Why are we so Conflicted about Feminity in the Modern Age

Hey Amanda,

This  post is a response to Art of Manliness's Why are we so Conflicted About Manhood in the Modern Age?  

So here's the thing about using "historical" as an adjective, it means nothing unless you know something about the past. When people throw out the phrase "Historical gender roles," they are usually decently accurate about what men did, being loosely "fight and farm." For whatever reason, people define women's historical role as what women did in the 3-4 decade window around 1950. This looks very little like what women had been doing for the several preceding millennia.

It's a little window into the male-centric telling of history when we wave our hands around and say "and the women raised babies." As if what was involved in running a household was a trivial addendum to daycare. This is doubly funny to me when people replace "Historical" with "Biblical" gender roles, and my first response is "Have you read the bible? It's filled with women that can't have babies."

Ah yes, a virtuous woman is "worth far more than rubies," but let's finish reading Proverbs 31. The dream wife also buys land, earns money , plants vineyards (all v 16), has muscular arms (v. 17), provides for the needy (v. 20), and speaks her well-educated mind (v. 26). And, she gets recognized for the things she's made (v. 31).  There's only one mention of children in the whole 21-verse section.

So when were these golden days when "men were men, and women were women?" I had a great-grandfather that raised cattle in the American frontier. Once while William was in the pasture, a man came into his house, murdered his child and assaulted his wife.  William tracked the killer down,  and "after beating the man until [he] was nearly exhausted and felt the murderer could not live," William rode into town to give himself over to the US Marshall. (The Marshall told him he had done the right thing and to go home.)

William Butler had a super macho beard

With that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and say William was about as traditionally masculine as you can get. So what was his wife like? Well, Emma taught her kids how to add, subtract, read and write. She nursed sick family members with herbs and teas, the only medical care available to them. She cooked three meals a day on a wood-burning stove, and  built its fire herself. Emma washed all the clothes by hand. She preserved enough food to get her entire family through the winter. She butchered and dressed the chickens. She grew the only vegetables her family ate in her extensive kitchen garden.

Emma, paragon of feminity

Emma also gave birth to ten children, six of whom made it to adulthood. So she did all of the above with a toddler tugging on her skirts, and she never put on Sesame Street to get it done.

Now, I do have a pretty remarkable family, but I'm pretty sure Emma didn't have magical powers....I think. We can only assume that she did very little of what we consider childcare--- Children of the period (and essentially every period since the beginning of time) were expected to keep themselves entertained and out of trouble. No one had the option to helicopter parent. There just wasn't time.

If your opinion of a woman's role is "up until recently they did what I pay my nanny minimum wage to do," you can't have a very high opinion of the influence of femininity in human history.* If we have an abundance of entitled manchildren because we forgot what it meant to be a man, perhaps we have an abundance of poorly educated, malnourished adults because we forgot there was anything to remember about being a woman. On average homeschooled kids score better than 87 percent of American kids. And you are healthier if your food is homecooked, period.

Traditional Women's Work

Am I saying everyone should homeschool their kids? Of course not.  Am I saying women should cook every meal? Heck no. What I'm saying is that  feminism shouldn't strive to drive women out of the kitchen as if the kitchen was a degrading and demeaning place to be. If we've been taught that women's work was degrading and demeaning, well, it was probably a man that taught us to think that way.

To be continued,
Stephanie

*I'm certainly not saying childcare is trivial or unimportant. I'm just saying societally, we have never valued childcare as an end unto itself.  There's a difference between keeping a toddler safe and reasonably happy for a period of time and teaching that child directly or indirectly how to function in the world. IKEA will do the first at no cost; it takes conscientious effort to do the second.