Unemployed, Domestic Engineer, or Neither

I work at a hospital in the business office.  One day I was standing in admitting and it’s standard procedure verify address, insurance, emergency contacts, occupation, etc.  with all patients when they check in.  The woman checking in was going through the whole process, and when they got to employment, the clerk asked her if she was still unemployed, the woman said, “Well I guess so, I’m a stay at home mom.”  And unemployed her status stayed.  This just doesn’t seem right.  I really hate the term domestic engineer, to me it seems like an attempt to disguise what you really do, but it doesn’t seem fair to get lumped in with everyone who doesn’t work. 

 I live in the county with the highest unemployment and highest welfare rate in the state.  It just doesn’t seem fair to lump this woman in the same category just because she stays home with her kids.  There has to be a better term than unemployed or domestic engineer.

Can a Woman be a Feminist and a Stay At Home Mom?

Feminism is often perceived as bra burning and man bashing while arguing how women are not treated equally.  Stay At Home Moms are perceived as submissive wives who spend their lives in a role of servitude to their families.  A woman can only be one or the other, right?  Nope, a woman can be both. 

First of all, we need to see what the true scope of these roles really are.  As I pointed out in an earlier post, very few of the women who fought for women’s right to vote worked outside the home.  Most were married with children and were homemakers.  Feminists of the 1960s, the supposed instigators or bra burning, really were not burning anything.  For the truth behind the story, check out this link http://womenshistory.about.com/od/mythsofwomenshistory/a/bra_burning.htm .  There are “radical” feminists.  But there are also women who feel that someone needs to stand up for women’s rights, especially women who cannot stand up for themselves, such as women who are victims of domestic violence, those caught in the sex trade and children who are abused and molested.  The word feminist means, “the doctrine of advocating, social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men”.  There is nothing in the definition about hating men, berating men, or thinking women are superior to men.  Most feminists just want equality.

Now, Stay At Home Moms are not the wilting flowers, or naive or lazy women they are often portrayed as in society.  Many moms who choose to stay home work hard to run their households, controlling the finances, buying the groceries, educating their children.  Many volunteer for issues important to them.  Stay At Home Moms wear a myriad of hats and work for no pay to be able to control the way their household is run.  They feel strongly that motherhood is the most important job of all, and how can we say their not right.  W.R. Wallace was right when he said, “The hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world.”

So can the two exist?  I think so.  Want to see what one looks like?  Read a sample of a Stay at Home Mom and a Feminists blog: http://charlotteotter.wordpress.com/2007/03/10/the-stay-at-home-feminist/ I think the term “Stay at Home Feminist” is a good one and shows that the two aren’t so different.

 -kaylee

Individual Differences.

 Women are able to have a career and fulfill their life dreams. These new freedoms have also meant changes in the role of women. No longer are women limited in their choices. They have options that those before them never did. This also means that many women have to live multiple roles in life. Not just as a wife or mother, but also as part of the working society that for so long has been dominated by men.  Women ought to respect that what someone can take on and maintain (ex. family and career) will not be what they personally could not  maintain or maybe even desire.  Individual differences is a theme that can cut to the core of unnecessary controversy.

Maternity Leave- Not All Countries are Equal

Under the Family Medical Leave Act, most American women can expect to get six weeks off from work after the birth of a new bundle of joy.  Paid leave is not mandatory and there are some exceptions.  What kind of leave are moms in other countries getting?

 

While reading Ann Crittenden’s book The Price of MotherhoodI realized the the US is very much behind the times.  First of all, only six of the economically developed countries do not offer paid leave.  Besides the United States, the other five are Australia, New Zealand, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea. 

France and the Netherlands offers sixteen weeks of paid leave.  It starts six weeks before the child is born and ends ten weeks after the child’s birth with the promise that the woman can go back to working the same job she was prior to her leave.   Many other countries in Europe offer some form of this sixteen weeks of paid leave. 

Sweden seems to be the most generous.  The country offers a year of paid maternity leave, and then the opportunity to work a six hour work day with benefits until the child is in school and the government offers financial help to pay for child care (Crittenden 108).

So, why is America so stingy with its maternity leave?  The obvious conclusion would be that we in America do not value motherhood as much as other countries do.  In corporate America, it all comes down to companies trying to make money.  Paid leave would cut into that and women who choose to have children are an inconvenience for their employers.  Instead of looking at motherhood as an important job that deserves special rights, we look at it as burden that corporate America is forced to bear.  This isn’t how it should be.

-kaylee

 

Do stay at home mothers jeopardize an egalitarian society?

If a woman chooses to stay at home and raise children, is she fading into the traditional gender role assigned to her and forfeiting the potential influence she could have upon the status of women in our society?

What are We Doing Here?

This blog has been designed as a final project for a Women’s Studies class that Chad and I are taking.  We’re going to use this blog to explore some of the issues facing stay at home moms.  Can you be a stay at home mom and a feminist?  How much does it cost financial to stay at home?  Are their any differences between children raised by a stay at home mom and by a daycare?  What are some of the common stereotypes stay at home moms face and are they true?  Over the next couple weeks, we’ll delve into what we think about these topics.

-kaylee