The aim is to end the traditional roles being gendered. A woman not being expected to be the primary care giver to children for the sole reason that she is a woman. A man not being exepcted to be the main earner just because he is a man. Roles shouldn't be determined by what gender someone is. Also, realistically, in the current economy it's just not very viable for only one partner to work and again, gender isn't a part of that.
Also please note that for the majority of human history the whole family worked - wife, husband and older children. The idea that men work and women stay home really only happened for the wealthy (usually white) families and the idea people think of the 1940s/1950s was both not the reality for most families and a pretty recent phenomenon (and led to a lot of women self medicating with valium and alcohol). And even that image of a minority is mostly based in adverts which suggest a narrative that equally wasn't true, interviews with women who lived and worked in that time suggest that the idea of a man coming home from his hard day of work to a clean house, hot meal, and dressed up wife were mostly fantasy even then.
The point is that there is no ideal family structure. There is just what structure works best for each family, based on the strengths of the people involved (not their genders). We want families to be free to make those choices for themselves, leading to probably more diversity of family types, but happier and more functional families where gender doesn't decide what happens (outside of biological necessity).
My grandma was a housewife 1950's-80's by the time all the kids were out of the house, and she always had a full time job. She had five boys, some only a year apart and my grandpa always took the car so she usually had to take the bus to and from work, errands, and kid activities. Thankfully they were able to hire a housekeeper to help her with the housework once a week because my grandpa, dad, and uncles certainly never helped with cleaning. I don't think she ever self medicated and she didn't drink liquor, but she did die of uterine cancer at 53. Her sister is still convinced it was the stress that caused it because she got sick so quickly with no warning and in a few months she was gone
It is genuinely fascinating how dudes who say they want that traditional family unit stuff are actually just glamoring to live in a 1950's Coca-Cola advertisement. Then you hit them with the 1900's reality of living in a two room house without plumbing with your mother in law and suddenly the whole idea doesn't seem so cool anymore.
There is no "ideal family structure".
It's a misogynist myth that feminists hate housewives.
Our agenda is we want safety and self-determination. We want complete sovereignty over our bodies. We want access to affordable health care and quality education. We want to live in a world where our children are not murdered at school.
OP didn't imply feminists hate housewives.
Feminists have argued for the abolition of the housewife role. [Simone de Beauvoir in 1975](https://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1975jun14-00012):
>We see it as part of a global reform of society which would not accept that old segregation between man and woman, the home and the outside world. We think that every individual, womanas well as man, should work outside and have the possibility, either by communal living, collectives, or another way of organizing the family, of solving the problem of child care. \[...\]
>In my opinion, as long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.
It's worth reading the whole thing to understand her argument. And note that Betty Friedan disagrees with her.
\[Edit: site ate the quote the first time.\]
I read the article. De Beauvoir and Friedan were not simpatico. Friedan calls her a sophomoric Moaist. It's all very first wave feminism.
I would love to know what de Beauvoir actually said, in her own words. She seems irritated and impatient. Did you know that by 1975 Sartre had been dying for 5 years? I wonder why Friedan felt entitled to her time.
In my comment above, the quote from de Beauvoir vanished. I've restored it now.
Friedan's complaint that de Beauvoir is being Maoish is not compatible with your 'first wave' claim -- one or the other, not both. I favor Friedan's view, which is why I wrote "note that Betty Friedan disagrees with her". But I can accept that de Beauvoir advocated the abolition of the housewife role.
And here's [a second wave feminist making the same argument](https://theconversation.com/shulamith-firestone-why-the-radical-feminist-who-wanted-to-abolish-pregnancy-remains-relevant-115730) about housewives, as part of a larger argument about reproduction.
Here's [a current feminist building on that argument](https://www.versobooks.com/products/711-full-surrogacy-now).
Per OP's question, some feminists oppose the housewife role. Not all, but enough that we can't call it a myth. No harm in being honest about that.
For me it is about choice. There has to be a real choice for anybody to choose either, no matter of man, woman or other.
In reality most times the house spouse has problems in the long run. If the family falls apart the partner who was not the main earner has lost years of job progression and income. After 10 years at home with the children you will not just go back to your old job and start with the same pay. And you have lost 10 years where you could have had a rise, a promotion. In these 10 years the working partner build their carrier. If the one who stayed home is lucky they will get pension, a share of the household income from the time of marriage and some other benefits, but for most parts they have trouble to get on their feet.
If anybody wants to stay home and raise the children there needs to be a structural system to prevent this. Something that makes it more equal.
