Re: [Fwd: Re: "Family values"]

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have to give a right on to this basic feminist demand, while being self-critical that I have not yet reached the standards of the average woman in my rehabilitation in doing housework/childcare/elders care . I do strive to improve my practice of this as a political responsibility. Seems to me that repetition of this mundane but fundamental demand is necessary because it gets lost in the shuffle of more "important"/less mundane dimensions of feminism.

By the way, I happened to see Katha's column "The Solipsisters" in _The New York Times Book Review_ (a recent issue). Katha does a good job of critiquing what seem like faux feminists who are sprinkled through the monopoly media to divert people from effective feminist struggle.

Charles Brown



>>> Katha Pollitt <kpollitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 05/28/99 10:35AM >>>
I don't think the difficulties of mothers in the workplace can be solved
by workplace measures alone. The change must happen at home too.  As
long as men don't do their share at home and put their own careers and
amusements first, which most at present now do,  women will be hampered
in their work. Why should MOTHERS be the ones with "split loyalties" and
fathers not? Why should DAUGHTERS care for aged parents and not sons?
Why should WIVES arrange their work lives around   husbands' work and
not husbands around the work of wives?
 Arlie Hochschild's wonderful book "The Second Shift" shows in fine
detail how women end up doing most of the housework and childcare, even
when they earn as much as men, even when both parents say they believe
in equality.  she estimates that something like 18 % of couples share
domestic labor equally.
  As a feminist, I oppose anything resembling a "mommy track" in which
women -- and it will be women -- are consigned to lower levels at work
in return for flexible schedules, shorter hours etc. so they can perform
their "responsibilities" at home.
   I think women should have affirmative action at home -- men do the
lion's share of domestic labor for the next three thousand years!

Katha