Nothing to say on Biden stepping down, except that if Harris gets the nomination I’ll support her. If it’s someone else, I’ll support them. Democrats are flawed; Trump is the end of democracy. And a bunch of ugly stuff besides, such as JD Vance’s misogyny. And Trump’s (despite CNN in one of the endless “Trump isn’t so bad” articles declaring that the convicted [and self-confessed] sexual assailant is good to women.]
As I mentioned last year, one of the undead sexist cliches beloved by patriarchy supporters is that patriarchy was better for women. Forcing them back into the home is a good thing because that’s where they’re happy. It was those evil, lying feminists and their Jedi mind tricks who convinced women that “to move many of them into the workforce of market capitalism” was a good thing when it’s really a terrible burden.
Unsurprisingly JD Vance, the man who believes women should not be allowed to divorce abusive husbands and sneers rape victims shouldn’t receive abortion just because “the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient” (never trust anyone who dismisses rape as “inconvenient”) is all in (at the “inconvenient” link): ““If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had.”
If Vance were making an argument in favor of reconsidering the effects of capitalism, that might be cool. He’s not. He’s not lamenting his own time spent working as a venture capitalist. He’s not worried about the fathers who work way more than 40 hour week and never see their kids (no matter how much conservatives talk about the importance of fathers, I’ve never seen them worry about this). He’s restating the grand obsession of religious conservatives, that women should be in the kitchen and the nursery, not out competing with men.
The issue for feminists isn’t that motherhood is inherently a bad choice, it’s that it’s a choice, period. Not destiny. Not their “natural” role, any more than being the breadwinner is “natural” for fathers. It’s not about working in journalism or finance being better than stay-at-home parenting, it’s that we should have the freedom to pick the path that works best for us and our families.
Vance is making up a false binary — either stay home and have a wonderful life as a mommy or have your life swallowed in miserable service to a malevolent corporation. In reality, there are still jobs that don’t require that kind of insane commitment (though they’re harder to find than they should be). There are also people who like demanding jobs — the challenges, the money. That’s as justifiable for women as for men. As Simone de Bouvier put it, women have been “denied the human right to create, to invent, to go beyond mere living to find a meaning for life in projects of ever-widening scope. Man ‘remodels the face of the earth, he creates new instruments, he invents, he shapes the future.'”
Conversely, as many parents can attest, being a stay-at-home mom or dad isn’t a life of ease. Raising kids (I haven’t done it but I’ve watched friends do it and heard stories) is hard work. Rewarding but demanding. And where the husband in the “traditional” marriage could come home at the end of the day and relax, the mother’s work didn’t stop. Putting the kids to bed, cooking for hubby, cleaning up afterwards, that’s a lot of work too.
If a woman wants to stay home and care for the kids, great. If she wants to “create, to invent,” that’s cool too. Conversely, if a guy can afford to quit the rat-race and stay home with the children, that’s fine as well. Some men do; there’s nothing wrong with that. Except in the eyes of patriarchy and patriarchy toadies like Vance. They want women back under the control of their lord and master. To them, women are means to an end — the end being orgasms, babies, clean houses and male status. And they hate the idea of people deciding this stuff for themselves.
As Fred Clark says, for men the older patriarchal system ” is literally designed to meet your desires and appetites and emotional needs. Plus someone else is going to make you food, clean up after you, launder your clothes, and tend to your children. Being ‘above’ and being deferred to by default is, all things considered, a pretty terrific arrangement for you” (as is marriage). An arrangement men haven’t earned and certainly can’t claim based on a real merit. So they end up resenting any women who questions their sweet deal, or insisting that no, they really, really do care. They’ll do anything they can to care for women … except stop pushing them around.
As I’ve said before, embracing patriarchy isn’t healthy. And it makes marriage more unhealthy.
For more analysis of misogynist, patriarchal bullshit, I recommend Undead Sexist Cliches, available in paperback or ebook.
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