So one of the inhabitants of the Red Pill Women subreddit — devoted not to pickup artistry but to cultivating a regressive kind of femininity — has found an unusual source for inspiration. She’s been reading a novel from the early 1970s that contrasts a brash young woman influenced by the “women’s libbers” of the day with a group of more traditionally minded wives living in a certain (fictional) suburb.
At one point in the novel, the main character — the aforementioned brash young woman — asks one of the new traditionalists if she is happy, having given up her own feminist activism to become a stay-at-home wife whose life revolves entirely around her husband’s needs.
Kit looked at her, and nodded. “Yes, I’m happy,” she said. “I feel I’m living a very full life. Herb’s work is important, and he couldn’t do it nearly as well if not for me. We’re a unit, and between us we’re raising a family, and doing optical research, and running a clean comfortable household, and doing community work.”
Kit supports her husband by taking care of the house, and makes his life easier. Meanwhile, he works to provide for the family. This concept of complementarity, balance and teamwork seems completely lost in this day and age. Household duties are seen as being chores which must be split 50/50, and a more individualistic approach to fulfillment is considered the norm today. It is expected that both partners in a relationship have both their own career and must be career-driven, and “taking care of the household to make the husband’s life easier” is considered as a complete lack of ambition and a waste of talent/intelligence instead of being a way of fulfillment.
I agree with Kit’s vision (obviously), and even though it probably wasn’t the author’s goal at all, Kit’s response to Joanna helps me put words on how I feel about relationship dynamics.
There’s just one problem here. The novel jade_cat is reading, as you have surely realized, is The Stepford Wives, and Kit [SPOILER ALERT] is not a housewife at all, but a robot who has been designed to replace Kit, a flesh-and-blood woman murdered by a sinister cabal of Stepford husbands — with her husband’s cooperation.
Jade_cat is well aware of this; she just feels more sympathy for the murdering husbands than for the murdered wives. As she explains the plot of the 1972 novel (and the original 1975 movie version), Kit and the other Stepford wives
are in fact robots that have been created to replace the sloppy, nagging wives of the men of Stepford.
Because obviously, a pretty housewife who never complains and who isn’t a feminist is too good to be true, so she must be a robot ! 😉
Another Red Pill woman, SouthernPetite, weighs in with her thoughts on the main character of the film — that is, the flesh-and-blood woman who uncovers the secret wife-murdering, robot-making cabal.
The main character was a psycho. She not only did not work, but she also didn’t really take care of the house or kids, and pitched a fit when her H got angry when she would opt to hang out with her friend and get high.
As I recall the film, she was unhappy she’d been plopped down in Stepford amongst all these weird women. Her husband didn’t like her hanging out with her new friend Bobbie, because Bobbie, like her, was a newcomer to the town, a bit of a feminist herself, and, oh yeah, STILL A HUMAN BEING.
She also started freaking out, and eventually stabbed her friend, because some of the women started conforming more. While it was a bit odd, she had literally only been there…maybe a few weeks at most, so she didn’t really know those people, but apparently thought it was ok to become super paranoid, suspect a wild conspiracy right out the gate, and start stabbing people. While is turns out that she was correct, she was far from a rational person.
Uh, she stabbed her friend because by this point in the movie, her friend is not actually her friend any more but a robot made to replace her murdered friend.
Here’s the scene where it happens, by the way:
SouthernPetite continues:
Tbh, this portrayal is so bizarre, I would almost think it’s a critique on the paranoia and selfishness of feminists, but I don’t think that was the intent.
No, no it wasn’t.
Reading (or watching) The Stepford Wives and rooting for the husbands and their robot wives is a bit like reading 1984 and rooting for Big Brother.
H/T — r/TheBluePill
@reallyfriendly
I had no internet those past few days, so I could only look at this thread today, but I felt I had to come back to clarify my position. I’m fine if people get mad at me for it, but I can’t stand it when my position is misinterpreted.
Yes, that was my main point – how I define ambition and how wanting to be a housewife (that is, this being your wish you consider to be the most ambitious) does not fit this definition. I think my definition doesn’t always work, and it’s possible that someone presents me a situation and then ask me if the people involved are ambitious and I wouldn’t be able to answer that.
