"A woman's place is in the home."

[Steel Tiger]

Recently I acquired a collection of very old cartoons ranging from the late '20s to the early '60s.

One of these cartoons, from England, opened with a vacuum salesman going door to door. Eventually someone lets him in and he demonstrates the machine which turns out to be a musical instrument. The lady of the house is enchanted and spends all her time from then on practicing to play the thing. In time she goes off and performs with a very strange orchestra. Throughout this we are shown scenes of her husband and son slowly deteriorating, the husband becoming a drunk and the son running away from home. All pretty depressing so far.

Then another salesman appears with a tuba. This one actually vacuums the floor. The woman is enchanted and gives up her performing career and is last seen vacuuming the floor with a happy and contented family in the background.

The very last image of the cartoon is a poster that reads, "Moral, A woman's place is in the home."

We have all heard this saying before and it generally has a negative connotation. The impression I got from this cartoon was different. The makers seems to be trying to say if a woman is not in the home it will fall apart. Now this is a late '50s attitude but it is different to the normal interpretations of this saying.

 

[Sukerkin]

I know that it's become very un-PC for a woman to want to run a home rather than be some hot-shot business woman with a Blackberry in one hand and a cellphone on speed-dial for child-care in the other. But I truly believe that what we've seen is behavioural fascism that slid under the radar.

Those that want to be business-women can be business-women, it should be a career path that is as open to them as their male counter-parts.

What should not happen is that a woman is made to feel 'lesser' because she takes on the task of managing a home and bringing up a family. I don't want to build it up into some Herculean task but it['s no easy ride administering and maintaining a household.

Without that pivot at the centre, it's very hard to make families 'work' well, which is what I think the old cartoon was aiming at. I don't know if it's an ideal that ever really existed as working class women have always had to pull double-duty to some extent, whether it was taking in washing or cleaning for the aspiring middle-classes (or indeed working in the factories and mines along with their children, which is not something that's widely advertised).

 

[Empty Hands]

The makers seems to be trying to say if a woman is not in the home it will fall apart. Now this is a late '50s attitude but it is different to the normal interpretations of this saying.

Putting women on a pedestal is still sexism. It limits their options, and fails to take them into account as full human beings. The point of that cartoon was not to laud women, but to remind them of their place, no matter how "nicely" it is dressed up.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I know that it's become very un-PC for a woman to want to run a home rather than be some hot-shot business woman with a Blackberry in one hand and a cellphone on speed-dial for child-care in the other. But I truly believe that what we've seen is behavioural fascism that slid under the radar.

Those that want to be business-women can be business-women, it should be a career path that is as open to them as their male counter-parts.

What should not happen is that a woman is made to feel 'lesser' because she takes on the task of managing a home and bringing up a family. I don't want to build it up into some Herculean task but it['s no easy ride administering and maintaining a household.

It's an unfortunate hangover from a time when the women's liberation movement was very angry about everything and homemaking was seen as the epitome of the degradation of women. Housewives were written off as stupid and pathetic by the movement's drivers and agitators and I think that has stuck. Choosing to be a homemaker seems to be considered either a cop-out or an indication of lesser mental acquity.

Without that pivot at the centre, it's very hard to make families 'work' well, which is what I think the old cartoon was aiming at. I don't know if it's an ideal that ever really existed as working class women have always had to pull double-duty to some extent, whether it was taking in washing or cleaning for the aspiring middle-classes (or indeed working in the factories and mines along with their children, which is not something that's widely advertised).

You know, your mention of class has made me think about this is those terms. As you point out working class women probably struggled to be the lynch pin and work at the same time, and it is likely that women of the upper classes didn't really try to fulfill that role, instead handing certain responsibilities over to governess' and servants. So, if this ideal eveer really existed it was among the middle classes where a household was wealthy enough that a woman didn't have to work, but not so wealthy that they could hire too many servants. But I suspect that people have tried, and will continue to try, to find that ideal balance.

 

[Sukerkin]

EH, it's very easy to take on stance on issues like this which makes any gender based role making a thing to be derided and scorned (mind you, I don't mean to imply that I think you're wrong about the intent in the cartoons that started our discussion).

This is a sword which should cut both ways in that case.

What would your opinion be of a man who did not think it was his role to provide for and protect his family?

