Why do any of us enjoy the things we do? I cannot explain exactly why I am drawn to traditionally feminine occupations. I'm pretty sure it's not innate to my gender, but it may well be innate to me. It probably doesn't hurt that these hobbies provide a welcome contrast to my professional life: I make my living as a lawyer, in a traditionally male-dominated, left-brained, field. (However, this does not explain my enthusiasms entirely, as I enjoyed sewing and baking bread long before I dreamed of law school.)
I've blogged before about how the "domestic arts" are fraught with symbolic meaning in our culture. The domestic arts are not simply arts that are domestic, but have come to stand for what women ought to be, for millennia of inequality between the sexes. Feminists question or decry these occupations (see here, and here, for just two examples from the last couple of days, from the NYT) and the rabidly anti-feminist exalt them to ridiculous levels (see here).
This has always been the source of some intellectual discomfort for me, and I feel compelled to bring it up here because I don't feel right talking about all of these traditionally gender-segregated activities (that I love) without at least mentioning the underlying inequality now and then.
I consider myself a feminist. I am a lawyer, and currently, I am the primary income-earner in my family (although my husband will always be the one to bring home any actual bacon in this house), with Steve staying home to care for Joe four days a week. Steve and I both love cooking and gardening, and sad to say, neither of us do much cleaning, so I am definitely not working a "second shift." I just happen to enjoy baking a loaf of bread here and there.
I think this is why some recent well-intentioned remarks about my "superhuman" or "supermom" abilities made me feel ... well ... a little uncomfortable.
On the one hand, I am really flattered and a little gratified. I mean, it is a major accomplishment to juggle a more-than-full-time job, two dogs, and an almost-eleven-month old baby, and still manage to bake a loaf of bread here and there. To the extent that I manage to pull this off, and remain sane and nice to the people around me, I am (rightly, I think) proud! Although, just so you know, it sometimes involves some pretty crazy hair-dos (Joseph, stop laughing at your mother):
But of course, I can't take all of the credit: I am able to do this because of all of the help I get from my husband and our wonderful housemate Rebecca. Seriously, without them, there would be no genius cheese bread. When I get that Oscar-equivalent in bread-baking (hey, a girl can dream), these are the folks I will thank first! Hey guys, you rock!
And there are some sacrifices. My husband and I are scraping by on a bit less income. We rarely go out to restaurants anymore, because Joe, for all his cuteness, is also a major handful. It's hard for me to get out to my regular singings these days, and Steve and I have gone on exactly one "date night" since Joe was born. I would like to go out more, but I already spend a lot of time away from Joe as it is, and when we babysit our friends' kids (or agree to babysit their future kids, in the case of my pregnant sister and brother-in-law), it is often in exchange for daycare so that Steve and I can simply go to work.
Parenthood is wonderful too - I mean, have you seen how cute my baby is? It kills me! Daily! The truth is, Steve and I are both homebodies, and I think we both secretly (or not so secretly) relish this new excuse not to go out as frequently. I have loved "settling down" even more into our comfortable family life.
My concern with the "superwoman" label is that it is rooted in the idea that women must "do it all." That in order to be good wives, we must be great housewives. In order to be good mothers, we must puree our own baby food. "Superwoman" is no longer "super" at all, but has become a statement about what is expected of women every day.
Now, I do not believe that being a great housewife is inherently oppressive any more than I believe that pureeing your own baby food is inherently oppressive. The work that women do, at home or in a profession, should be valued, as expression, as creativity - as work. I try to have fun with motherhood, and I try to share the things I love with my baby: that's why I made all that puree that he refuses to eat (anyone interested in some frozen cubes of applesauce?). The problem is that we women tend to measure ourselves against an impossible ideal of womanhood. An ideal that used to just require that we be good housekeepers, wives, and mothers, but now requires that we fit a full time job in there somewhere too. We can't just be good moms who play with our kids; we must be supermoms who cook, clean, and sew our own cloth diapers while serving as CFO of a major corporation.
Now, that is oppressive.*
Working mothers should not feel that they need to become more domestic in order to prove that they are good mothers, any more than stay-at-home mothers should feel that they have to get a job to prove that they are good feminists.
In her blog post "On mommy blogging, etc.", my friend Emily asks, "When I eventually have kids will I find myself able not only to grow my own food but to puree it for the little ones?" My own answer to this would be "Well, not exactly." Becoming a mother did not flip a switch in my brain that turned my interests to all things domestic. I'm still the same old me, who just happens to regularly fantasize about being a pioneer woman. But it has given me an excuse to spend a bit more time at home. Which has been great. So if you wanted to pick up cooking or some other home-centered hobby, but you don't have time right now, you might indeed find that your domesticity increases when you have children.
Or you might not. There is room in this world for all kinds of women, and all styles of mothers. If you like cooking and want to puree some baby food, do it! It's easy, and I think it's fun! (Good luck getting your child to actually eat it.) But if that would be oppressive to you, don't do it! My idea of "fun" is another woman's idea of "drudgery," after all.
It sounds so glib, and it is such a cliche, but it is all about having the choice, isn't it?
My choice is to almost never clean.
And now I'm off to plan my next loaves.
* You know what else is oppressive? The way that traditional women's labor, especially housekeeping and childcare, is so severely devalued in our culture that even ardent feminists tend to dismiss it as "drudgery" and fail to regard it as "real work."