All you stay-at-home mothers are wasting your intelligence, talent, and education. And all you women who work in day care or education are wasting your time too. At least that was the opinion of Linda Hirschman in the Washington Post and quoted by Kirsten Powers. Here’s what Hirschman, a self-described feminist philosopher, says:
The tasks of housekeeping and child rearing [are] not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings. They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings.”
In addition to demeaning all those stay-at-home moms, she’s also slamming all the nannies, housekeepers, teachers, and more. In other words, Hirschman is showing that liberal feminism is a class-based snobbery only concerned with like-minded college-educated upper-middle-class feminist liberals who can outsource the raising of their children.
Powers gets to the heart of the feminazi philosophy and is starting to grasp that all this talk about “choice,” including the “choice” of abortion is really about making the choices that the ubergrupenfuhrers want you to make.
I saw Hirshman on 60 minutes and was shocked when she announced that women graduates of Ivy League schools who had left their careers to raise families were making the “wrong choice”. There it was laid bare: feminism really isn’t about women having the freedom to make choices. It’s about women making the “right choice” as determined by people like Linda Hirshman.
As a “feminist” - whatever that word even means - one would think Hirshman would resist the temptation to infantilize grown women, but she claims she is just “asking women the hard questions.” In reality, she is expressing an intolerant world view that women who don’t work are losers, which makes her scarcely different than Caitlan Flanagan (aka the Ann Coulter of stay-at-home motherhood) who attacks and lectures women from the opposite end of the spectrum. And to be clear, like Flanagan, Hirshman isn’t just expressing an opinon about what she thinks is best, she is saying that any woman who makes a choice different from what she espouses is unequivocally “wrong.”
What could be more important and more challenging and more taxing to your education, intellect, and talents than raising children to become productive, happy people who give more to society than they take from it and who will give glory to God by the way they live their lives?
Technorati Tags:feminism, liberalism, motherhood
bk_keywords:stay-at-home mother.
The feminazis in Europe were talking like this too a few months ago, wanting to tax women who didn’t take advatage of their college degrees and instead chose to (gasp!) stay home to raise the children.
I clearly recall the evaluation report written by the specialist to whom our pediatrician referred our daughter when she was just a toddler. The doctor stated that it was a good thing that she had a well educated and highly intelligent mother who was motivated to provide the stimulation that the child required to thrive. (He very diplomatically said that she was a handful, too.) His comments, and those of the pediatrician, were the first support I’d received since leaving my career to be a SAHM (a choice dh & I made despite a 60% drop in income.) Up until that point, I’d heard nothing but criticism, including remarks from my own relatives about how I was “wasting” my education. Perhaps my MBA and subsequent career were not directly applicable to homeschooling our children, but they certainly were not drawbacks, either.
As our children grew older, we often were told that I should return to work and place our children in private schools. The best school in our (then) community would have cost approximately $35K per year for two students, including the required annual bldg. fund contribution. It had a faculty:student ratio of 1:12 (including non-degreed aides.) In addition, we would have had to pay for after-school care, summer programs, and holiday camps so that our children would not be left home alone. Add in the cost of a cleaning service, dry cleaning for my suits, a more expensive wardrobe, commuting & parking, and lunches out and I would have had to *net* over $60K/yr. just to break even. I’m sure there would have been other cost increases, too. Instead, I remained at home and we homeschooled, providing our children with a 1:2 teacher:student ratio and years of travel, adventures, and free time. Both were able to begin college early, earning multiple academic scholarships and making the Dean’s List each semester. To top it off, they’re both faithful Catholics and are fun people to be around.
Meanwhile, I contributed to a 401K and was frugal for the past 21 yrs. since leaving my career. Dh & I live in a fully paid for home, have no debt and a comfortable level of investments. I thank God daily that I did not marry a man who bought into the whole feminist agenda and who devalued family life.
Jeanne: If you can’t be civil and respond logically to the points people are making then you aren’t welcome to comment. I refer you to the Complete Blog Commenting Guidelines.
Liberal feminists hate everybody. They even hate each other.
I’m so proud of all you stay-at-home moms! I wish I had done it. I tried to run a business out of my house for 3 years. It didn’t work out but those were the happiest 3 years of my life. Not only did I see my daughter a lot more, I actually had time to volunteer.
“I am laughing that you cannot see this. Pray all you want but I will be making more $$ than you because I can see this.”
A correct scale of values:
“the primacy of being over having, of the person over things.”
Pope John Paul II
“where do I mail you my bills?”
I thought you could pay your own bills as you wrote, “Pray all you want but I will be making more $$ than you because I can see this.”
I’ll pray for you, peace.
Jeanne: You’re starting to repeat yourself. Drop it and move on.
Jeanne: Last warning. Now you’re just being insulting and repititve. Drop it unless you can be civil and say something intelligable and that is part of a discussion, not a monologue.
Irrelevant. Be more civil or be banned.
“They only do it to look righteous out of peer pressure and not out of sincerity”
How do you really know this? Are you so much more righteous than others? On the same level as Jesus?
“That bugs Jesus and it bugs me.”
You do demonstrate anger, though I am lacking in describing it righteous.
Obviously, there is more to the situation here.
God Bless and Peace!