I absolutely agree with you. You have a relationship with respect and acknowledgment. Gendered roles being carried out by the associated gender doesn’t automatically mean those people are being abused. Adults are capable of being conscious and deliberate in their relationships.
It’s unspoken expectation and assumption that create the abusive conditions. Distribution of weight and workload are just facts of everyday coexistence. People in a household have to share that weight. But it is a societally conditioned mentality, that women do certain tasks, presumably because they like to do them or because it’s inherent to their nature. So, healthy relationships include full acknowledgment of everything that has to get done, everyone’s preferences, the practical logistics, and also a deliberate effort to share the weight. Nobody should assume.
Incidentally, when men end up being in the domestic caretaker role, and women the breadwinner, they usually have a conversation about that being the plan. If there were assumptions and expectations, there would be little need for that conversation.
I get so frustrated when I hear that there is no more pay disparity between men and women, it’s just that women seem to choose lower paying career fields. No one ever wants to acknowledge the way that “women’s work” is minimized and devalued and of course that’s reflected in the overall pay. Much of the paid work that women have traditionally done is an extension of the unpaid work they do that is just expected. Women often have to choose paid work that offers some level of flexibility because we’re also usually managing most of the unpaid work at home and as Disappointed Scientist states below, there is a definite power imbalance between men and women in play. It feels like a viscous cycle that never ends.
I lived in a small commune for seven years in the 1980's. There wasn't much of an issue about unfair gender division of labor, as for much of that time it was 7 women and me, and I did all the cleaning. I think it also helped that the commune had almost nothing in the way of a utopian or spiritual orientation/aspiration. We were teachers and teaching assistants, with a more or less radical and atheistic liberation theology bent, and so everyone worked really hard at their jobs, as teachers do. It did all fall apart in the end, but not in any terrible way, and I still consider almost all of the members to be family. I'm enormously grateful that - while there were problems and occasional drama - we never really had to deal with guru-like behavior from anyone, or with any kind of exploitation, because that kind of crap was all over the place in other communes. One good friend who lived in a Buddhist commune fled it for many of the same reasons noted in the post above, describing it as completely sexist and fascistic.
It's been a long time since then, but as an experiment in living I thought it was great while it was great. We had the most delightful dinners and holiday celebrations and laughed so much. And as I get older I find myself increasingly thinking again about the idea of living communally (though probably not with the same people). A friend just yesterday mentioned wanting to have a compound where everyone has their own small dwelling, with a few common amenities (fire pit, hot tub, bhqatevwr). And I always liked another friend's concept or relationship, where people lived in structures with those double doors separating adjoining rooms like in old motels; you want to be with the person on the other side, you open your door, and if they want to be with you, they open theirs.
Originally a coal mining town with a lot of Italian-American coal miners, leading to the existence (in the '90s when I had a med-mal case there involving misdiagnosis of internal injuries from a horse-kick to the abdomen, so still a little Old West) there was an honest to goodness legit Italian meat market/deli. The sex-change business kept that little hospital afloat. I hope that deli is still there!
Communes have been around for some time. Mormons started one in the 1800's and declared themselves a country, ended up with Utah. The communists stole the word for their name and proceeded to mangle the whole idea leading to their downfall. The hippies get credit for the 60's resurgence but I don't think they care as they abandoned it for wall street after that whole hardship and poverty future thing started to set in. Now it seems to be the domain of the cults. All kinds, good bad and ugly. I'm old so I've seen and experienced some communes and communal lifestyle and all I can say is, it's a lotta work.
My 1st flashback came in the picture above of the Geodesic Domes. On my not too many trips from home in the San Fernando Valley to the Antelope Valley (and I have no memory now on why I would have made that trip more than once but I did) andin between Canyon Country and Palmdale there were scattered Geosdesic Domes. Not many but a few. I always assumed they were hippies “living off the land” or communes. Who knows maybe they were the first L.A.P.D. dudes to flee the Valley for the desert. Dunno.The 2nd flashback came from these sentences:
“Sure, many in the counterculture relied heavily on the welfare state to supplement their income. But most, including many of those who qualified for state benefits, valued hard work very highly. What the counterculture by and large rejected was work within the system of corporate capitalism”.My memory of the hippies I encountered in my coming of age in the late 1960s and early 70s was of the type that did value hard work but they just didn't want to do it for a soulless corporation – The Man. They were earnest for the most part but as you point out they were ill-equipped for that life and most gave up. The hippies that didn't want to do any hard work were, to my experience, the ones more interested in getting & staying high than anything else. I think a lot of trust fund babbies were inthat category.The 3rd flashback was the word Hoedads. Growing up I was a surfer dude and to us surfers a Hodad was 1: a dude (and it was almost exclusively males that did this) that posed as a surfer but never actually surfed. You'd see them drive around especially on the major cruise streets (Van Nuys Blvd, Ventura Blvd, etc.) with either their board atop their car (Yeah, cruising at night with your board still on the car) or just the empty racks that never saw a board. Or, 2- they occasionally surfed, very badly, but bragged about how good they were.The 4th flashback made me smile. The phrase “Pssst, you holding? “.
So thanks for the info Prof Loomis and thanks for a trip in my mind's way-back machine.TL;DR - Hoedads to Prof Loomis: “a group of countercultural reforestation workers in the 1970s”.Hodads to young surfer Gort: surfer posers (poser surfers?).Now do Gremmies:-)
I don't think the straw is baled in a con house
Cob house. Damned spell check.
I absolutely agree with you. You have a relationship with respect and acknowledgment. Gendered roles being carried out by the associated gender doesn’t automatically mean those people are being abused. Adults are capable of being conscious and deliberate in their relationships.