I know, as people like to say, intent is not magical – but to me intent is the first thing to look at to define ambition.
I never meant to say that people have to be ambitious, or that being ambitious equals being able to fulfil your ambitions, or that things traditionally coded as feminine are bad, or that being a housewife necessarily means you can’t do good or impressive things – though I see I ended up accidentally saying at least one of these things.
I think it’s entirely possible that I value ambition, but I know it’s wrong to claim that people need to be ambitious. Objectively speaking, ambition does not equal success or happiness
I only felt hostility from Snuffy, but I was surprised with the response I got. I thought people would have understood the meaning of my commentary and I assumed they understand ambition in the same way I do – needless to say, I was wrong.
I’m honestly really happy that you tried to see the point I was trying to make, even if I wasn’t doing it effectively 🙂
Cheers!
Fair enough, but it just felt like a strange line of argument that you seemed really focused on whether she’s telling the truth about something that affects no one and that you think is fine either way. Out of all the ridiculous stuff in the OP, much of which could be considered dishonest, you focused on that. So it’s a pretty natural conclusion that you think that whether someone is ambitious or not is really important, and from there it’s a pretty natural conclusion that you think being ambitious is a good thing. Because otherwise, who cares if someone says they’re ambitious when they’re not?
After all, don’t we all posture ourselves to look better according to social norms that we don’t necessarily fit very well? Every job posting in the universe says they want “a goal-oriented people person who’s excited to be part of our team,” and nobody goes into a job interview and says “Actually, I’d rather stay home and play video games, but I need a job, so Ralph’s bagger it is.” And introverts don’t say “I’m not coming to your party because rubbing shoulders with a bunch of upbeat, perky people in a crowded house for a whole evening sounds worse than root canal surgery,” so sometimes we just say “I’m busy that night.” Why is that one comment the big lie that needs to be exposed?
@Rosa
“I assumed they understand ambition in the same way I do – needless to say, I was wrong”.
Ya. 🙂
Plus “unambitious” could also mean lazy, and there’s an old myth of housewives/SAHMS being lazy that needs to go die in a fire.
@reallyfriendly
“Mola and Rosa, I’m sorry that both of you got thrown under the bus just for expressing your opinions. This should not be what feminists do to one another.”
Yeah, there’s something a little gross about a man coming into a feminist space and telling female feminists how to act.
Debate is good. But you’re crippling debate by flat out telling us that we need to act nice. No-one was “thrown under a bus” for expressing their opinions. They expressed their opinions. Others expressed different opinions. It got worked out. 🙂
@Katz
In my original comment I also wrote about how scary I found that these woman ignored the fact that the wives in the story got murdered – there was not even a nod to that aspect. The two things I wrote were roughly the same size, and I didn’t think I focused in one more than other. I ended up talking more about my second point because more people questioned me about it.
Now, why did I choose to comment on that instead of on some other things? I don’t know. It had my attention. Some of the other things she said had already been picked apart by other people, so I imagine I chose to focus on that and not on some other points because of it.
Yeah, and I dislike the fact that sometimes people need to lie to get a job. I understand why people will want to hire someone who says they have great ambitions in whatever job they’re choosing, but I don’t think not being ambitious means you’re going to work less than someone who is – you won’t work for the same reasons, but you’ll work.
And I, as an introvert, usually let people know that big gatherings bother me – I never say it sounds worse than root canal surgery, because it doesn’t. If I don’t feel like going, and yet the option of disappointing someone feels like the worst of two evils, I go to the party.
I do not like lies. I can keep my opinion to myself if I don’t want to offend people, but I can’t lie. And I would rather people consider me something bad that I am than something good that I’m not.
@mrax
I see, but I don’t think being unambitious equals being lazy. People can want nothing more than have an ocupation to help their family, and still work really hard to make it happen. I know taking care of a house is not idle work.
@mrex
I agree that most people did exactly what you mentioned. Then there was the point where a person started labeling others, which is a little different from expressing opinions.
