Comments on: Step by Step

By: Maia

Maia — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:32:18 +0000

Silence is Foo - Please don’t comment in this thread any more. You’re derailing it, and you clearly didn’t understand what I had to say.

Thanks for your comments, everyone else

By: DaisyDeadhead

DaisyDeadhead — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:48:58 +0000

Consider the work that those men had to do.

Who gives a shit?

Consider the thousands of historical accounts that have never once mentioned the work of women. How about YOU consider this post “equal time”?

What I find tedious is how every post about women, somehow, has to be about men. Of course, isn’t EVERYTHING about men? Aren’t THEY the important people? God forbid, we don’t mention men every time we mention women! I mean, you know, the poor fragile dears might die from lack of constant attention, since it appears their egos need stroking every damn second.

Everything is not about MEN. Like this thread. Suck it up and move on.

By: Mandolin

Mandolin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:27:45 +0000

Okay, not really. But this ad for Clorox does end up unintentionally showing how women have been doing household grunt work for generations.

The worst line in the commercial says that “even a man or two” has done the laundry. As if all the women watching are supposed to have some little laugh to ourselves about the inequitable division of labor. “I do shit work for free, tee hee!”

(Also, as was pointed out by tipster Jessica Hicks, depending on how you listen to the line–it could be read as a little dirtier than intended.)

This is the full text of the entry you imply supports your claim. It does not. Try again.

By: Silenced is foo.

Silenced is foo. — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:05:08 +0000

@Mandolin:

Offhand, there’s this one:

http://feministing.com/archives/007623.html

talking about “unequal division of labour”.

Slightly less relevantly, there’s Caldicott’s pissing on veterans, describing the desire to enlist as bloodlust.

I’d need more time to find more, and my lunch break just ended.

By: Mandolin

Mandolin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:53:24 +0000

It remains inaccurate and insulting, and it’s a bullshit generalization as long as it’s been pulled straight out of your ass. I could say “Too many people named Silenced Foo like murdering puppies” and it would be a bullshit statement; if I said “Too many people LIKE Silenced Foo like murdering puppies” it would be a bullshit generalization.

Find me 5 blog articles where the attitude you critique is expressed, or back off the claim.

By: Silenced is foo.

Silenced is foo. — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:32:34 +0000

No, “All feminists” or “many feminists” would be a bullshit generalization. “Too many” feminists is not.

By: Mandolin

Mandolin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:56:13 +0000

“I just think that too many feminists imagine their grandfathers resting on their laurels while their wives were slaves. ”

That’s a bullshit generalization. Watch it.

By: Silenced is foo.

Silenced is foo. — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:36:08 +0000

@Amanda - my understanding was that this post was about hardship. In terms of freedom, I totally agree that women had none in the past. A woman was expected to be a man’s servant (or “home manager” as conservative MRAs euphemistically call it). I just think that in terms of the misery, exploitation, and labour of a working-class person of the time should not be thought of in exclusively feminist terms.

I just think that too many feminists imagine their grandfathers resting on their laurels while their wives were slaves. The fact is that the men were expected to perform the most grueling and life-threatening work imaginable in order to protect and feed that wife and her children (who likely, the man would never really get to know).

I live in a steel city - I’m surrounded by the history of labour, before unions won decent conditions for workers. I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone.

By: BASTA!

BASTA! — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:40:57 +0000

1) one woman said something
2) another woman couldn’t sleep because of this, and next morning she felt convinced by what the first woman said
3) therefore what the first woman said was right and true

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:39:54 +0000

My maternal grandfather died quite young, and the local (rural) community expected my grandmother to marry again quickly. After all, how could a woman expect to run a farm with nobody left to help but one (adult) son? This was the late ’50s. And indeed, Grandma did have suitors. She wasn’t interested. When pressed, she said she wasn’t going to take care of any more men.

She and my uncle managed the farm quite well, and she lived a long and full life. My uncle gradually gave up farming after she died, first leasing out the land to the local agribusiness and then finally selling the property. I think he just didn’t have the heart to continue it.

By: nolo

nolo — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:36:44 +0000

Beautiful post. It reminds me that regardless of how much more work there is to do (and there is more, don’t think otherwise), things are still so much better than they used to be. We should be both glad and vigilant, I think.

By: DaisyDeadhead

DaisyDeadhead — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:49:02 +0000

I know, I think about that stuff a lot, as I’ve gotten older… my grandmother was literally “farmed out to the local boy” at age 15… uprooted from the south and taken to New York City (which terrified her), she gave birth to a disabled child at age 16 and became a domestic at age 18. I was very critical of her growing up, and now that I have a clue, I wish I had known how to honor her experience.

One thing I do is take her name, which was Daisy. :)

By: curiousgyrl

curiousgyrl — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:47:22 +0000

Women also work and worked in horrible sweatshop jobs under horrible labor conditions, labor laws or no. Feminism and workers rights still have a ways to go. Silence’s “what about the men” comment is not only malignly intended and distracting, its also ill-conceived due to what we now call “gender blindness” but what used to be called “sexism.”

By: Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:11:41 +0000

That was beautiful.

Silence, you’re missing the point. You think feminism is about getting women a life where they don’t have to work and sit around eating bon-bons all day? No.

The point is that the life worth living is one that allows for independent thinking and independent spirit. Men maybe had to work hard, but they were enticed to do so by the promise that at the end of the day, what they worked for belonged to them. Women did not have even that.

By: Silenced is foo.

Silenced is foo. — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:06:48 +0000

Consider the work that those men had to do. Don’t you realize that everything men did, they did for their families too? What, you think that men worked miserable jobs before people invented things like “safety” and “labour laws” for fun?

Compared to _all_ our grandparents, we have wonderful lives. Not just the women.