So that Flanagan article about the nannies ("How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement") that I've been nattering on about is finally online. Even better, though, is a whole series at Slate where Barbara Ehrenreich and Sara Mosle take on Caitlin Flanagan in a three-way dialogue about child care, feminism, and Flanagan's enormous attitude problem. (Four days' worth, starting here.)
For purely selfish reasons, my favorite part was when Ehrenreich put words to my own baffled reaction in this way: "Caitlin, you haven't been dipping into those Manhattans prematurely, have you? If your 10,000 word piece was about how employers should pay their nannies' Social Security taxes, then my reading skills are in serious decline." I'm delighted to have my respect and admiration for Ehrenreich strengthened yet again, but I'll admit to ambivalence about the fact that she covered every one of my major points in her response to the article (as well as some that never occurred to me). On the one hand, I feel very clever for the confluence. On the other, this probably means that they'll never publish my letter to the editor.
I know, I know. It's not all about me.
Posted by Susan at February 24, 2004 09:54 PM"Furthermore, you say you love men. Well, I love and have loved a few of them myself—enough to know they're not such dummies that they can't learn the technology of a vacuum cleaner or remember to pick up the artwork as well as the kid from nursery school. The tiredest old excuse men have for not doing their share is "But honey, you do it so much better." To which the correct response is, "But sweetheart, you can learn!" My guys always have learned, or, more commonly, had the appropriate skill set when I took up with them."
This paragraph hit home. If we're going by the gender stereotypes, my partner is the woman and I am the man when it comes to housekeeping. But I know full that it is due to laziness and poor upbring on my part, and I've worked on fixing it over the years.
He's also much better with power tools than I am which tends to support my argument.
Posted by: Mark at February 25, 2004 10:15 AMYeah, there was a bit in there somewhere where Flanagan was going on about housekeeping standards. I don't have the energy right now to go back through the article, but it was something like "sure, your husband will give the kids their baths, but he won't remember to straighten the bathmat and fold the towels, so you really need to hire a woman to do the cleaning." And I couldn't help but think, or you could acknowledge that it's not such a big goddamn deal if the bathmat doesn't get straightened.
It's not quite the same point you're making, but I think they're related.
Posted by: Susan at February 25, 2004 10:21 AMGod, that was a great series of letters. It's such a touchy subject that it's rare to see anyone address it as sanely and comfortably as Barbara Ehrenreich did.
The housekeeping standards thing is interesting. Flanagan sees it as personal and misses the political. Behind her assumption that the bathmat is -- and should be! -- a big goddamn deal is more than a reasonable standard of cleanliness. It has to do with learned identity, and it's something that women learn more than men. "If my bathmats aren't straight, I am screwing up. If my bathmats aren't straight, other women (my peers, my mother, my internalized mother) will disapprove of me." The housekeeping represents the character of the woman of the house. Never mind if she's a neurosurgeon and a mother who wins the Nobel in her spare time -- if she can't keep those bathmats straight, she is a failure as a woman.
Which is one of those things that feminism tries to address, but -- oh right, Flanagan isn't a feminist.
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