, but at least have equal rights given that they were performing the duties assigned to them.
I tend to agree that today women, even if they choose to be SAHMs have equal rights to men in the West. But that's largely due to feminism. And if women suddenly all dropped out of the workforce and we had no representation in the public sphere I think these rights would slowly get eroded again.
I’d also add that coming from a country where motherhood is largely celebrated and there isn’t a lot of late stage feminist rhetoric, the highest status women are still the ones who are professionally successful so to me it seems like there is an intrinsic relationship between being active in the public sphere and status
I agree that women had less rights in general (beyond just voting rights) before feminism, and you give some important examples. I do think you’re right to point out that women need some sort of public voice if they’re going to maintain the rights that they’ve gained (largely as a result of feminist activism). But I don’t think that voice has to come about through equal participation in the economic sphere. In fact, I think this is precisely why we need a continuing feminist movement in the west, despite the fact that women have, for the most part, gained equal rights to men here. I think there are average sex differences which will make it very difficult to get fully equal representation of women in the economic sphere. I also think these differences mean that men will fail to adequately represent women politically without a feminist movement. However, I think that feminist movement needs to represent the needs and desires of the “typical” gender conforming woman and that currently, it’s too focused on representing gender non conformers only. Supporting women who want to engage in high level careers and questioning heteronormativity are important issues that feminists need to continue to represent. But liberal feminists need to do a better job of also representing the needs of mothers and respecting their role in society. Right now the only women who are talking seriously about the needs of mothers are on the right and tend to support solutions that I find regressive and which don’t adequately appreciate the importance of the freedoms that feminist activism has worked so hard for. I think liberal feminists should not leave that niche to the right!
makes sense. I do not think there needs to be "equal representation". There is a spectrum between SAHM and CEO, which I think a lot of women can occupy. I am just saying that if all women were to become SAHMs then these rights would be rolled back.
I definitely think you’re right about that. But I don’t fear that outcome so long as we maintain the liberal values that allow women to have choice. There’s sufficient heterogeneity among women that many will want to engage in the economic sphere and some will want to engage at a very high level. Even most women I know who want to stay home with their young kids don’t want to do so forever. But the importance of protecting those liberal values is why I’m concerned about the rise of the trad feminist and think liberal feminists need to do a better job of modeling what the average woman, which includes mothers, cares about.
yeah, I agree. I think women's heterogeneity + the fact that domestic work is harder to assign to status + the fact that the kind of women who are educated etc and have a larger voice tend to be more career orientated makes having a consistent movement hard. Compare to men who all seem to be on the same scale hah
I agree. Many liberal feminists speak about stay-at-home mothers with a sort of disgust -- as if they are the instantiation of all which is holding back feminist progress. Yet this is quite contra the initial message of feminism, which was about CHOICE for women.
Or they speak about them with pity. It's driven by a combination of internalized misogyny and a feeling of betrayal. With slut shaming, a woman is shamed for being promiscuous because it lowers the value of sex for all women. And in an analogous way the stay at home mom, by choosing to find her meaning through her family, betrays pop-feminism which insists that all women primarily want to find meaning through developing themself and/or their career.
"With slut shaming, a woman is shamed for being promiscuous because it lowers the value of sex for all women" --> a very spot on point. I think the deepest evolved motives behind slut shaming are the following: when the supply of sex is increased, men are less willing to settle down with one woman, and thus, this threatens women's abilities to achieve a stable and protective relationship. Of course, now that we live in cities of millions of people, one person sleeping around does virtually zero to your odds of finding a reliable husband. Yet, the evolved instinct is still deeply ingrained.
I wonder too how much the "pity" is disguised envy. Many women I know who denigrate stay-at-home moms endure a lot of career stress. They must rationalize their decision to work rather than prioritize family to themselves (as no one wants to believe they've lived their life wrong). Thus, in their minds, they cast the stay-at-home mom as a revolting and evil creature. And so, they can feel content in not being one. In short: this demonization of the stay-at-home mom is all in order to suppress the nagging fear that maybe the stay-at-home mom life is preferable.