Emulate this way of Serving our Husbands?

Tablepoetry

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:01 pm

unexpected wrote:

I agree with seashells and I happen to be the proud mother of two toddlers and a baby (who are #s 8, 9 and 10 in the family). I personally am not a feminist, I don't care about voting or equality in the workplace since I do neither. I must admit that I don't wait on him hand and foot but I do serve him supper when he comes home. I believe that after a long day of work (or school) everyone deserves some quiet time, as well as a clean table to eat on, and a nourishing meal. I am well aware that his working is what enables me to stay home all day with the kids, which also gives me a LOT more downtime over the day than he gets at work. Can't say I'm perfect at it, but it is one of my strongly held values and it gives me pleasure as well

It's great that with ten young kids you still have plenty of downtime during the day. But you should realize this is not the norm. Either you have daily cleaning help, or your kids are exceptionally easy, or you are superwoman.
In any case I think it's a bad idea to raise sons or daughters with this as the ideal scenario, as most moms of ten little ones (including baby) need a hands-on partner, not another person to serve.

marina

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:09 pm

amother wrote:

There is a difference between saying that what society expects from each gender, is a social construct, and saying that gender itself is a social construct. Which is where the lack of science comes in.

Gender is a completely social construct, as is race. We, as a society, decided that the difference between penises and vagin@s was of primary importance. We divided the world into these two kinds of people and we respond/treat/expect the two groups differently. Same for race.

We did not, however, decide that the difference between blue and brown eyes was very important- although we easily could have. Obviously we decided that the difference between male and female was important enough to warrant dividing society in half is because those are the very differences that allow the species to continue.

Race? Not sure why we divided the world into white and black. Probably so we could have some people to look down on, and that's a very immediate obvious way to do that.

Time- same exact thing. We completely made up time. We decided it was important not only to know when is morning and night, but when is 10 am and 1:35 pm, not only when it is planting season and harvest season, but when it is September 1 or August 31. We manipulate that time with daylight savings rules and different systems have different ways of dividing time. Halachik shaos zmaniyos are not the same as secular hours.

And acknowledging the above- that time is a thing we completely made up - doesn't mean that time isn't important or that the earth doesn't spin on its axis or that day and night don't exist.

I don't understand why people find this concept so controversial.

Tablepoetry

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:18 pm

amother wrote:

Gender is a social construct. S-ex is biological. There's no getting around the fact that there are two different types of bodies that have different reproductive roles. Gender is the value we assign to different bodies and the social norms imposed on people for having those bodies.

This. I havent read feminist texts for decades. So no one can accuse me of being brainwashed by third wave jargon. And yet this I thought was the dictionary definition of gender as opposed to s@x.

Fox

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:19 pm

marina wrote:

Because it's wrong. Evidence suggests that there are more differences between men and women than their reproductive functions.

marina

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:24 pm

Fox wrote:

I read this article as carefully as possible last night while also davening for the Cubs. While I agree it's an excellent article, it neglected some of the points that are most problematic for me while introducing new ones I hadn't considered in depth.

I really have zero problems with what you wrote. I don't need everyone to be on the same page with every third wave theory out there. You have some good points and I agree with them.

But if you review this post you wrote and compare it to your original characterization of third wave feminists, you'll see right away what upset me. In this post here you are discussing to what extent inclusion results in assimilation and then becomes meaningless. In your previous post you were claiming that all third wave feminists think every rude joker is a rapist.

marina

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:36 pm

Fox wrote:

Evidence suggests that there are more differences between men and women than their reproductive functions.

Sure. That still has nothing to do with whether gender is a social construct. Men are stronger than women, for example. They may be better at spatial relational logic while women are better at verbal logic. Whatever. It is still society - us- who decided that these differences were important enough to create TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CATEGORIES of people based on these differences. That is an artificial distinction created by society.

We do not make that artificial distinction for people who need glasses and those who don't. We don't divide society into The Clumsy and The Visionaries, for example. We don't ask when a baby is born, oh is it a Clumsy or a Visionary? We don't dress our Clumsys in a different color than the Visionaries. We don't worry about their testing scores and whether a mixed clumsy-visionary school is better or worse for our kids. Instead, we're like, whatever, don't forget your glasses, dude.

We could have done the same thing for women and strength. Instead of classifying weak & strong people into men and women, we could have been like, hey people who aren't that strong- don't forget to bring a dolly for those packages!

amother

Lime

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:56 pm

marina wrote:

You can't look at a newborn and know if it's going to be strong or have good spatial analysis skills. You can, however, tell if it's got male or female genitalia. And when the baby grows to adulthood, it will be easy to identify as either a man or a woman.

Further, a person's strength and other skills can change with time. Until pretty recently, body parts were a constant. So, that makes for an eminently reasonable way to divide humanity.

Fox

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 2:58 pm

marina wrote:

Oy! Does this mean the Fox and Marina Speaking Tour is off? Nobody's gonna come if there's not some fur flying. My fur and your beard, maybe? Whoops! I forgot about my avatar. Okay -- my hair extensions and your beard?

I probably should have said "s-xual harassment" or "s-xual assault." There are plenty of self-defined feminists who equate s-xist jokes or jokes about s-x that "make people feel uncomfortable" with s-xual aggression. Admittedly, a lot of them seem to write for Jezebel, HuffPo, Mic, etc.

marina wrote:

Men are stronger than women, for example. They may be better at spatial relational logic while women are better at verbal logic. Whatever. It is still society - us- who decided that these differences were important enough to create TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CATEGORIES of people based on these differences. That is an artificial distinction created by society.

