I liked this Slate article from a full-time homemaker (with no kids) who calls himself a "stay-at-home dude." As someone with a life that often feels rushed and chaotic, the author's contentment with making sure the household runs smoothly appeals to me.
Many of the comments are predictably awful (one just reads, "soooooo gaaaaay"). At first I thought, how typical and sexist. But then I thought about how I would feel if a woman wrote the same article, and I think I'd be more judgmental about it. Which is just as sexist, but in the other direction. When a man writes about how he feels fulfilled by staying at home and delaying his own ambitions by supporting his spouse in her more powerful and higher-earning career, I think, how liberated of him. If a woman wrote the article, I'd probably have a lingering suspicion that she was trying to justify falling back into traditional gender roles by claiming she was happy about it. Maybe it's because I like the idea of having somebody who's happily homemaking... but I don't want it to be me.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
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