I am glad it is working out. Healthy dialogue happens when parties respect each other which I did not see happening with all the participants. I can be entirely wrong and I admit that. Maybe it would have been better if I called out specific people, which I chose not to.
Yes, being nice is optional. But I don’t think asking people to be nice is ‘shutting them down’, however that works. I never asked people to not speak up. And I strongly doubt that all debate needs to be heated and aggressive – and that civil discourse cripples it.
@Rosa
So you don’t think raising a family is an achievement? It requires lots of hard work and dedication, but is unworthy to be considered to be an achievement? Your definition of achievement/ ambition perfectly matches male-coded (and classist) values. The reason I’m so insulted by you is that you consistently kept belittling being a SAHM as “unambitious”, “not impressive”, “goal not big enough” etc. You repeatedly doubled-down on this after other people called you out nicely.
@reallyfriendly
Thanks for calling me a bad feminist and throwing me under the bus!
And bonus tone policing!
@Snuffy
Ok, firstly It’s not BEING a SAHM I consider unambitious – it’s WANTING TO BE a SAHM. That is a distinction I made. This was my original statement, and I haven’t doubled-down from it.
As for unambitious – yes, I haven’t changed my mind on that matter. I don’t have sufficient reason to do it.
As for not impressive – That was a terrible thing to say, I admit it. One of the reasons is that people have different views of what impressive is, and if you see something as impressive but I don’t, I have no right to tell you you are wrong.
As for not having a big enough goal – Did I say enough? Did I say anyone had to have a goal which I considered to be big? I may use the relative “size” of goals to decide whether or not I find someone ambitious, but that’s it.
If this is the case, then well, unfortunately, my definition of ambition matches male-coded and classist values. If ambition is mostly used to reflect these values, shouldn’t this be the correct usage? But if not, where do I go from here? What definition of ambition should I use?
Are you going to tell me why am I wrong in assuming that the desire of being a housewife can be ambitious? Why do you think this is?
What if someone wants to be a stay at home mom because their local school options stink and they want to make sure their kids get a good education? That’s pretty ambitious.
Honestly, I find working for extended periods of time with K-6 kids WAY more difficult and stressful then working a cardiac arrest call, thus if anyone has the motivation to desire to work with kids, or stay home alone with them for 24+ hours, I’m calling it ambitious.
I’m not super ambitious, myself. I kind of just fall into fun opportunities.
Rosa, could we maybe just drop this one? You repeating your points really isn’t making me appreciate them more, and I really doubt anything I say would change your mind at all.
So… Maybe just leave it be? Also, avoiding calling folks unambitious might be nice, as it’s a kind of loaded term.
You all don’t have to leave it be just cause I ask, because you are your own people, but if anyone would like to let it be I’ll just be off in one of the other threads thinking about something else and you all are totes welcome to join me!
*sighs* Look, since this is still going (even though I thought we were done here), I might as well explain exactly why I’m taking this to offense.
Motherhood: When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to be a mother, ideally but not necessarily a SAHM. I never had any “Traditional” gender roles pushed on me, surprisingly enough, I just have a maternal streak the size of Jupiter’s Red Spot. =P But thanks to a
bunch of bullshitcombination of reasons – I’ve had three miscarriages, I’m infertile due to a rare genetic disorder, and I’m gay and live in a country where gay adoption is still illegal – that will probably never happen. Instead, I have two careers, both in STEM. I’m a palaeontologist with a web design company on the side. Sure, it looks ambitious and blah blah whatever, and I do love my fossils and computers, but I don’t feel fulfilled. You say that ambition is the desire to achieve? Well, motherhood is the desire I’ll never achieve.Choice: Whoo boy. Okay. Most of you are fairly new here, so for a quick background, my dad was a physically and emotionally abusive puddle of elephant diarrhoea. A large part of his abuse included dictating my entire life story. It was his idea that I go into palaeontology, even, but at least I enjoy that enough to stick with it. Everything else he wanted me to do, I hated, and everything else I wanted to do, he hated. Drawing? He banned me from taking art classes. Drums? He broke my sticks. Dressage? He killed my horse. Motherhood? Ptth, that’s for shitty stupid uneducated poor people with no hope, I’m too good for that lower-class loser nonsense, I should have ambition, should have bigger goals, who cares what I want, who cares about choice…
… Hmm.
