Does feminism leave women alone and lonely? Are stay-at-home mothers victims of gender inequality? Will listening to the “experts” and following the herd lead to extreme unhappiness? Is the answer in your own heart and head? Have people tried doing what’s right for their own life? Who are these sad and lonely people? At some point, all of us are sad and lonely. It’s called life. We, each and every one of us, make life choices and must live thereafter with those choices. Are we victims of feminism or gender inequality. “Shit happens” is such a perfect phrase of existential philosophy that Jean-Paul Sartre would be jelly if he still existed.
Many, many moons ago, I considered myself a feminist. I didn’t need a man. I could take care of myself. And, IF I married and had a child, I certainly wasn’t going to sit at home and stare at some little crumb cruncher. Then, shit happened. I got married and had a son. My husband was flying up the corporate ladder. We got transferred cross-country four times in six years. By the time the dust settled, I was a stay-at-home Mom taking our son to Compo Beach in Westport, Connecticut in the late afternoons. I found out I loved it. My son was endlessly fascinating. Watching him think and learn was exhilarating. I read to my hearts content and took totally random courses when I could.
The day came when our son was in second grade that I got an offer from the tabletop division of a paper towel company. Cups, plates, the like. Low six figure salary. Husband and I figured out by the time we got a nanny, another car, and a part-time housekeeper, with taxes, the job wouldn’t pay out for us. So, should I satisfy my vanity and ego or… . I chose or. I became a stay-at-home mother for real. I volunteered at school. I volunteered at community events and took even more classes. I love my life. It is not without its sad moments. Our son has gone “no contact” with us. Still, it has been a satisfying life.
I tell you these things because of an article by Petronella White in The Guardian “Feminism has left middle-aged women like me single, childless and depressed”. Petronella wrote:
Historically, of course, the feminist argument had valid points. In the old days, when members of my sex were bound first to their fathers and then to their husbands, they undoubtedly led disagreeable lives. If a woman had a good education, however, she could make a comfortable living and remain independent of male approval. When the desire for marriage and children overwhelmed her, she would almost certainly lose her job, and in consequence become tied to her house, compelled to perform a thousand trivial and demeaning tasks unworthy of her ability.
But the world has changed in a way the early feminist would find incomprehensible and grotesque – indeed, she would view today’s flag bearers as hollow and preposterous nothings. I sometimes think the West has outgrown the feminist philosophy entirely and should cast it off.
I know feminists like Petronella would never believe it, but men’s lives sucked back then, too. They had no education, very few possessions, and mostly rented their 12×8 cottage. They likely died young from illness or accidents. Very few of the men were discussing the hunt over Port. More from Petronella:
Where, for instance, does it leave women like me, when we have reached the age of 54, as I have, and find ourselves both single and childless? Hugging the collected works of Proust, or engaging in furtive sojourns to the pub that bring remembrances of things pissed? One in 10 British women in their 50s have never married and live alone, which is neither pleasant nor healthy.
I am truly sorry. There have always been women who remained “on the shelf”. Times of war killed off the menfolk, leaving women to live in sad poverty, alone with no one. There’s more to it. Life circumstances. I am now of an age when several of my friends have lost their husbands to illness or accident. Are they less lonely for once having known marital love? Our children are off making their lives. That is the natural way.
None of us get through life unscathed. You could go through life “comfortably numb”. That’s an equally sad life. No highs, no lows. No joy, no sadness.
Another enlightened point of view is that Stay-at-Home Moms are victims of “gender inequality”. Oh, spare me:
The UN Commission on the Status of Women recently denigrated stay-at-home motherhood calling a woman’s devotion to her family ‘unpaid care work’ adding that mothers in general are victims of “gender inequality.”
They then followed with a call for Marxist state-funded daycare.
Kimberly Ells at Mercator, who attended the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women, said it was heavily focused on “unpaid care work.”
Ells wrote, “I spent a week listening to an endless parade of events focused almost exclusively on ending poverty by eliminating ‘unpaid care work.”
“What is ‘unpaid care work,’ you might ask? It is work done in the home without specific monetary payment. Most people would call that kind of work simply being alive,” she continued. “It could also be called running your own castle. But the forces that converged at the United Nations this spring called it an atrocity.”
Ellis writes:
To be an “unpaid care worker”—especially if you’re a woman—was seen as an afront to human decency. And because on average women worldwide do more labour in the home than men, people in UN circles call this “gender inequality,” “gender injustice,” and even “gender-based violence.” I’m not kidding. I heard these phrases repeated time after time in events sponsored by countries and organizations the world over. While there is such a thing as genuine gender-based violence, vacuuming the floor for free isn’t it.
Will freeing women from children will make everyone rich and happy?
Petronella called home-making tasks demeaning and trivial. Kimberly Ells called it “simply being alive”. If you never marry or have children, you still have to scrub the toilet.
Plus, the world has changed again post-Covid:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eypM0BnwHK0
Aw, heck. Now they have to redo all that data to make people question their life choices. I have a suggestion for free: Do what makes YOU happy.
