Fighting the real enemy

I thought I would have one post on feminism, with one follow-up, but now I am getting into a hydra situation again. It just keeps getting bigger.   

I’m going to take a side road for a moment here in the hopes that it will help me make my point. I have not blogged much about Trayvon Martin, but that doesn’t mean that I have not been thinking about it. I have been writing about it with Aaron a lot, as he has taken it very hard. I mentioned earlier that he has a lot of racial anger. He is always quick to point out that my family and I don’t count as the white people he hates, and I can point out other exceptions, but really there should not be an exception list—there should just not be stereotyping.

I would run into the same thing when I was working with Laotian refugees, and they did not consider me white. I took it as a compliment, but the part that is missing is they couldn’t lump me in because they knew me. If they had known more people, they would have had more exceptions, until at some point you realize that skin color doesn’t really mean that much. And I totally cut the members of disenfranchised groups more slack for their prejudice than for the majority. Fair or not, reading comments about how black people are lazy, criminal, neglectful parents and violent sickens me a lot more than reading about how white people are evil.

The problem with this type of thinking, beyond the mere fact of it being hateful and ugly, is that it is also really stupid. Going back to “The New Jim Crow”, remember, this was set up deliberately. First African Americans were enslaved, then they were made second-class citizens with the Jim Crow laws, then they were cast as criminals with the drug war, but always it is something that gives poor whites a chance to feel superior, and to stay divided whereas if the poor of all races would work together, and really organize, they should be unstoppable. We’ve let the corporations and the rich consolidate enough power that if we really tried to shake things up, there could be some interesting reactions. It’s a moot point though, because people get so caught up in the false threats that they ignore what really matters.

Building off of yesterday’s post, I think something that women do really well is feeling bad about themselves. There is also some skill at making others feel bad, but that is not the full story. I know we can also do well at being supportive. The support that comes from relating and commiseration is great, what with our willingness to talk about feelings and all that, so there is definitely a different side.

That’s really the side we need to focus on more. We live in what appears to be a very divided (and divisive) society, where it seems to be easier to label and dismiss anyone different than to try and understand.

So, now let’s talk about the Mommy Wars, especially as exemplified in the reaction to one small comment about Ann Romney. Actually, I did post something about this on Facebook, setting off a lively discussion, but at least it was a fairly polite discussion, and I know other people were having much worse ones. We’ll see how this goes.

One problem with the exchange was that people react too quickly without getting the facts or even caring about the facts, and I’m going to write about that more tomorrow. I think the other issue though, circling back to the beginning, is that women are really good at feeling really bad about themselves. So working mothers feel guilty about dividing their time between home and family, and stay-at-home mothers feel guilty about not contributing financially. I think there is a sensitivity there that is easily triggered, and the remark that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life pricked the stay-at-home guilt, and their reaction pricked the working guilt, and then everyone was unhappy with each other (and probably unhappy with themselves, or remembering that they were).

There are so many directions to go with this. First of all, whether or not you have outside employment is not the key factor in whether or not you are a good member. I knew one mother who stayed home, but she wasn’t really interested in the traditional domestic things, so she kept a filthy home and let the 8 year old babysit while she was off volunteering. Those kids might have been better off in day care. I know working mothers who do great jobs, and feel good about their daycare providers.  There is a lot of variety in terms of what can work for a family. If your children feel supported and loved, and they are getting their physical needs met, you’re doing quite a bit that is right.

Let’s look at the larger situation. It came up because Mitt Romney said that he was aware of the economic concerns of women because of talking with his wife. Now, I will not deny that being a homemaker is valuable, and hard, and admirable. It is not the same as having an employer. Do you risk being fired if you are sick? Or if one of your children is sick and needs care? Or if you just fall behind? Maybe if your husband is really a jerk, but in general, no. There are lots of things to fill up your time, but you have some autonomy over how you use it, and that’s great.

This is nothing to feel guilty over. Every family has to work out what will work best for them, based on their economic resources and their values and all of the factors that figure into their lives. Even my non-traditional household, with mother and younger sisters sharing my house with me, we have to figure things out. When Mom was recovering from surgery and could not be alone, it helped that Julie’s employer allowed some working from home, and that mine allowed four ten hour days, giving me an extra day to be at home. Maria’s job did not have that flexibility, but we worked with what we had, and we felt lucky for what we did have.

Whether your family situation requires outside employment or allows the opportunity to stay home, the crux of that is probably financial. It seems likely that someone with a trust fund who has never had to work might not have the same viewpoint as everyone else.

Let’s look at the husband, and some of the things he has said.

“During a campaign stop in New Hampshire in January, Mitt Romney said that mothers of young children who receive state assistance should have the "dignity" of going to work. "Even if you have a child two years of age you need to go to work," Romney said. "And people said, 'Well that's heartless.' And I said, 'No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.'"

No dignity for Ann, I guess. And another one from Romney:

“This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I was growing up, when you used to have Mom at home and Dad at work. Now Mom and Dad both have to work whether they want to or not, and usually one of them has two jobs.”

This change in situation could relate to the decline in union membership, the decline in average wages, and companies like Bain capital firing workers and then re-staffing at reduced wages.

I will write more on the way I think things should be tomorrow, but the question I want to raise now is whether the working woman and the full-time homemaker should really be natural enemies, or is there possibly a common enemy they should be joining forces against?