@contrapangloss
What you said about teaching from home is actually what came the closest to making me change my mind. I actually feel like this should be called ambitious – even though it wouldn’t fit my idea of ambition if I were asked to put it into words.
I’d say ambitious has to do with the difficulty of achieving it. That is, whether or not being a famous movie actor/actress is difficult (I wouldn’t know), becoming one isn’t, because there aren’t a lot of opportunities for people to do it.
And yet, I can’t bring myself to say that trying to teach your children all the subjects they need to learn isn’t ambitious
I’ve hit a a wall 😀
I won’t be calling people unambitious in this blog. I’m not here to offend or upset anybody, and since it seems that what I meanst to say was understood, I can be content knowing that people will judge me on the matter based on my opinions and not on what they believe my opinions to be.
I might respond to Snuffy if I get a reply, but I won’t be going back to this subject, much less drag it to other threads.
(And yeah, I know my experiences are unique to me and definitely shouldn’t dictate everybody else, not trying to demand that you all cater to me or anything, just explaining why I keep getting uncharacteristically ragey over something so innocuous.)
SFHC: Shit, I had no idea you’d been through so much. (He killed your horse?) That really sucks that so much stuff has gotten in the way of you just living the kind of life you want. I know it’s not any actual help to say that I hope there will eventually be a way for you to be a parent, but I’ll say it anyway.
@ SFHC
Any words would just be platitudes but FWIW I’ve always thought you have a really impressive CV. I love hearing about all your paleo stuff on here.
@Rosa
I get what you’re saying, you’re not getting my point. Your definition: “Ambition is the desire to achieve”. By saying that desiring to be a housewife isn’t ambitious, you are saying that they don’t desire achievement. You are considering their goals to not be achievements. You are reinforcing the sexist and classist idea that traditional women’s work is not an impressive achievement. I consider wanting to do a job that requires lots of hard work and dedication ambitious, I do not dismiss their work as not an achievement.
So uh…I just got some very distressing news:
Some of you might remember in May when I went to Arizona and got involved in some drama I wanted no part of with my little sister and her then-boyfriend. Her ex was possessive, abusive, and he was going to be thrown out of his parent’s house because of it.
They’ve since broken up, and she moved back to the town where my mom lives in Nevada.
Now, she’s about to turn 19 in a little under two weeks, and she’s apparently engaged to a 33 year old guy who’s hyper possessive (constantly calling her and asking her where she is and what she’s doing, even when she’s out and about with our mom), and to put a corn-kernel cherry on this shit sundae, he’s still married to another (older) woman and he has kids with her.
I’m absolutely livid about this, but the best I think I can do is just tell her that this guy is being predatory as fuck, he’s abusive as hell with all this possessive bullshit, and hope to everything I hold holy that she takes the hint.
I understand this isn’t her fault, but holy fuck if I ever meet this man face-to-face, I’m going to blow up on him.
Paradoxy, please accept my fervent best wishes and holy fuck I am a peaceful man but that dude better not come near me either. What the hell? That’s so far over the line that it begins to approach it again via circumnavigation.
Watching family do stuff like that must be very hard. You have my absolute support and let me know if there’s anything I, or anyone else, can do.
Thanks EJ. I did tell my sister via Facebook (I never use the damn thing) that while I respect her choices, everyone else in my family thinks he’s bad news.
I can only hope she takes the hint, or, if she doesn’t, that he watches his fucking step around her.
Paradoxy…I can’t even. I don’t know you at all, but I have so much admiration for you from your posts here…just ugh.
My best advice for coming up with good scripts is to read a bunch of Captain Awkward — or even write her. She has some really good posts about how to talk to a loved one who is in an abusive or predatory relationship.
It is incredibly hard to show someone you love that you respect them, and yet also break through the fog of an unhealthy romantic relationship. I wish I was better at coming up with just the right things to say. All the best, especially to your sister.
@Paradoxy, yikes. If it helps, I think you are doing the best thing – and I can tell you from experience that even if it seems someone doesn’t hear you, they have, and they will remember what you’ve said to them and that you’re in their corner no matter what. Hang in there.