It’s unspoken expectation and assumption that create the abusive conditions. Distribution of weight and workload are just facts of everyday coexistence. People in a household have to share that weight. But it is a societally conditioned mentality, that women do certain tasks, presumably because they like to do them or because it’s inherent to their nature. So, healthy relationships include full acknowledgment of everything that has to get done, everyone’s preferences, the practical logistics, and also a deliberate effort to share the weight. Nobody should assume.
Incidentally, when men end up being in the domestic caretaker role, and women the breadwinner, they usually have a conversation about that being the plan. If there were assumptions and expectations, there would be little need for that conversation.
Jerry Garcia's wife "Mountain Girl" wrote the best book on horticulture* I've ever read, Growing Sensimilla Marijuana.
* No Dorothy Parker quotes, please!
See Mainardi, Pat. (1969). The Politics of Housework.
https://caringlabor.wordpre...
Hugs
that is a great way to remember him! you can practically hear the 'ta-daaaaaaaa!'
I get so frustrated when I hear that there is no more pay disparity between men and women, it’s just that women seem to choose lower paying career fields. No one ever wants to acknowledge the way that “women’s work” is minimized and devalued and of course that’s reflected in the overall pay. Much of the paid work that women have traditionally done is an extension of the unpaid work they do that is just expected. Women often have to choose paid work that offers some level of flexibility because we’re also usually managing most of the unpaid work at home and as Disappointed Scientist states below, there is a definite power imbalance between men and women in play. It feels like a viscous cycle that never ends.
Steve Baer? Zomeworks?
I lived in a small commune for seven years in the 1980's. There wasn't much of an issue about unfair gender division of labor, as for much of that time it was 7 women and me, and I did all the cleaning. I think it also helped that the commune had almost nothing in the way of a utopian or spiritual orientation/aspiration. We were teachers and teaching assistants, with a more or less radical and atheistic liberation theology bent, and so everyone worked really hard at their jobs, as teachers do. It did all fall apart in the end, but not in any terrible way, and I still consider almost all of the members to be family. I'm enormously grateful that - while there were problems and occasional drama - we never really had to deal with guru-like behavior from anyone, or with any kind of exploitation, because that kind of crap was all over the place in other communes. One good friend who lived in a Buddhist commune fled it for many of the same reasons noted in the post above, describing it as completely sexist and fascistic.
It's been a long time since then, but as an experiment in living I thought it was great while it was great. We had the most delightful dinners and holiday celebrations and laughed so much. And as I get older I find myself increasingly thinking again about the idea of living communally (though probably not with the same people). A friend just yesterday mentioned wanting to have a compound where everyone has their own small dwelling, with a few common amenities (fire pit, hot tub, bhqatevwr). And I always liked another friend's concept or relationship, where people lived in structures with those double doors separating adjoining rooms like in old motels; you want to be with the person on the other side, you open your door, and if they want to be with you, they open theirs.
Originally a coal mining town with a lot of Italian-American coal miners, leading to the existence (in the '90s when I had a med-mal case there involving misdiagnosis of internal injuries from a horse-kick to the abdomen, so still a little Old West) there was an honest to goodness legit Italian meat market/deli. The sex-change business kept that little hospital afloat. I hope that deli is still there!
When you adopt the policy "never trust anyone over 30", bad things happen when you turn 30.
There were a lot of those in the 19th century as well. The idea was attractive, even if they couldn't make it work too well or forever.
Communes have been around for some time. Mormons started one in the 1800's and declared themselves a country, ended up with Utah. The communists stole the word for their name and proceeded to mangle the whole idea leading to their downfall. The hippies get credit for the 60's resurgence but I don't think they care as they abandoned it for wall street after that whole hardship and poverty future thing started to set in. Now it seems to be the domain of the cults. All kinds, good bad and ugly. I'm old so I've seen and experienced some communes and communal lifestyle and all I can say is, it's a lotta work.
My 1st flashback came in the picture above of the Geodesic Domes. On my not too many trips from home in the San Fernando Valley to the Antelope Valley (and I have no memory now on why I would have made that trip more than once but I did) andin between Canyon Country and Palmdale there were scattered Geosdesic Domes. Not many but a few. I always assumed they were hippies “living off the land” or communes. Who knows maybe they were the first L.A.P.D. dudes to flee the Valley for the desert. Dunno.The 2nd flashback came from these sentences:
“Sure, many in the counterculture relied heavily on the welfare state to supplement their income. But most, including many of those who qualified for state benefits, valued hard work very highly. What the counterculture by and large rejected was work within the system of corporate capitalism”.My memory of the hippies I encountered in my coming of age in the late 1960s and early 70s was of the type that did value hard work but they just didn't want to do it for a soulless corporation – The Man. They were earnest for the most part but as you point out they were ill-equipped for that life and most gave up. The hippies that didn't want to do any hard work were, to my experience, the ones more interested in getting & staying high than anything else. I think a lot of trust fund babbies were inthat category.The 3rd flashback was the word Hoedads. Growing up I was a surfer dude and to us surfers a Hodad was 1: a dude (and it was almost exclusively males that did this) that posed as a surfer but never actually surfed. You'd see them drive around especially on the major cruise streets (Van Nuys Blvd, Ventura Blvd, etc.) with either their board atop their car (Yeah, cruising at night with your board still on the car) or just the empty racks that never saw a board. Or, 2- they occasionally surfed, very badly, but bragged about how good they were.The 4th flashback made me smile. The phrase “Pssst, you holding? “.
So thanks for the info Prof Loomis and thanks for a trip in my mind's way-back machine.TL;DR - Hoedads to Prof Loomis: “a group of countercultural reforestation workers in the 1970s”.Hodads to young surfer Gort: surfer posers (poser surfers?).Now do Gremmies:-)
There were bunches of them around us growing up in WV.