By Naomi Padowicz of Retro Home Tips
In the act of writing this piece, I become a modern day Martin Luther nailing my manifesto to the door of the Church of Feminism. My generation of women, the so called third wave feminists are being ignored, abused and belittled by the feminist establishment that refuses to acknowledge our arrival into the discussion on women’s rights. Please do not mistake my words for those of a right wing reactionary, I come from a long line of feminists, communists, democrats, and open minded people. I myself became a card carrying feminist at the age of four when my mother took me to meetings, rallies, and marches all in support of of the cause. I even had my Barbie doll removed from one such meetings as we didn’t want to impose gender roles on children. I was born into this movement, I was raised a feminist. I am a lifelong fag hag, I am a Jewish liberal from New York who now lives as an ex pat and is a former vegetarian who has since seen the light… of meat. I am the epitome of the left wing socialist school of thought, and I believe that Feminism has seen it’s day.
My generation of young women, of whom I write on behalf of, are very young and under current circumstances are not being given the chance to voice our new values and beliefs. The ageing feminist establishment instead treats us as an aberration and cannot begin to understand why we behave the way we do. I would like to correct this and set down our values and belief system on paper, and to announce the future of womankind.
The title of third wave feminists is a false title, women in our twenties do not identify as feminists. It is not cool to be a feminist, and in fact declaring yourself one is the fastest way to lose friends and partners. We are the first generation of fully emancipated free women, and our ideas about the world differ significantly from that of our mothers. Most women in their twenties have a a very loose grasp on what feminism is, if at all. We agree with equality, but the movement has gone too far.This is not to say we are not thankful to our mothers for fighting for our right to choose. When we say choose, we mean our right to choose to work and have a career or stay at home and care for the families we are now starting to have. We realize that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. The fact is, there are not enough jobs to go around and someone has to stay home and cook and clean and raise the next generation. The model of the feminist working mother, led to large scale divorce and chaos, and that is the kind of scarring we do not wish to impart on our children. As I explained in my piece Retrospective on the Flaw in Feminism and Career v. Family the Real Sex in the City Girls. Our families will come first in everything we do, and once we sprog we will leave the workforce, more than likely not to return. Does this mean we are not valuable members of society? On the contrary the role of wife and mother was so devalued by the feminist movement that we now realize just how precious this role is by the lack of it in our own lives.
The role of a mother is a very important role to us. Mum’s pass on values, traditions, religion, language, and are partially responsible for basic survival skills. Mum’s are responsible for raising well adjusted, decent human beings, that are courteous and well mannered. We realize that our role as a mum is the most important role to play and we want to be the very best Mums possible. This desire on our part to be the best Mums we can be, is driving us to learn cookery, baking skills, sewing, embroidery, knitting and many other essential household skills that used to be handed down from mother to daughter but were with held for fear of imposing gender roles. We are spending our time perfecting all the areas that first wave feminists labelled as patriarchal bondage. We judge ourselves by how well we can iron a shirt, or make a meringue. Classes teaching these things are seeing record waiting lists, with sewing classes making you wait 18 to 24 months for a spot in a classroom.
This is not to say that we won’t work, a full time job is something we will do until it is time to settle down and have children. Unlike our mothers we do not believe that work is freedom, rather we see the workplace for the dark, depressing, prison it really is. As a generation we work because we have to, not because we want to. It has become embedded in the society around us that women must go out into the workplace and be just as good or better at their chosen profession than men. It is this standard we are forced into, and this standard that does not fit us as women.
The economics of women of my generation wanting to stay home, are difficult and in some cases can be viewed as a luxury. However, we are an ingenious creative generation who will find a way to afford our much desired luxury. Rather than going back to work full stop we will work at home, and find ways to bring in the little extra income needed regardless of whether that means selling home made jam, or doing tax returns. We realize that our skills as wives and mothers are every bit as marketable as any hard driven legal eagle, editor, or accountant. If I may, allow me to pull back for a second and point out the obvious, the world needs more than just lawyers, doctors, and scientists, and ad executives. In fact we could probably live with out the ad executives. But we will fall flat on our faces as a society, and some would argue that we already have, without cooks, seamstresses, bakers, cleaners, and teachers amongst other occupations, that are seen as less than palatable by the modern feminist.
The women who do not desire a family, and there are these women amongst us, will be married to their work and the end product is their child. These women regardless of profession will strive for excellence in their respective fields, but will not settle down to raise a family. For the women who start out as professionals and have children, it is not fair to guarantee a right of return to your original job when it could be many months before you return. The cost of training a temporary replacement is great, and it is not fair to that replacement to be put back out of work as soon as he or she becomes comfortable in their new role. We have to be realistic, it is not healthy for a person to split time between two full time careers. So why do we ask women to split themselves between the professional and familial worlds?
If feminism did anything, it took certain members of the power elite and stripped them of their ability to impose arcane and unreasonable limits on people, not just women. So maybe now would be a good time for the feminist movement to go off with its head held high, and some semblance of dignity and join all the other great struggles in the history books where they belong.
Because the next struggle which we are already engaged in isn’t about Women, or Men or Blacks or Gays or Lesbians or Jews or Gentiles or Muslims or Catholics. It’s about the survival of the planet that we live on, and it is about time that we got around to that job rather than worrying over whether a garbage man or garbage person picks up your recycling.