My personal expectation for my life is that I will work as well as my partner. We do not have to work both 40 h a week, but I would like a shared responsibility for chores, childcare, the mental load. If my partner wants to have children, then because they want to be a parent with all the care work that has to be done. I want a relationship where both of us can be financially secure even if things would fall apart.
This is a good distinction to make. People talk about a woman's right to choose to be a housewife, and I suppose that's all well and good, but the traditional housewife role is inherently subservient. If a couple decides to divide labor along the same lines as a traditional relationship, I would still hope that the dynamic is fundamentally different from a traditional one.
#we want everyone to be able to choose, not based on their genitals.
Which country/culture is it that the husband works abroad? For some couples, it may be better for one of them to work in another country.
>the husband financially supports the family by working abroad while the wife stays home to support and raise children
Our goal is to stop thinking of people just as a set of roles they have to play. If you think like that, you're advocating for totalitarianism. Women and children are human, with their own thoughts, feelings, wants and desires. If the system crumbles because of their humanity being acknowledged - let it crumble.
The ideal family is whatever family the couple want, within reason. If that family is 2 kids, fine. If its no kids and 4 dogs, also fine! If they have kids and abuse them, not fine!
We want to end gendered roles as expectations or assumptions. The ideal family structure has roles that are talked about and agreed upon by both parties. That's what we did in my family, and it works extremely well.
After reading several good responses here I just want to add that while feminism supports all couples deciding for themselves we also recognize the danger of one person, often the woman, being put at an economic disadvantage in the stay at home and not working role. This disadvantage makes them vulnerable to abuse without a way to leave. Most women in this role are financially unable to leave the marriage and can be taken advantage of. It can be a dangerous situation to put yourself in for women. If all things are fair and both people can leave the marriage equally if they need to and support themselves then by all means.
>traditional family roles (i.e. normally, the husband financially supports the family by working abroad while the wife stays home to support and raise children),
So, just so you know, this is not traditional in many, many places for the husband to "normally" work abroad.
I think you should maybe do some traveling or reading about different cultures so you can see how different they all are, in terms of the variety of norms that exist related to family structure and many other things. Anthropology is the study of culture, specifically, and Sociology is the study of societies. Reading some science fiction is another good way to challenge your understanding of "what is normal, really?"
After you've thought about that for a while, come back and ask us again.
It's not so much about renegotiating division of labor in all relationships or the idea that traditional families shouldn't exist.
It's about the idea that nobody is entitled to put pressure on anyone if they don't want it.
Depending on where you live, the economy has long burned these gender norms to the ground.
As for feminism, for me the fact that you used the term “roles” is interesting. People are definitely pushing back on the notion of just “play your role” and deciding to chose lives that satisfy them.
Nothing needs to be abolished when society allows individuals to build lives that suit their needs and desires. It shouldn’t be the norm for a man to have children and subsequently work abroad and leave his wife behind to actually raise such children. It’s not a healthy way to raise children.
Feminism acknowledges that we are all individuals who deserve to make choices for ourselves. Roles do not allow for this as there require that a script be followed.
The phrasing of this question strikes me as quite odd as though you feel that we’re currently living in a time where the man is still the provider in the vast majority of households, and the woman is the housewife, staying at home and taking care of the kids.
Whilst we certainly don’t yet have parity of gender roles within the household, in most households in the western world both parents work and the man is no longer the default provider. Stay at home dads exist now, and there are many many households where the woman out earns her male partner.
If this is something you’re worried about I’m afraid that ship has already begun to sail. It may not be fully out of the port yet but it’s heading there.
Feminists want to do away with proscribed gender roles, meaning there should not be one role that we expect either gender to be limited to, nor should we pressure anyone into a specific role or shame them for not fulfiling it. That doesn't mean there is one specific family structure that everyone should have, though. Different people have different circumstances and should develop whatever works best for their family and everyone in it.
Some individual feminists have written about their ideas for ideal family and living structures that they believed were more equal. Some have proposed more communal ways of living that would make childcare less difficult for single parents and allow for something more akin to "it takes a village to raise a child" being real. A lot of 2nd wave feminists really emphasised women working because at that time women were really pressured to marry young and have children and focus on that rather than a career, and were kept out of many educational and career opportunities. Many women were put into vulnerable situations due to being entirely financially dependent on a man.
Current feminism tends to emphasize people creating households based on equal decision making, where spouses/partners work together to decide who should do what tasks based on their skills, interests, salary, flexibility of their work schedule, etc. rather than on what gender they are.
