Feminism is a voice that speaks for all women.
As long as you’re white. And rich. And you work outside the home.
The rest of you bitches can step off.
judgybitch
30 JanSo the beautiful ladies of Jezebel are at it again today, all in a gleeful lather that fewer and fewer girls express a desire to make caring for their families a priority, and that the labor market definition of an egalitarian relationship seems to have triumphed in the mind of the young.
http://jezebel.com/5979665/holy-crap-is-feminism-actually-working-and-changing-the-world
They start by mocking all the dumb twats whose work doesn’t include sitting in a cubicle sorting out the marketing strategy for OPI nail polish, which, as we all know, is an incredibly important social issue.
You see, for the Jezzie crowd, the only thing that counts as work is stuff you do in exchange for cash. All you folks volunteering for your favorite causes? That’s not work, and it contributes nothing. All you folks taking care of either younger or the older generation because they are your family and you love them? Nope. Sit down, you’re not working. None of that counts. All you folks with hobbies? Nah. That isn’t work either.
Oh wait, now. If you are taking care of the older or younger generation, and they are not related to you, and you are doing it for COLD HARD CASH, well, that IS work. If your hobby is quilting and you do it for fun THAT’S NOT WORK, but if you work in a quilting factory and someone pays you, ok. You get a pass.
My point here is that no matter how much Jezebel and their ilk like to shriek that women (and increasingly men) who are at home, taking care of their families AREN’T WORKING, that work still needs to get done.
So who does it? Who cooks the food, washes the dishes, cleans the house, sorts out the laundry, does the gardening, raises the children, takes care of the elderly, walks the dog and every other thing that needs to get done?
Well, looky here.
http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/EEO/10_5YR/EEOALL4W
Here’s the summary: women of color.
All the nice white feminist ladies abandoned their homes and children and husbands and rushed pell-mell into the labor market, and then paid all the brown-skinned ladies money to do the work for them.
Isn’t that nice of them?
And the lovely white lady feminists wonder why black women don’t identify with them?
http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/a-black-woman-contemplates-breaking-up-with-feminism/
Feminists are celebrating two triumphs:
One, that they have succeeded in convincing young women and men that a woman’s value can only be measured in labor market achievements. Honestly, this more a triumph of late capitalism, which has ensured that the major proceeds of capital go to shareholders and not workers, creating a situation in which women work for survival, and not because they want to. The rush of women into the labor market COMBINED with the supremacy of the shareholder has seen real wages stagnate, and the family wage has all but disappeared unless you are very well off.
Most women wake up to the lies of feminism too late. It’s not until they have children that they realize they have not made the choices in life that allow them to make a choice! Most women WANT to be at home with their small children. In the UK, the number is 75%! Only one out of four women with small children who are working are doing it because they want to. The other three have been sold a pack of lies and they have guilt and shame and despair to show for it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199539/75-new-mothers-stay-home-bring-child-afford-to.html
And that’s something to celebrate?
The second triumph of feminism is to shove all the work of caring for a family off onto women of color. It’s mostly white women who benefit from feminism, as scant as those benefits are. Earning a family wage is tough enough for a white family. For black families it has become nigh unto impossible, because their labor force participation is limited to doing all the work white ladies don’t care to do, for very little money. Combine that with a cultural narrative that celebrates single motherhood as empowering and beneficial, and dismisses the importance of fathering, and you end up with a whole lot of black women who have no decent chance for success in the labor market at all.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4043451
Feminism hasn’t been a triumph for women of color at all. It’s been a disaster.
The solution to this mess isn’t more of the same. When is it ever? What we need is to start telling the truth to young men and women about how they will feel when they have small children to care for. We need to start telling the truth about just how fulfilling it will be to sit in a cubicle while your baby is being raised by someone else. We need to tell the truth about what impact it will have on men’s ability to support a family when women move into high-status and high paying jobs. We need to give the younger generation a clear picture of the consequences of their actions.
http://judgybitch.com/2012/11/16/no-you-cant-have-it-all-you-have-to-fucking-share/
And then let them choose. Yes, women should have the right to have any occupation they like (except combat solider), and they have the right to pay someone else to do all their hard work of raising a family. Men have the right to choose women based on how much she earns. Go right ahead.
http://judgybitch.com/2012/11/28/no-women-should-not-be-in-combat-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/
The reality is that most women WON’T choose to value themselves for how much they can earn in the labor market. The ones who are in the labor force are deeply, despairingly unhappy. “Opting out”, which is another way of saying “become a housewife” has become the new dream.
It doesn’t have to be a dream. It can become a reality. All it takes is a little dose of the truth. You won’t find that truth in the mouths of feminists. Time for a game change.
The sooner, the better.
Lots of love,
JB
