As I pointed out in a recent Atomic Junk Shop post, it was a lot harder for people several decades back to conceive of women needing equality as much as people of color. In the 1950s the injustice of segregation was becoming obvious but women? They had an awesome life! Their husband had to work but chicks got to stay home with the kids, living life on the easiest possible mode. The man supported them, protected them, gave them love and sex, what could possibly be better than that?
When Phyliss Schlafly began her political activist career fighting against rights for (other) women, that was her standard argument: the husband buys his wife a house! How can anyone say she’s not pampered beyond measure! Of course the man’s buying the house for himself, too — it’s not like he doesn’t need somewhere to stay — but Schlafly ignored such niggling details.
Even a lot of women had a hard time conceiving there was a problem (I’m sure the tranquilizers they were encouraged to down didn’t make it easier). As Celeste Davis says, for many of them it took reading The Feminine Mystique and realizing their discomfort wasn’t just in their heads before they could say yes, they had a problem; no, they weren’t happy. No, they were not pampered house pets
Stephanie Coontz’s A Strange Stirring, on the impact of Betty Friedan’s book, drives home some of the reasons women were frustrated. Some states gave husbands the legal right to forbid their wives from working or going to school or reading books they didn’t approve of. Some states gave women no say in how her husband spent his money. If the husband wanted to move and the wife refused, she could be charged for abandoning her family. And more.
Plus, of course, working at home was often a full-time job, especially if you had kids (Davis has discussed that too). Dad gets home from work, kicks back; Mom makes dinner, fetches his drink, manages the kids, puts them to bed. In return, he changes the oil in the car every so often and mows the lawn on weekends — stuff which doesn’t have to be done anywhere near as constantly.
(IIRC, relationship guru John Gray once said that while men see “change the oil and the tires” as a big deal that should count for multiple points on the balance sheet, women see it as one point. Given the imbalance in the time commitment, I’m with the women).
But of course the nature of Undead Sexist Cliches is that they don’t, you know, die. So anti-feminists have been trying to retcon facts for decades: women were happy, feminists used their Sith Lord mind control to fool them. To force women out of the home and into the workplace, to suffer as exploited drones — obviously they were happier under patriarchy. Curiously, nobody making this argument (JD Vance, Paul Deneen) ever explains why it’s okay for corporation to exploit men or suggests that how employers treat workers is the problem.
As Adrienne Matei writes in the Guardian, the Nazis spread the same lies too. Matei points out it’s not just misogyny, society — in Germany, in Italy, today — relies on women’s unpaid labor to keep working. It’s much easier for a man to put in long, exhausting hours at work if he can turn the kids over to his wife (regardless of how her career suffers). It’s much easier to cut benefits if you convince moms it’s their responsibility to pick up the slack.
“This nostalgia that conservatives are trying to sell us? Generations fought like hell to escape it,” Jessica Valenti says. “But for younger women—those who can’t imagine a world where they can’t get a credit card or a divorce—conservatives are offering up something seductive, even if false. After all, who isn’t disheartened by the state of the world right now? Who doesn’t feel despairing or exhausted? Who among us wouldn’t rather check the fuck out and bake some cookies?”
True, some women are happy staying at home and that’s cool. But not all women. Nor are all women good at it. Being a mom or a homemaker is like any other job: it fits some people, not all people (much as “learn to code” is terrible advice as a universal career path).
And for women it comes with costs. The late Charlie Kirk complained not long before his murder that young men are prioritizing marriage and family (I have no idea if this is so) where as young women are postponing them until they get their careers under way. He ignores that for men, as Anna Kendrick says, that decision is relatively easy: they can assume their wife will handle the childcare so their career won’t be interrupted. Women can’t be confident of that (I’m sure Kirk was aware of this but doesn’t care — he’s not suggesting men postpone their career climb for family).
That’s the thing, patriarchy is unhealthy. It forces both men and women into roles they’re “supposed” to fit, whether they fit or not. It’s a better deal for a lot of men, but not for all men. It requires turning off part of your brain to tell yourself that no, no, the voice inside your head is wrong, you’re perfectly happy. Or that yes, you really deserve to be the absolute monarch of the household with someone to cook and clean up after you, even if there’s no obvious reason you deserve this.
Ah, but! One standard argument that men deserve this is that they’re protectors, defenders of the women. Misogynist preacher John Piper, for instance, asserts it’s the man’s duty to defend his woman, even if she’s a stronger fighter than he is (though protecting her doesn’t mean he can’t hit her or verbally abuse her). And that willingness to lay down his life for her justifies male dominance, even if he’s hitting her (is it possible Piper is full of shit? Could be). Much like changing the oil, this arrangement requires constant, daily duty from the woman; the man plays the hero once in a blue moon, or possibly never.
For Christian male supremacists the “never” doesn’t matter. As Kristen Kobes du Mez and Jay Mallow explain, “In [Eric] Metaxas’ world you should be able to demand that “unconditional submission” not because you actually have sacrificed anything but because of a stated willingness to do so. This is where many will fall back to symbolic or even “covenantal” language concerning Jesus. What they’ll say is men are supposed to “enter into” the “role” of leadership and sacrifice being “like Jesus”, but what will always be twisted is that them having that “role” and stating a supposed “genuine” willingness to be like Jesus means they should be treated like him regardless of whether they are acting like Jesus/sacrificing or not.”
The 1950s were not a utopia for women. Real-life housewives were not as happy as 1950s sitcom tradwives. Nobody should be fooled.