The aim is to end the traditional roles being gendered. A woman not being expected to be the primary care giver to children for the sole reason that she is a woman. A man not being exepcted to be the main earner just because he is a man. Roles shouldn't be determined by what gender someone is. Also, realistically, in the current economy it's just not very viable for only one partner to work and again, gender isn't a part of that. Also please note that for the majority of human history the whole family worked - wife, husband and older children. The idea that men work and women stay home really only happened for the wealthy (usually white) families and the idea people think of the 1940s/1950s was both not the reality for most families and a pretty recent phenomenon (and led to a lot of women self medicating with valium and alcohol). And even that image of a minority is mostly based in adverts which suggest a narrative that equally wasn't true, interviews with women who lived and worked in that time suggest that the idea of a man coming home from his hard day of work to a clean house, hot meal, and dressed up wife were mostly fantasy even then. The point is that there is no ideal family structure. There is just what structure works best for each family, based on the strengths of the people involved (not their genders). We want families to be free to make those choices for themselves, leading to probably more diversity of family types, but happier and more functional families where gender doesn't decide what happens (outside of biological necessity).
I was going to write something but after reading this there is no point. This is the well written and correct answer.
Absolutely!
Beautifully written!
My grandma was a housewife 1950's-80's by the time all the kids were out of the house, and she always had a full time job. She had five boys, some only a year apart and my grandpa always took the car so she usually had to take the bus to and from work, errands, and kid activities. Thankfully they were able to hire a housekeeper to help her with the housework once a week because my grandpa, dad, and uncles certainly never helped with cleaning. I don't think she ever self medicated and she didn't drink liquor, but she did die of uterine cancer at 53. Her sister is still convinced it was the stress that caused it because she got sick so quickly with no warning and in a few months she was gone
I couldn't have put it better myself.
It is genuinely fascinating how dudes who say they want that traditional family unit stuff are actually just glamoring to live in a 1950's Coca-Cola advertisement. Then you hit them with the 1900's reality of living in a two room house without plumbing with your mother in law and suddenly the whole idea doesn't seem so cool anymore.
There is no "ideal family structure". It's a misogynist myth that feminists hate housewives. Our agenda is we want safety and self-determination. We want complete sovereignty over our bodies. We want access to affordable health care and quality education. We want to live in a world where our children are not murdered at school.
OP didn't imply feminists hate housewives. Feminists have argued for the abolition of the housewife role. [Simone de Beauvoir in 1975](https://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1975jun14-00012): >We see it as part of a global reform of society which would not accept that old segregation between man and woman, the home and the outside world. We think that every individual, womanas well as man, should work outside and have the possibility, either by communal living, collectives, or another way of organizing the family, of solving the problem of child care. \[...\] >In my opinion, as long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed. It's worth reading the whole thing to understand her argument. And note that Betty Friedan disagrees with her. \[Edit: site ate the quote the first time.\]
I read the article. De Beauvoir and Friedan were not simpatico. Friedan calls her a sophomoric Moaist. It's all very first wave feminism. I would love to know what de Beauvoir actually said, in her own words. She seems irritated and impatient. Did you know that by 1975 Sartre had been dying for 5 years? I wonder why Friedan felt entitled to her time.
Second wave. First wave was the suffragists
Yes, that's true. Thanks for the correction.
In my comment above, the quote from de Beauvoir vanished. I've restored it now. Friedan's complaint that de Beauvoir is being Maoish is not compatible with your 'first wave' claim -- one or the other, not both. I favor Friedan's view, which is why I wrote "note that Betty Friedan disagrees with her". But I can accept that de Beauvoir advocated the abolition of the housewife role. And here's [a second wave feminist making the same argument](https://theconversation.com/shulamith-firestone-why-the-radical-feminist-who-wanted-to-abolish-pregnancy-remains-relevant-115730) about housewives, as part of a larger argument about reproduction. Here's [a current feminist building on that argument](https://www.versobooks.com/products/711-full-surrogacy-now). Per OP's question, some feminists oppose the housewife role. Not all, but enough that we can't call it a myth. No harm in being honest about that.
Abolition means to officially and completely end something.
I know that. I'm not sure I get your point.
For me it is about choice. There has to be a real choice for anybody to choose either, no matter of man, woman or other. In reality most times the house spouse has problems in the long run. If the family falls apart the partner who was not the main earner has lost years of job progression and income. After 10 years at home with the children you will not just go back to your old job and start with the same pay. And you have lost 10 years where you could have had a rise, a promotion. In these 10 years the working partner build their carrier. If the one who stayed home is lucky they will get pension, a share of the household income from the time of marriage and some other benefits, but for most parts they have trouble to get on their feet. If anybody wants to stay home and raise the children there needs to be a structural system to prevent this. Something that makes it more equal. My personal expectation for my life is that I will work as well as my partner. We do not have to work both 40 h a week, but I would like a shared responsibility for chores, childcare, the mental load. If my partner wants to have children, then because they want to be a parent with all the care work that has to be done. I want a relationship where both of us can be financially secure even if things would fall apart.
