In this (very interesting) article on the relationship between home and work, Jennifer Roback Morse rightly points to the connection between the urge to get rid of differences between men and women and the disintegration of the family (when men and women are purportedly no different from women, family is not as the natural outcome of our differences, but rather, at best, a contract made for mutual benefit).
Her use of this quote from Engels is interesting:
"In the old communistic household, which comprised many couples and their children, the task entrusted to women of managing the household was as much a public, a socially necessary, industry as the procuring of food by the men. With the patriarchal family and still more with the single monogamous family, a change came. Household management lost its public character. It no longer concerned society. It became a private service; the wife became the head servant, excluded from all participation in social production."
It seems to me that a household must have both an end in itself and an end in the community. I object not only to the idea that the family is a construction that is simply of use to the state, but also to the idea that the family is an entirely private community that has no relevance to the polity (this is connected to suburbanization, which leads to families that are simply places where all of the members retire to rest, rather than active, living, contributing organisms. Ideally the family will be a producing rather than only consuming institution.) Because the family has been privatized (because producing activities have been taken out of the home), women have left the home (following men) to look for fulfillment and the possibility for creative production.
One problem in her suggestion that women earn advanced degrees later, when they are older, is that it is often a more difficult endeavor when you're older. Goodness gracious, I can't learn a language now for the life of me--I love that I blame this on age rather than excessive laziness.
Also the obvious thing that would strengthen her argument and that she neglects to discuss, is birth control. I'm just not sure why people make arguments like Morse's without dealing with birth control.
Morse ends her essay by writing, "In short, I claim the right to participate in the labor market as women, not as men in skirts. Up until now, we have insisted that women change their fertility in order to accommodate the labor market. I say we should take women’s fertility as given and change the labor market to accommodate our bodies." I really agree with this, but goodness gracious, does she have to go into rights talk? That's irritating. I mean, I think that we do, in fact, already have that right, it's just that we have to choose families over loads of money and "achievement." I also believe in the government structuring its laws in order to encourage and support families, but need we buy into rights talk just because everyone else does?
It seems to me that a household must have both an end in itself and an end in the community. I object not only to the idea that the family is a construction that is simply of use to the state, but also to the idea that the family is an entirely private community that has no relevance to the polity (this is connected to suburbanization, which leads to families that are simply places where all of the members retire to rest, rather than active, living, contributing organisms. Ideally the family will be a producing rather than only consuming institution.) Because the family has been privatized (because producing activities have been taken out of the home), women have left the home (following men) to look for fulfillment and the possibility for creative production.
One problem in her suggestion that women earn advanced degrees later, when they are older, is that it is often a more difficult endeavor when you're older. Goodness gracious, I can't learn a language now for the life of me--I love that I blame this on age rather than excessive laziness.
Also the obvious thing that would strengthen her argument and that she neglects to discuss, is birth control. I'm just not sure why people make arguments like Morse's without dealing with birth control.
Morse ends her essay by writing, "In short, I claim the right to participate in the labor market as women, not as men in skirts. Up until now, we have insisted that women change their fertility in order to accommodate the labor market. I say we should take women’s fertility as given and change the labor market to accommodate our bodies." I really agree with this, but goodness gracious, does she have to go into rights talk? That's irritating. I mean, I think that we do, in fact, already have that right, it's just that we have to choose families over loads of money and "achievement." I also believe in the government structuring its laws in order to encourage and support families, but need we buy into rights talk just because everyone else does?
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