Featured Image: Private Photo of the Author/All Rights Reserved
Scott says: As if we needed another example that the UN is not only worthless but dangerous as well. Get us OUT!
Not to mention how valuable that NY real estate is…( Maybe Adams could use it to house all the illegals…)
GWB says: I became a stay-at-home mother for real.
You became a chosen stay-at-home mother, rather than just by circumstance. It’s actually the “feminist” choice, if you’re talking empowering and all that jazz.
when members of my sex were bound first to their fathers and then to their husbands, they undoubtedly led disagreeable lives.
Only because you rebelled against the order of Creation and desired to live your lives as if you knew just as well as God did. Which makes the second part of the curse on women make much more sense….
“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Gen 3:16b
a thousand trivial and demeaning tasks unworthy of her ability
Why would those “menial” tasks be “unworthy of her ability”?
Only one thing could bring you to say this: a monumental pride that makes you think you’re better than other people. After all, those tasks have to be done by somebody, right? So, who does them if you – specifically, as a woman – are too good for them? Some other woman? Some man? This right here is the essence of feminism’s problem – it’s all about pride.
I sometimes think the West has outgrown the feminist philosophy entirely and should cast it off.
Hmmm, you might be onto something there, says the anti-feminist. But it’s not that the West outgrew the philosophy, but that it was wrong to start with. You’re starting to figure that out.
Where, for instance, does it leave women like me, when we have reached the age of 54, as I have, and find ourselves both single and childless?
It leaves you right where we predicted it would leave you. Alone in your “godhood.” As God is solitary*, so are you, now. Except without actually ever having become God.
(* I am using that in the theological sense for God. That he is not (from our vantage) one of many gods, but he is unique and stands alone as our Creator and Redeemer.)
One of the arguments against feminism is that child-bearing is such a god-like act in one sense – you’re creating a whole new “world” by bearing and raising a child. You are leaving not only part of yourself in the world, but that person will interact with other people and influence them. It’s not a perfect thing, as we are corrupted by sin, but it’s an incredible thing nonetheless.
never married and live alone, which is neither pleasant nor healthy
But you did it to yourselves. Because you were more important than society or other people. Or because you didn’t need someone else – you were strong and powerful. Again, Pride rears its ugly visage. When you make YOU the most important thing in the world (and that was always where feminism was pointed) YOU are unlikely to attract other people into your life to be part of mutual care and – the most important thing of all – LOVE. Because love means someone else must be more important than you.
Are they less lonely for once having known marital love?
But, what that marital love hopefully taught you was how to love and be loved outside of marriage, too. Friends and relations are there because you have learned to love (if you did), and now you can show that love to them. Yes, circumstances can still be hard. But learning to love properly and well is one thing that marriage teaches you (if you learn it) – it’s also part of what you pass along to your children, hopefully. And now you can lavish that love on others.
a woman’s devotion to her family ‘unpaid care work’
Unpaid?! So what am I working my butt off for, as her husband? I provide a house, food, medical care, a car….
I suppose I could make her live in whatever home she provides, and buy her own food, and provide her own medical care, and pay her $15 an hour for the handful of hours the kids aren’t in government-run daycare school. This one has always made me want to slap someone. Then hand them a duster and say, “Get to work, you ungrateful wench.”
ending poverty by eliminating ‘unpaid care work.”
Wait. These women are poor? And they’re a single income home, presumably. So, how is taking away half of the poor income they already have (via their husband) going to make them more prosperous? For people who worship “reason” they sure don’t use it for much. Yeesh.
on average women worldwide do more labour in the home than men
Because the men are out at a job earning money so they can pay their wives with food, shelter, clothing, warmth in the winter, etc. What I was saying about “reason”? Yeah.
Hoime-making? Is never trivial or demeaning. It’s literally MAKING the HOME. Raising a family? It’s literally RAISING the FAMILY – the basic cornerstone of any society (except a Marxist one – which is one reason those societies suck so very much). And it’s also not just “simply being alive.” It’s how you THRIVE.
Good post, Toni.
GWB says: “Hoime-making?” => “Home-making?”
One analogy I’ve heard is to not think of yourself as someone denying themselves the greatness of Elon Musk or Carnegie or Ivan Boesky, but to think of yourself as a Master Mason. You are shaping the stones that build the temple of the future, and you are mixing the mortar to hold them in place. You must do your calling well, or the structure of the future falls down when it’s shaken.
Some might say that several decades of feminism have brought us to the place where our society is ready to fall, because the new stones are not shaped to fit and provide solidity, and the mortar is poisoned with division.
Toni Williams says: oops and thank you.
Hate_me says: I’m a single guy. If a lonely 53-year old has taken care of herself physically, isn’t too sanctimonious, and can offer some interesting conversation, the age difference isn’t a problem at all.
If she’s fat, bitchy, and so pretentious that she defines herself by reading Proust (yes, I’ve also read him, in French – that hardly defines me), and feels that child-rearing is a chore they are too proud to undertake more than a joy to be embraced (yeah, it’s still also a chore, and it’s not a deal-breaker if she doesn’t want to create a brood of tiny parasites) then it should be no surprise why she’s perennially alone.
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