Essay I'm Sure I've Written

[minoanmiss]

Was reading recently about the "tradwife" movement and was reminded of this fact about my life. Somewhere in my files I'm sure I've written about my father's feminism (to synopsize, decades before anyone was talking about tradwives, my Fundie Christian father told me and other girls[1] to get educations, careers, and our own money rather than relying on a man to "take care" of us, and told us marriage should be between equals). He would be SO ANGRY if I told him he's a feminist. ahahahahahahah one of the great jokes of my life.

[1] my father ran the Sunday School so he had access to influence a lot of kids, and I would say he generally used it for (very Fundie Christian) good. Of course, lots of kids told me they wished my parents would adopt them and all I could do was stand there with parentally-inflicted bruises aching all over me under my clothes and smile and nod and appreciate the irony.

Comments

[amaebi]

*careful tender hugs offered*

[minoanmiss]

bluhes and hugs you I am abashed -- I didn't post this for sympathy, really, but because I think my father's unrealized feminism is sociopolitically interesting.

[amaebi]

Well, people are complex.

From what you say I don't know that I would call your father a feminist-- but that was feminism.

[minoanmiss]

starts over

One thing I've always noticed about my father is that he doesn't hate women for being women. He has female friends, he supported the little girls in Sunday school, he is actively delighted with VP Harris as his candidate. I mean, he fat-shamed me thoroughly and was appropriately Christianly concerned with my chastity (boundaries, what are boundaries?) but he didn't disparage me for being a girl and my mother was the main gender enforcer. "Tradwife" fits pretty exactly what everyone else was telling the girls in my sunday school we should grow up to be, but my father deliberately told us otherwise.

And none of this is that Out There, is the thing. This is an exceedingly low bar my father has stepped across. This is how easy it is to not oppress women -- my Fundamentalist Christian father can (mostly, ahahahaha) manage it. Yet our society as a whole still can't. That's what I find interesting.

... I think that version works better.

[amaebi]

h, that low low bar. Yeah.

[minoanmiss]

Thank you for letting me keep working on this reply until I got the Idea out of my wee head. :D

[amaebi]

How would I stop you? Not that I would want to. I only wish I'd seen the pre-final versions, rather than merely knowing they existed. :D

[brooksmoses]

Once a comment has received a reply, it can no longer be edited.

[amaebi]

I forget these things. :D Thanks.

[minoanmiss]

oh that' interesting. I thought you'd get a copy of each version.

[amaebi]

I used to get email notifications back in the day, bt it's been years.

[med_cat]

*hugs*

[minoanmiss]

blushes and hugs you back

[bikergeek]

*hugs you gently*

[minoanmiss]

Aww sweetie. smooches you I just find it interesting that some ideas are so bad that even my father, with Christian sexism colored glasses, could see it.

[gwydion]

*offers comforting tea*

[minoanmiss]

Yay tea!

[lokifan]

Hugs offered.

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness, thank you. hugs you I mean, I posted this for the sociopolitics, really.

[sabotabby]

I would love to read this essay. Also, I'm sorry your father was such a piece of shit.

It's so complicated for me because I think at least some of what drives the tradwife movement is a reaction against capitalism and the idea that as a feminist, your responsibilities are still to have a career and a family and push back constantly against a society in which you're less than and a husband who expects you to still do most of the housework and childcare, and still be hot and have lots of great sex. It's a lot and I don't blame women for wanting to nope out.

[minoanmiss]

My father could have been a really nifty person if he weren't a Fundamentalist Christian who thus felt entittled to beat his daughter, I sometimes think, whereas my mother has an inherent mean streak. But I may be giving him too much credit. He also has a mean streak.

But yeah, I posted this about the sociopolitics. It makes COMPLETE sense that women realize we cannot do all of this bullshit. It's just that the decision to basically decide to become a man's servant in exchange for protection is a really risky bargain, and it strikes me that even my Fundie Christian father saw that.

[amaebi]

There are plenty of other ways for men to feel entitled and empowered to beat women.

[minoanmiss]

Ahahhaahah yes. And so (obvious statement is obvious) society shouldn't recommend women turn to and bolster this one. One of the articles I read recently had this awesome last line: "You don't need a trad husband; you need a union."

[amaebi]

Beautiful.

[sabotabby]

Oh yeah, and it's not a bargain that tends to work out for women. Witness the hilarious downfall of Lauren Southern, who never thought leopards would eat her face.

[minoanmiss]

goes to read

She seems... something.

[sabotabby]

A national treasure.

[cmcmck]

'Trad' I am most certainly not! :o)

[princessofgeeks]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

ALL THE HUGS

[ororo]

Bingo.

[oracne]

Listening.

[adrian_turtle]

He would be SO ANGRY if I told him he's a feminist.

It's easy to take first-wave feminism for granted. It's the foundation we build on, and who looks down to see what we're standing on?

ETA: You do. You look down and try to understand the context. You remind us to try to recognize how liberation is unequally distributed.

[minoanmiss]

blushes I'm going to keep working to deserve this epic compliment.