@Snuffy
Ok, I see now.
If I’m not mistaken, when I said that ambitious was the desire to achieve I was responding to the assumption that I assumed that only people who could pursure their wishes should be called ambitious – I was trying to say that the achieveing of one’s objectives had no bearing in whether I would call them ambitious or not.
However, yes, now I see how offensive it sounds in the manner I worded it.
I think that ambition has to do with wanting something that is not usual in the context that a person finds themselves. This definition makes it inherently classist, but maybe that is one of the connotations usually associated with the word.
So, what I failed to consider originally, and means I screwed up, was the context of the commenter. If she was raised by people who are against women doing things traditionally coded as feminine, or if she was raised in an enviroment where women had to have jobs because of economical reasons and couldn’t be housewives even if they wanted it (though I doubt it’s the second case, because she didn’t bring it up in her post).
As for achievements… Considering that I was born from parents who went to university, I went to good schools, my country has good public universities, and my grandparents (in my father’s side) have money and were willing to pay a private college for me if I wanted it, getting into a university doesn’t seem so impressive to me. Now, compared to my grandmother on my mother’s side, who didn’t even start highschool, had to work ever since he was a kid, had to take care of her younger siblings and then her own children, and tried to get into a college at sixty-some years of age, studying mostly by herself, I imagine that she considered it a great achievement when she did it. The university I got into is better ranked than hers, but I consider what she did more impressive than what I did, specifically because our lives and situations are so different.
If I understood you right, you consider ambitious to want to do something that takes hard work to do.
I differentiate the “being” from the “becoming”, and the difficulties associated with it. I talked about movie stars for that reason – I have no idea how hard it is to be a famous actor/actress, but I’m certain that you don’t have many opportunites to become one.
This is the thing with, say, teachers and famous athletes – I consider teachers to be much more important than athletes, but I see why athletes get paid more.
I have never heard the word ambition used that way and can’t find that in any dictionary or example to concur with you. You see to have mutated your personal definition into something no one else uses?
Ambition: a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=ambition&oq=ambition&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60j69i57j69i60l3.1372j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8
Society often devalues SAHMs by saying it’s easier than paid labour (which is considered ambitious to pursue). I recognize the hard work SAHMs do and acknowledge that it is an ambitious goal to want to run a household and raise children.
An update on the situation: My sister finally messaged me back, told me she’s happy, and she’s being “treated right”, and she has “lots of chances to get out”, which I’m not so sure about.
She also says she’s happy, and I feel like an asshole for wanting to get in the way of this, but my gut is telling me that this guy is bad fucking news.
I also just sent an ask to a blog I follow that’s made lots of posts on the subject, and hopefully they can help.
I might also read some Captain Awkward as well, thanks for the suggestions and the support.
Neither I nor anyone I have a close relationship with has (thankfully) had to deal with a situation like this, so I can’t be of any practical help, but I’m wishing the best for your sister, and that she is right about having lots of chance of getting out.
@Paradox
“She also says she’s happy, and I feel like an asshole for wanting to get in the way of this, but my gut is telling me that this guy is bad fucking news.”
I agree, this guy sounds gross, and maybe even abusive. Sounds like maybe you’re looking for some advice? My sister was being abused for a while, so here’s my takeaway from my personal experience;
These situations are so complex that’s its impossible to know the “right” thing to do. But, in my personal experience, family members that get into the middle of a relationship run the risk of pushing their family member away, and contributing to any isolation attempts going on. Alternatively, they could “wake” the family member up, so it’s really up to you, and what you’re willing to risk.
In my personal experience, the best thing to do is to tell her that it’s always easy to get out of the beginning, but as relationships go on they become more and more difficult to get out of, and that you will be there to support her and love her no matter what. The most helpful thing would be to make an honest promise to help her financially/give her a safe place to stay/drive her to a shelter/whatever if she ever needs it, but obviously try to avoid making promises that you’re unlikely to be able to keep.
