Take a look at "Life, take two!" At first I thought she was exaggerating.
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My grand mother had just one husband and married at age 18. She loved him, I think. He worked in the steel mill and she packed his lunches and kept house.
The template was still there. But I think she found a better place in it.
She sent all five of her kids to college. Especially the girls. Especially my mom and aunt. And she sometimes resented how smart and fancy they had become, but she never doubted it was the right thing to do.
She was embarrassed that she struggled to read.
My mom? By then women could own property and have credit cards. My mom was the first through the gate to get her hands on all those things and grandma was right behind her cheering her on.
My dad loves how she takes over all of the financial matters. He worked as a chemist, she became a college teacher. They still love spending all their time together. I think of my husband and how I hope we can grow old together like that. That's a good template.
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Women:
* Own property
* Have bank accounts
* Have the education and skills to take care of yourself.These are hard things for people of all genders to do "in this economy" it's a big fat lie that "leaving it to the man" is anything like a solution.
If you really love him you might need to take care of him too, and yourself and the kids. Amass the knowledge and power to protect everything and everyone you love. That is how you "make the home."
@futurebird@sauropods.win In a company where I worked, some of my colleagues were women who worked full-time and had children. The fathers looked after the children as full-time homemakers without paid work. It seems strange to me that when it comes to dividing up full-time work and full-time homemaking, it is automatically assumed that the father has paid work. There are women who have children without feeling maternal – or only during the holidays, when they take the children with them to travel together. During my childhood and adolescence, I was told that my grandfather did not enter into another relationship after his wife died so that he could raise his children. A colleague of mine did enter into a new relationship after his wife died, but he raised his children alone. After primary school, my best friend was a child who had moved in with his father after his parents divorced. My cousin is raising his children after their mother kicked them out to have more space, time and money for her new partner.
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Women:
* Own property
* Have bank accounts
* Have the education and skills to take care of yourself.These are hard things for people of all genders to do "in this economy" it's a big fat lie that "leaving it to the man" is anything like a solution.
If you really love him you might need to take care of him too, and yourself and the kids. Amass the knowledge and power to protect everything and everyone you love. That is how you "make the home."
@futurebird Growing up LDS, this is something I heard a lot (probably extra because my mother and older sisters were ubiquitous while my dad was gone a lot). I won't say the LDS church has anything like gender equality or equity, but this, at least, was better messaging than I've seen in some other places. Women were (I hope still are) encouraged to pursue their own education, for the reasons you cite. It was strange and disappointing to eventually find out that some conservative subcultures actively discourage women having education and autonomy.
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@futurebird@sauropods.win In a company where I worked, some of my colleagues were women who worked full-time and had children. The fathers looked after the children as full-time homemakers without paid work. It seems strange to me that when it comes to dividing up full-time work and full-time homemaking, it is automatically assumed that the father has paid work. There are women who have children without feeling maternal – or only during the holidays, when they take the children with them to travel together. During my childhood and adolescence, I was told that my grandfather did not enter into another relationship after his wife died so that he could raise his children. A colleague of mine did enter into a new relationship after his wife died, but he raised his children alone. After primary school, my best friend was a child who had moved in with his father after his parents divorced. My cousin is raising his children after their mother kicked them out to have more space, time and money for her new partner.
These templates can cut men off from some of the most rewarding aspects of life and shame them for having normal human feelings.
That's an argument for just not having them at all.
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Take a look at "Life, take two!" At first I thought she was exaggerating. She talks about how her pastor discouraged her from going to college (!) from doing anything that might lead to financial independence.
She listened to that bad advice, found herself trapped. Then she got out. She has little positive to say about marriage.
The idea of discouraging someone from going to college was so alien at first I didn't believe her. But I think this is really happening.
@futurebird i wouldn't doubt it at all. the minister of my mom's church once told someone i knew from that time, who definitely had developmental and learning disabilities, was taken advantage of and had several children with someone who was very abusive almost as soon as she left home, that she was going to hell for having children out of wedlock. her parents gave her no advice on how to deal with anything like that cause they are abusive in their own ways but they were the church rock stars, a guitar and piano duet, so no one asked questions or said anything.
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Take a look at "Life, take two!" At first I thought she was exaggerating. She talks about how her pastor discouraged her from going to college (!) from doing anything that might lead to financial independence.
She listened to that bad advice, found herself trapped. Then she got out. She has little positive to say about marriage.
The idea of discouraging someone from going to college was so alien at first I didn't believe her. But I think this is really happening.