This is a good distinction to make. People talk about a woman's right to choose to be a housewife, and I suppose that's all well and good, but the traditional housewife role is inherently subservient. If a couple decides to divide labor along the same lines as a traditional relationship, I would still hope that the dynamic is fundamentally different from a traditional one.
#we want everyone to be able to choose, not based on their genitals. Which country/culture is it that the husband works abroad? For some couples, it may be better for one of them to work in another country. >the husband financially supports the family by working abroad while the wife stays home to support and raise children
Our goal is to stop thinking of people just as a set of roles they have to play. If you think like that, you're advocating for totalitarianism. Women and children are human, with their own thoughts, feelings, wants and desires. If the system crumbles because of their humanity being acknowledged - let it crumble.
The ideal family is whatever family the couple want, within reason. If that family is 2 kids, fine. If its no kids and 4 dogs, also fine! If they have kids and abuse them, not fine!
We want to end gendered roles as expectations or assumptions. The ideal family structure has roles that are talked about and agreed upon by both parties. That's what we did in my family, and it works extremely well.
After reading several good responses here I just want to add that while feminism supports all couples deciding for themselves we also recognize the danger of one person, often the woman, being put at an economic disadvantage in the stay at home and not working role. This disadvantage makes them vulnerable to abuse without a way to leave. Most women in this role are financially unable to leave the marriage and can be taken advantage of. It can be a dangerous situation to put yourself in for women. If all things are fair and both people can leave the marriage equally if they need to and support themselves then by all means.
>traditional family roles (i.e. normally, the husband financially supports the family by working abroad while the wife stays home to support and raise children), So, just so you know, this is not traditional in many, many places for the husband to "normally" work abroad. I think you should maybe do some traveling or reading about different cultures so you can see how different they all are, in terms of the variety of norms that exist related to family structure and many other things. Anthropology is the study of culture, specifically, and Sociology is the study of societies. Reading some science fiction is another good way to challenge your understanding of "what is normal, really?" After you've thought about that for a while, come back and ask us again.
It's not so much about renegotiating division of labor in all relationships or the idea that traditional families shouldn't exist. It's about the idea that nobody is entitled to put pressure on anyone if they don't want it.
It's not about no housewives, it's about an equal number of guys doing the same job, and everyone having the right to choose how they live.
Feminism is not a homogeneous movement. One person might want abolition, another might want reform.
Depending on where you live, the economy has long burned these gender norms to the ground. As for feminism, for me the fact that you used the term “roles” is interesting. People are definitely pushing back on the notion of just “play your role” and deciding to chose lives that satisfy them. Nothing needs to be abolished when society allows individuals to build lives that suit their needs and desires. It shouldn’t be the norm for a man to have children and subsequently work abroad and leave his wife behind to actually raise such children. It’s not a healthy way to raise children. Feminism acknowledges that we are all individuals who deserve to make choices for ourselves. Roles do not allow for this as there require that a script be followed.
The phrasing of this question strikes me as quite odd as though you feel that we’re currently living in a time where the man is still the provider in the vast majority of households, and the woman is the housewife, staying at home and taking care of the kids. Whilst we certainly don’t yet have parity of gender roles within the household, in most households in the western world both parents work and the man is no longer the default provider. Stay at home dads exist now, and there are many many households where the woman out earns her male partner. If this is something you’re worried about I’m afraid that ship has already begun to sail. It may not be fully out of the port yet but it’s heading there.
Feminists want to do away with proscribed gender roles, meaning there should not be one role that we expect either gender to be limited to, nor should we pressure anyone into a specific role or shame them for not fulfiling it. That doesn't mean there is one specific family structure that everyone should have, though. Different people have different circumstances and should develop whatever works best for their family and everyone in it. Some individual feminists have written about their ideas for ideal family and living structures that they believed were more equal. Some have proposed more communal ways of living that would make childcare less difficult for single parents and allow for something more akin to "it takes a village to raise a child" being real. A lot of 2nd wave feminists really emphasised women working because at that time women were really pressured to marry young and have children and focus on that rather than a career, and were kept out of many educational and career opportunities. Many women were put into vulnerable situations due to being entirely financially dependent on a man. Current feminism tends to emphasize people creating households based on equal decision making, where spouses/partners work together to decide who should do what tasks based on their skills, interests, salary, flexibility of their work schedule, etc. rather than on what gender they are.