My own twisted feminism.

[deliriumcrow]

So here's the thing. Feminists and I don't get along very well. I know what I'm capable of, and quite frankly running an office isn't terribly high up there. If I had any interest in it at all, then maybe, but you know, no. Not a chance. I am strong, and tall, and would probably do pretty well in farmwork, if I cared to do so. I can build things pretty well, and I enjoy that. Small things, usually. With some more practice, I could be a decent blacksmith. I cook well, bake very well, and sew *very* well. And clean as little as possible, except for the toilet. And sometimes the bathtub. And damn it, I want to be a housewife. Even if we weren't planning on spawning, I would still want to be one. Time at home=time to work on interesting and useless projects, and decorate my family in strange costumes, and have a proper salon to foster the literati and artists around me. But the real reason? I just want to make people I care about happy and comfortable, and provide them with a safe place in which to be so. With tea. Anyone who comes to visit in this idyllic little imagined world will be plied with tea until they EXPLODE. Wetly. But not on the carpets, thank you. Because there is nothing happer than tea. But yes. love, give comfort, be generally the lady of bounty and happy plenty. (do ya think this might be a little bit of an overreaction to a deep abandonment complex, and trying not to pass it on? Hmm?)

And I do think that women should have equal rights. And that includes the right to decide how they want to live their lives. The feminist movement, from all the annoying pieces that have screamed at me, lectured at me, generally told me in a nicely pitying manner, that this goal of mine is somehow wrong. That women should not have to be housewives, or run their literary salons out of nicely tended parlours.

And they shouldn't *have* to be housewives. But you know, this was my *choice*. This is what I want, and what would quite probably make me quite happy and content. This is what I want to do. And by telling me that I can't choose that, in a way they have just as much defined my role, and limited my choices just as much as the "oppressor" they always seem to end up emulating. I look like a woman, and there really is nothing I can do about it, and I have tried, and gave up before leaving the house. Just one look in the mirror was enough. Even were that not so, I'd still be in my skirts and (getting longer) hair. I like it. I like being a woman, and for me this is pretty much a not-male, not-androgynous thing. I revel in femininity, in so far as it doesn't annoy me. I still hate pink. There is nothing wrong with flaunting my gender, my sex, or my sexuality, or the fact that I am an unreasonably domestic creature. I choose this, even if they would try to deny it. I take what I want, and make the rest. I don't see any particular virtue in trying to contribute to the general economy. I'm not overly capitalist, and again, I really don't care. Remy enjoys his programming. I enjoy making stuff and cooking. And there is nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

Comments

[rotting-orange.livejournal.com]

that's like people telling us we can't wear corsets, or even bras, because they're 'oppressing' our bodies and other such nonsense. anyway, the word 'cunt' is usually a good epithet for those kinds of people. and not in the good, empowering, Vagina Monologues way.

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

But I like the word cunt. For my, well, cunt. ANd I don't really want to compare them to that, because I like it as well.

Of all of the possible words, it's one of my favourites. That and quim.

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

And I love my corsets! And petticoats and prostitutes!

[manycolored.livejournal.com]

Struggling with that myself. For me, it's a matter of:

I want to stay at home and cook and make stuff. Maybe make people. Maybe.

For me to do this would mean living on Dennis's money. That means:
a. Dennis makes the money. Fine. My mom and dad have thrived for 30-some years on a system where Dad makes almost all the money and Mom deals with everything after the check gets deposited. Being the steward of a household is perfectly honorable and productive work.
b. I'd be poor if he ditched me. But I could still leave. I have parents and friends and am employable. I doubt he'd ditch me, or I him. I'm not going to marry somebody I have that kind of doubts over.
c. This is the tricky one. It's not fair to Dennis that I get to do what I enjoy on my own time while he has to be a wage-slave to support me.
d. I got all this expensive education and now I want to do nothing with it and still have to pay back the debts?

So I suspect I'll find a job I like (if not love) but that doesn't take too much out of me. And Dennis will do the same. And we'll both spend as much time as possible doing home-things. It's a decent compromise.

But if I have kids, I want to stay home with them for a long while.

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

Perfectly and completely reasonable. Personally I'm not yet convinced that this interesting and useless degree will render me all that hireable, but I have other skills. Heh. Maybe I'll write a book on the middle ages and justify my existence thus. I have no personal problem with living on Remy's money. And if it were reversed, then I'd have no probelm at all with letting him live on my money. (Hell, I did it when we got together, when I was employed, had lots of school loan money and few bills, and he was unemployed.)

And as to him leaving, it's not so much that I won't be doing anything at all that's economically useful. But really, the things I want to do I *could* do from somewhere else, but my sewing machine does not like to travel, and I'd rather like to have the forge set up in my own yard. technically I have marketable skills, I just dislike those. I can work retail or waitress, but I hate these things.

And we've covered the Remy the wage-slave thing. He's working on getting well enough established to do contracting, pretty much out of the house. And that would rock. Because we'd both be house-people.

[lothie.livejournal.com]

*accolade*

[curiosity.livejournal.com]

Dude, I'm tall. I have broader shoulders than most guys I know. I've BEEN a farmhand and a butcher. I don't wear dresses or skirts at all - ever . . . I'd rather be lost in a library than out there marching in senseless pickets and inciting riots about how my cunt bleeds more than their cunt, etc . . . Extremists, in any capacity, are largely pointless. Idiots.

Anyway . . . I agree with you. Choice. Bo-yeah!

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

**grin** I was half-tempted to mention that there's a fellow at my school that's more girly than I am. Even puts bows in his hair, and lacy ankle socks. I love this freedom and fluidity of gender.

[curiosity.livejournal.com]

*nod* I know a guy who's got a better collection of silky underoos than I do . . . He also does better make-up for my roommate's kids. It's damn scary.

[triskaidekafile.livejournal.com]

Hm. Perhaps the world is ready, but i doubt it highly, for someone to start a "People-ism" movement. The tenets of which being "no one can tell me how to think, live, dress, f*ck, pray, or any other such thing."
hm. Okay, i really *don't* think the world is ready. But it's still an idea...
P

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

And that's what all us freaks are for--desensitize them until they are ready. With large, blunt objects if necessary.

[triskaidekafile.livejournal.com]

heh
"WACK EM!"
P

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

Bash them senseless! It's close enough to desensitization for my purposes, anyway....