@futurebird Not for biblical-interpretation reasons (more just the culture), but when I taught university in south Texas I knew of many female students who had significant conflict with their families because they chose to go to college. A few had been flat-out disowned. Some implied they had endured physical abuse because of this. That's just one subculture in the US, but it has made me realize this attitude is not extremely rare.
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Being a homemaker is incredibly important work. There is nothing wrong with being woman who thinks "what matters most to me is that I can be a good mother" that's kind of amazing.
The first thing that you need to make that dream a reality is independence and your OWN financial stability. Anyone who tells you that, you can't do that unless you "trust in a man to provide for you" is trying to lead you into a very pretty little cage.
And no, we of the left, will not hate you for your dream.
@futurebird Raising curious children who go on to be educated is a benefit for us all.
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@futurebird Somehow, i've managed to avoid paying attention to the output of matt walsh until now.
After seeing those clips around 7 minutes in: holy shit, that man is a straight-up child predator who's trying to get large numbers of men to become child predators.
The whole "marry off the fertile young girls" thing is just that. It's just creeps who want a female servant.
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Life happens. You might have the perfect partner and then suddenly they are gone.
Happened to my grandmother. Three kids, has just quit her job and sold the house in Seattle to buy a farm, she was no farmer grandpa was. Then bammo he nearly dies from an infection and she had to scramble to unsell the house reclaim her job and support the family for a couple of years while he recovers. He later died at 65 she lived to 101, her own pension kept her comfortable until death.
This "trad wife" stuff marketed to young women and men is based mostly on aesthetics and not practical realities like the ones you describe.
A postcard image of a woman taking care of happy children. The husband working hard, paying for everything. A real partnership. Then they lie say "the left doesn't want you to have this"
Young people see that trusting relationship. Financial stability. Shared independence. We all want that, right? Independence is the foundation.
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Take a look at "Life, take two!" At first I thought she was exaggerating. She talks about how her pastor discouraged her from going to college (!) from doing anything that might lead to financial independence.
She listened to that bad advice, found herself trapped. Then she got out. She has little positive to say about marriage.
The idea of discouraging someone from going to college was so alien at first I didn't believe her. But I think this is really happening.
I grew up homeschooled in a conservative religious household for most of my k-12 and this rings true for many families I knew.
my parents were not against women going to college, but my dad believed (and still believes) he had influence and authority over who his daughters marry. (it backfired on him pretty hard and I'm surprised they haven't cut him off)
another aspect of this that is very pervasive in conservative christianity is the notion that couples shouldn't have separate bank accounts.
many treat a separate account with suspicion and indication of cheating.
my wife and I got out of that culture but we both felt it was crazy af at the time and kept our separate accounts and added a joint instead. there's a strong religious pressure to keep the peace though, so people usually just get along with their fellow church people who have insane abusive ideas.
it's also really hard to notice when you're in it because they equate the abusive behavior with divine guidance. I grew up with significant cognitive dissonance.
I went to public school my last two years of highschool. special thanks to my 11th grade English teacher who gave me the intellectual tools to eventually get out (like the word cognitive dissonance itself).
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I grew up homeschooled in a conservative religious household for most of my k-12 and this rings true for many families I knew.
my parents were not against women going to college, but my dad believed (and still believes) he had influence and authority over who his daughters marry. (it backfired on him pretty hard and I'm surprised they haven't cut him off)
another aspect of this that is very pervasive in conservative christianity is the notion that couples shouldn't have separate bank accounts.
many treat a separate account with suspicion and indication of cheating.
my wife and I got out of that culture but we both felt it was crazy af at the time and kept our separate accounts and added a joint instead. there's a strong religious pressure to keep the peace though, so people usually just get along with their fellow church people who have insane abusive ideas.
it's also really hard to notice when you're in it because they equate the abusive behavior with divine guidance. I grew up with significant cognitive dissonance.
I went to public school my last two years of highschool. special thanks to my 11th grade English teacher who gave me the intellectual tools to eventually get out (like the word cognitive dissonance itself).
Wanting someone to be free and independent *is* loving them.
It would feel hollow if I thought the only reason my husband was around was because in some sense he had no real choice. I don't think he'd enjoy being with me either if I was just... stuck. Not here because there isn't anywhere else in the world I'd rather be.
And if something happens to either of us it feels good to know one of us could still make it.
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Take a look at "Life, take two!" At first I thought she was exaggerating. She talks about how her pastor discouraged her from going to college (!) from doing anything that might lead to financial independence.