Now I'm middle-aged and also quite old-fashioned in some of my ideas, having being brought up in a poor, hyper-religious, working class family in England but I wouldn't think much of a man who abrogated what I see as his responsibilities.

It is not an evil thing for a woman to want or be content to be a housewife. We tend to view it as oppressive if she is made to be a housewife but that is not morally any different from the various moulds that a man is made to fit in to.

My missus would be quite happy if she could stay at home and 'keep house' whilst I went to work and earned the money to make that possible. I would be happy with that too but the idiotic economic dis-organisation of modern industrial society means that even as a highly educated and experienced professional in a specialised field I still don't earn enough to make that happen. Tho' my missus does not 'blame' me for this per se, I still feel shame that she has to work so that we can survive financially.

Anyhow, rambling, as I always do when posting this late (you Yanks should be up and about on the forum at a more civilised time for us Limeys's ).

My core point is that gender role division is not an aberration. It is a natural division of labour that occurred societally longer ago than records reach. People of either gender will fall outside of those broad roles and that is natural also. What is wrong is to force anyone into a role they cannot bear or does not prove fulfilling to them.

 

[Kacey]

What should not happen is that a woman is made to feel 'lesser' because she takes on the task of managing a home and bringing up a family. I don't want to build it up into some Herculean task but it['s no easy ride administering and maintaining a household.

Indeed. Too many women - and men, as well - who choose to stay home and raise their family are seen as "just" a housewife or househusband, to the detriment of all. There is no "just" to raising children; all other jobs pale before that one; to deride those who choose to devote any significant portion of their lives to such an endeavor is, IMHO, stupidity at its highest - or perhaps it's just jealousy, from those who feel they cannot do the same.

Putting women on a pedestal is still sexism. It limits their options, and fails to take them into account as full human beings. The point of that cartoon was not to laud women, but to remind them of their place, no matter how "nicely" it is dressed up.

True.

 

[Empty Hands]

What would your opinion be of a man who did not think it was his role to provide for and protect his family?

Quite poor, but that is an equal opportunity obligation as far as I am concerned. I would not think poorly of this man at all if instead of providing and protecting outside the home, he wanted to do so inside it.

I am also not sure we can conclude that these stereotypical roles are natural, or that naturalness provides a compelling reason for adoption. As discussed previously in the thread, the "stay-at-home" Mom is a historical aberration. Women have always had to work both inside and outside the home, except for a small segment of the population for a brief period of time in only a small part of the world. Furthermore, there are and have been a number of societies that change up the roles, obligations and expectations for the sexes in and out of the home. This diversity precludes the conclusion of a single "natural" standard.

People of either gender will fall outside of those broad roles and that is natural also. What is wrong is to force anyone into a role they cannot bear or does not prove fulfilling to them.

Definitely agreed.

 

[Sukerkin]

Furthermore, there are and have been a number of societies that change up the roles, obligations and expectations for the sexes in and out of the home. This diversity precludes the conclusion of a single "natural" standard.

Quite true and something that I had totally failed to take into account .

The Celts and Anglo Saxons, to name a couple, had a much more 'liberated' view of the roles of men and women, at least at the higher echelons of society.

We do have to be careful not to over-emphasise such 'variations' from our own modern Western/Christian views tho', primarily because they are largely social-class based.

For example, in medieval Japanese society, the wife of a Samurai was fully expected to rule the house when her husband was away at war or other service of his daimyo. This was also true in equivalent period noble English houses too. But this should not be misinterpreted, as some have tried to do, that there was a time of Feminist Nirvana where a woman could be both kept and in a position of authority at the same time.

Then again, on the other, other, hand (ROFL), it should not be neglected that the 'traditional' social biological role diversity has a very pragamatic underpinning. These are divisions of labour based upon fundamamental, species survival, principles - it was not some hideous, fascist, plan to oppress women or make their role seem lesser (because it is greater NOT lesser) and it irks me a little that it is cast in that light these days.

 

[MA-Caver]

I'm of the opinion a house isn't a home unless both parents are present and doing their best to make it so, in their own way(s). Whether both parents are working or that it's a 1 working parent household it's a thing that holds a family together when there's love, understanding and patience and cooperative effort.

Kudos to those who are single parents trying to do both herculean tasks at once because circumstances forced them into it.