It’s a crazy Friday, and I’m not sure how much time I will have to post over the next ten days. I’m off on Spring Break next week (Pasadena City College has America’s last spring break, I’m nearly certain), so posting will be intermittent (but not entirely absent) between now and April 22.
Here’s a reprint of a 2005 post: Relinquishing Control: Some Thoughts on Men, Women, and the Domestic Sphere.
The comments below this post continue to come in, and there’s an interesting exchange worth following up on.
Stacer wrote: it can be very hard for women to relinquish control over what is traditionally her domain, especially if she was raised traditionally and/or has family members who pressure her in that regard.
I replied: Helping wives to relinquish that sort of control is a task that men, especially those who also come out of a conservative background, ought to consider embracing.
Caitriona asked in response: Uhm, just how do you propose that men "help" their wives relinquish control in these areas?
This is getting into some tricky stuff. Let’s see if I can wade through it.
I’ve known a fair number of women who have been raised with the notion that the home is their domain. The cooking, the cleaning, the childcare, and the general presentation of the household are things they see as entirely, or nearly entirely, within their bailiwick. While many feminists have rightly asked their boyfriends and husbands to "step up" and take an active role in domestic tasks, many traditional women have not. In some instances, they don’t ask because they don’t expect their male partners to be interested or willing to help. But in other cases, these women have bought in to the notion that their very identity as wives and mothers is inextricably linked with how they "keep house."
Again, it’s difficult not to share too much from personal experience. I’ve lived with quite a few women (some to whom I was married, some not). They came from widely divergent social, economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. In some of these relationships, my partner and I agreed to live in a kind of low-key slovenliness. (I’m a bit of a slob, as anyone who has seen my office can tell you!) In other cases, we agreed to keep the house or apartment up to a "higher standard", and we either shared the labor or (more recently) hired help to do it for us.
Continue reading ‘Off on America’s latest spring break, and a Friday reprint’
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