She listened to that bad advice, found herself trapped. Then she got out. She has little positive to say about marriage.
The idea of discouraging someone from going to college was so alien at first I didn't believe her. But I think this is really happening.
@futurebird Totalitarian societies have even gone so far as to explicitly prohibit disfavoured social classes from pursuing education. Happened in both USSR and Nazi Germany. And, of course, USA has a whole network of universities originally dedicated to educating Black people because they used to be all-but-explicitly prohibited from attending the "ordinary" universities that have sometimes liked to pretend to have been unmarked by race.
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This "trad wife" stuff marketed to young women and men is based mostly on aesthetics and not practical realities like the ones you describe.
A postcard image of a woman taking care of happy children. The husband working hard, paying for everything. A real partnership. Then they lie say "the left doesn't want you to have this"
Young people see that trusting relationship. Financial stability. Shared independence. We all want that, right? Independence is the foundation.
Real love is only possible when people are free. Real love is only possible when it's a free choice made by independent people.
My great grandmother, married at 16 did not have much love in that marriage. At best it was hopefully polite, tolerable. I look at her eyes in the photos and I don't know if it was even that. I do not want our daughters to live that way. Not ever again.
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My mom? By then women could own property and have credit cards. My mom was the first through the gate to get her hands on all those things and grandma was right behind her cheering her on.
My dad loves how she takes over all of the financial matters. He worked as a chemist, she became a college teacher. They still love spending all their time together. I think of my husband and how I hope we can grow old together like that. That's a good template.
@futurebird @artemis That is a fantastic template!
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@futurebird
Okay, also, as someone who grew up in right-wing fundamentalism... You are genuine when you say that the idea of discouraging women from education was so foreign as to be nearly unbelievable?That's *wild* to me that that is your experience. Goes to show how insulated "insular" communities like mine really were.
@artemis @futurebird
In my family (white, English, middle-class, British colonial descent in Africa), my generation was the first to finish university degrees. My dad and uncle both dropped out to work. My mom had to fight her parents to go to teacher-training college because it was 'a waste of time' to educate girls past school.Women's education being less important is still a pretty dominant idea in a lot of South African society. It's just less explicit now.
(Edited grammar)
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@artemis @futurebird
In my family (white, English, middle-class, British colonial descent in Africa), my generation was the first to finish university degrees. My dad and uncle both dropped out to work. My mom had to fight her parents to go to teacher-training college because it was 'a waste of time' to educate girls past school.Women's education being less important is still a pretty dominant idea in a lot of South African society. It's just less explicit now.
(Edited grammar)
@artemis @futurebird
Encouragingly, I was told that having a higher education fetches a higher Lobola* in modern Zulu society. A young male Zulu colleague of mine explained it to me when I asked when he and his fiancée planned to marry. He had to save up for longer, because she got her degree!*( This is the price paid by the groom to the bride's family to get permission to marry her, still expressed in head of cattle, but paid in equivalent worth, now.)
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My great grand mother got married at 16 for the first time. She had three husbands. They were all in their 40s and 50s.
If she was not married she would have lost the little scrap of land they owned, against all odds in NC. If her children didn't have a mother who was married to their father they would face social exclusion.
She understood this and worked within it. Kept the land, improved it. Raised a massive family.
The template was hardened. Unhelpful. She was so brave.
Your great-grandmother was Celie Harris Johnson ????
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Your great-grandmother was Celie Harris Johnson ????
No. LOL. That book just has a lot of themes.
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These things can be easier and better when you aren't alone. That's what a marriage can be. Two people with shared values who are happier and stronger together than alone. There are a lot of social templates that cast women into one role and men into another. These roles are not equal and the role as cast for men has more freedoms, although both are constricted.
Have there been women who were happy homemakers untroubled by the world? Yes. There have also been women exploited by that dream.
I have seen a statistic that on average millennial dads spend almost as much time with their children as boomer moms.
The majority are shifting the roles to more equal ones whether MAGA like it or not. Which is probably what they're so upset about.
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@artemis @futurebird
Encouragingly, I was told that having a higher education fetches a higher Lobola* in modern Zulu society. A young male Zulu colleague of mine explained it to me when I asked when he and his fiancée planned to marry. He had to save up for longer, because she got her degree!*( This is the price paid by the groom to the bride's family to get permission to marry her, still expressed in head of cattle, but paid in equivalent worth, now.)
Americans will look at this and call it "primitive" and they are doing the same things.