So I'm a little confused. Do you believe that some roles -- for example, those requiring superior spatial relational logic -- might be generally characterized as "masculine"? And if so, why is that a problem? If not, why not?

marina

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 3:11 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

Fox wrote: I read this article as carefully as possible last night while also davening for the Cubs.

You might want to edit your post and if you do let me know and I'll delete this post.
If When the Cubs lose people might blame you for not davening with complete, undistracted kavana. Just saying.

We Clevelanders will understand, don't worry.

Last edited by marina on Wed, Nov 02 2016, 3:26 pm; edited 2 times in total

marina

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 3:13 pm

amother wrote:

Ok, sure, it's definitely reasonable. But agree with me that we never had to divide humanity in the first place. It's just a choice we made.

marina

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 3:22 pm

Fox wrote:

I don't believe in characterizing roles ( professions?) as masculine or feminine, because I think society's expectations tremendously affect how these strengths and weaknesses display themselves over a long period of time.

For example, you and I can agree that the same evidence that shows men to be better spatially, also shows women to have verbal strengths. And yet society's lawyers, orators, politicians, authors- were all traditionally men. Why? Because women weren't really given the opportunity to excel in these areas.

So if I was to characterize airline traffic control as a masculine job, I would have to categorize attorneys as a feminine job. It wouldn't make sense.

SixOfWands

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 3:39 pm

marina wrote:

And it would make much more sense to simply state that certain professions require certain abilities, and require people to have those abilities.

A firefighter needs to have the strength to lift people and equipment. On the average, more men would have that strength than women. But that's an average. There are plenty of women who can perform the role, and plenty of men who can't. So why judge by male vs female, when we can judge on abilities.

Fox

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 3:43 pm

marina wrote:

We Clevelanders will understand, don't worry.

This is really why Marina and I are so feisty this week!

marina wrote:

don't believe in characterizing roles ( professions?) as masculine or feminine, because think society's expectations tremendously affect how these strengths and weaknesses display themselves over a long period of time.

For example, you and can agree that the same evidence that shows men to be better spatially, also shows women to have verbal strengths. And yet society's lawyers, orators, politicians, authors- were all traditionally men. Why? Because women weren't really given the opportunity to excel in these areas.

Precisely -- that's what I mean by expressions of gender roles.

What society did wrong -- and what the Torah tries to make us not do -- was place incorrect value on the expression of gender roles as well while also maintaining extreme rigidity in expressions of gender roles.

Let's take the example of what I would consider the feminine gender expression of attending to the details of one's mate's comfort and well-being.

We should consider that expression every bit as important as the masculine expression of aggression that might lead to the building of cities or the development of a legal system.

That doesn't mean that the woman isn't also employed as a lawyer because she happens to have better verbal skills, and it doesn't mean that her husband doesn't express the same feminine gender role by attending to her comfort. It means that we honor and value expressions of feminine gender roles as much as we do expressions of masculine gender roles.

Moreover, expressions of feminine gender roles should be seen as necessary to the functioning not only of families and communities, but business, too. I would love a corporate job description to read, "Requires 5+ years of motherhood or the equivalent."

My real beef with third-wave feminists is that they're missing a huge opportunity. They should be invoking Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage. Instead of saying, metaphorically, "Don't ask me to make you a sandwich!", feminists should be saying, "You know, life is pretty miserable without sandwiches, and we're pretty good at making them. Maybe we'd all be more successful if we acknowledged that fact and treated the sandwich-makers accordingly."

unexpected

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 4:10 pm

Tablepoetry, for goodness sakes it is a meal, not an all day event. It takes my husband exactly 10 minutes to eat breakfast and lunch, maybe 15 minutes to eat supper. I hardly think I'm damaging my kids by making it a point to serve a meal
The magazine quote of OP was about serving meals, not running bath water, ironing shirts, tying shoe laces or carrying packages etc
My husband thank Gd is not spoiled, however in my house the division of duties falls squarely down the middle: he provides financial support, and in general the ruchniyus of the house including learning with the boys and making sure they get up for minyan etc. I take care of the house, the little ones and the girls homework. If that makes all the feminists cringe, I'm sorry.. That's just the way we do it and it works for us
Btw, I don't have any cleaning help but 7 of my children are in school daily for at least 6 hours and all my babies nap for 2 hours, so I do get time to rest. Also, my standards are (ahem) relaxed and although my house is usually neat, it is by no means sparkling clean and almost all my suppers get served out of 1 pot. For me, I'd rather be able to serve each of my kids and husband in a relaxed manner, than mop floors or scrub toilets. Also, it gives me time to hear about his day, and connect with him and I don't really get to do that much for him on a daily basis. Sure, I wash his laundry, but I put it in his drawer, hardly an interaction! He makes his own bed, picks up his own cleaners... What else can I do for him besides feed him?

Dandelion1

Wed, Nov 02 2016, 5:21 pm

marina wrote:

I'm interested in the concept you are describing with regard to gender as a social construct. But I'm struggling with the analogies. Brown vs blue eyes never had any functional relevance. Male vs female had enormous functional relevance given each gender's drive to seek out the other and pair up. And the subsequent results and lifestyle impacts of this.

Racial distinctions began as a result of "foreignness", fear of the "other" as unfamiliar and therefore scary and suspect. If dark vs light skin were a run of the mill variant in families such as brown eyes vs blue eyes, in which you'd have 3 kids born with dark skin, 2 with light skin, etc, it would not have taken on the societal significance which it holds. I'm sure other intolerances would have cropped up, but again, based on the unique characteristics of those who were foreign, and the power of the conquerors over the conquered, etc. Not just random body differences within a society.