Women don't HAVE to work.

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I'm tired of people who think it is morally wrong for a woman to be a housewife. A woman can be a housewife if she wants to.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpA7pfR0FIc[/youtube]

being a housewife is work too. it is also a trade (after all, the husband supports his housewife in exchange for various things; she is essentially "selling" her body and skills).

also: how annoying is this woman from the video?

I'm really trying to understand where this kind of idea in feminism comes from and....wow... I suppose I'm genetically coming up short. A woman is allowed to pop out a baby but - by women's standards - is not allowed to take maternity leave or raise them, that's going back to the bronze age and chaining herself to the bed and stove.

Wh.....who's the enemy? People like the commentator are punching and flailing at some kind of ghost or specter but I can't even tell what that ghost or specter is. What, full-scale reversal of women's rights? Belief that women who stay at home will opt out of suffrage and even decide to petition - by their husbands' will - to petition against women's rights to vote?

I'm guessing LKL will have to chime in, not to say she thinks like this but she might know something at least regarding where this comes from.

And so should a man, if he wants to. The problem is not that it's morally wrong for woman to become housewives. It's morally wrong to expect women to become housewives once they settled with a partner. Why must it always be the woman? And why does she have to do it at all?

So if a woman, in complete agreement with herself, with no external pressure at all, decides to become a housewife, then all the more power to her. But in our current, still chauvinist society, can anyone say that women that become housewives have all done so of their own free will? Can we say that men who decided to stay home are not being ridiculed?

That's the true issue, not whether or not women should be forbidden from becoming housewives.

oh I agree with you completely tech.

just to be clear - I don't condemn women who choose to be housewives. I'm just trying to point out that being a housewife isn't that different from regular work. I imagine that it would be quite similar to the corporate office work I do right now - I would feel like I need to deliver for what I am provided with.

it's quite easy to just leave the job and find another though.

Indeed, equating "housewife" with "not working" is adding insult over injury. Anyone who has tried doing a bit of cleaning at home will know it's a full time job. Add children and it's a non-stop job, 24/7! People who are "working" have it easy.

Feminism should be about two things, equality and choice. Women should have the same rights as men and shouldn't face any discrimination because of their gender, and they should be able to choose to do whatever the hell they want to do. Telling women that they need to be doing this or that sort of goes against what feminism should be all about, doesn't it?

easy? you obviously haven't met my ceo's

it's a shame that full-time housework gives the women no social nor financial security such as retirement. on the other hand, it wouldn't be fair to make everyone support "retired" housewives financially.

it's a complex problem that I have no answer to :-/

+1

It is one of those areas where, in the case of divorce, alimony makes a lot of sense. No one should be financially bound to anyone in the long term, particularly if things aren't working. On the other hand if things are working, its really a 'management' decision in terms of parenting.

Ignoring the actual video and all the comments - - I take issue with the title of the thread.

First of all, it implies a universal, "no woman has to work." Really??? What, we all have someone willing and able to pay for our lives, and get to run off into the tabloids like Paris Hilton?

Second, it doesn't fit your first post at all. Is being a housewife not "work?" Shoot, it's THE most difficult job I've ever tried to do ... so much so, that I was relieved to still be enough a part of the paid workforce sufficiently to be able to up my paid hours and get someone else to do some of my "housewife" work.

Whole other tangent, but in a world of increasing budget cuts do you have any idea what a stay at home mom (the preferred term) is now expected to do? Most of those women are working 20 plus hours a week at their children's schools, among other things. They are a needed and essential part of the economy. For seven years I worked 50 hour weeks for school fundraising from April 15 through June 15th. Leave one job and I guarantee there are a dozen more waiting for you. They just don't all show up in census as "work."

The problem today is not that women "work," but that they work TOO MUCH: some paid, some not, but all of it relentless.

FYI, I know of NO ONE who thinks it is morally wrong for a woman to be housewife. But we'll be sure to find her and get her roped into the church, or school, or some other place where she contributes to the community, simply because the needs there are so great, not because we begrudge her her homemaking.

Although ... if you don't have a paid job, don't volunteer anywhere, pay a housekeeper, and manage to con everyone else into driving your kids off to all their events ... then I'll call a spade a spade and call you at least a tab bit more self-centered than I have the day of time to tolerate. Nah, haven't met a woman like that myself, yet ... although stories definitely abound.

See what a few hot button words can trigger?

Maybe I should watch the video, eh?

Down with videos and all those who post them. You saved me pointing out running the house is work.

But in some [thank God in our case] if not in all cases it is a partnership with division of labor, Herself not selling her work nor buying mine, but contributing to the common good.

Who are these straw people you are beating?

[opinion=rant]

The word "Housewife" is inappropriate, in that no woman is the wife of a house.

"Domestic Goddess" is over-rated, and a "Housekeeper" is what the "Domestic Goddess" becomes after the divorce.

Seriously, a "Housekeeper" is someone I hire to come in twice a week to dust, vacuum, and do a few other chores that I might be too lazy or busy to do myself.

What simple phrase might be used to describe a woman who stays at home, takes care of her kids, keep the house in order, spends her husbands paycheck, cooks for the family, and shares connubial bliss with her husband?

[/opinion]

The most current term is SAHM, Stay At Home Mom. This was created on internet message boards and has stuck for about 10 years now. There is also WOHM for Work Out of Home Mom and PTSAHM (for those who work part time). For Dads, the default is working out of home so there is no acronym for that, but Dads who stay at home are called SAHD. For parents who stay at home but also have an in-home business, the acronym is WAHM and WAHD (for work at-home). Those terms don't roll off the tongue but posts get too long without acronyms that everybody uses, just as AS and NT are used here.

Women don't have to work, but I sure as hell do!

I'm the main breadwinner and can't afford not to work. That is an economic reality for many women, not an issue of feminism.