@reallyfriendly
“Yes, being nice is optional. But I don’t think asking people to be nice is ‘shutting them down’, however that works. I never asked people to not speak up. And I strongly doubt that all debate needs to be heated and aggressive – and that civil discourse cripples it.”
Yes, Dad. This isn’t the first time you’ve tone policed, which is why I’m calling you out. 😉
Yes, I agree that being “nice” is “good”, but remember, what is “nice”, and what is “impolite”, is subjective. Just as others could be nicer, you could ignore your interpretation of the conversation’s tone, and focus on the argument instead.
Also, avoid speaking for individual women, especially if you’re a man. Many women, including feminists, are practiced at sticking up for themselves. After all, we’re used to dealing with sexists and entitled, privileged men.
As to why tone arguments are, in general, bad;
”
A tone argument is an argument used in discussions, sometimes by Concern trollsand sometimes as a Derailment, in which it is suggested that feminists would be more successful if only they expressed themselves in a more pleasant tone. This is also sometimes described as catching more flies with honey than with vinegar, a particular variant of the tone argument.
The tone argument is a form of derailment, or a red herring, because the tone of a statement is independent of the content of the statement in question, and calling attention to it distracts from the issue at hand. Drawing attention to the tone rather than content of a statement can allow other parties to avoid engaging with sound arguments presented in that statement, thus undermining the original party’s attempt to communicate and effectively shutting them down.
[…]
One way in which the tone argument frequently manifests itself is as a call for civility. A way to gauge whether a request for civility is sincere or not is to ask whether the person asking for civility has more power along whatever axes are contextually relevant (see Intersectionality) than the person being called “incivil”, less power, or equal power. Often, people who have the privilege of being listened to and taken seriously level accusations of “incivility” as a silencing tactic, and label as “incivil” any speech or behavior that questions their privilege. For example, some men label any feminist thought or speech as hostile or impolite; there is no way for anybody to question male power or privilege without being called rude or aggressive. Likewise, some white people label any critical discussion of race, particularly when initiated by people of color, as incivil.
When practised by a more privileged person, a request for civility may come across as both controlling and disingenuous. Asserting oneself as the one who gets to define civility can come across as a way to show dominance, as well as reflecting a conflict of interest: if you’re the less-privileged person in the conversation, you may ask yourself: ‘Do they really think I was impolite, or do they just have an interest in not being criticized?’
[…]
Seriousness
At the opposite end of the emotion spectrum, sounding emotionally detached in conversation may become tone-policed as “too flippant.” Women are simultaneously labelled as overly emotional at one end, and frivolous on the other. This leaves them with two disadvantageous choices: being seen as either irrational or immature in a discussion. As there is an expectation for women to defer to men, expressing emotional detachment in one’s voice may lead to accusations of being disrespectful or sociopathic. This forces women into a balancing act.
Women that face multiple intersecting oppressions are usually the minority of the minority in number. People in a position of privilege may find it easier to dismiss members of such a small group. When they speak in a serious tone, these women may be framed as taking themselves too seriously for being such an insignificant segment of the population. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if they are too unemotional, their political cause or argument is framed as clearly not important enough to consider.
Double bind
The tone argument presents one end of a common double bind that members of marginalized groups face. If they speak out in a measured or deferential way about oppressive behaviours, their concerns are often ignored. Should they raise their concerns in a more pointed or incisive manner, they are berated for being “incivil”.
Consequences
As in the case of “nice guy”, the term “tone argument” as used in feminist discourse is more specific than it appears. It does not refer to an argument as such, but to the use of an argument to ruin conversations and silence people.
Further, using this tactic to silence privileged people who have plenty of opportunities to express their views would not normally be described as “tone argument,” although the method is the same, because “tone argument” is a term of art used for a particular kind of oppression, and not just a particular kind of rudeness. It is often difficult to have feminist conversations at all,with anyone; thus, when incivil participants threaten to ruin a feminist conversation, there is the possibility that the conversation will never happen again. Excluding incivility on that basis may look like the tone argument, but the consequences are not at all similar, so it is not a tone argument.
It is nonetheless possible for feminists to employ the tone argument, usually against members of oppressed groups they do not belong to. For that, see Intersectionality.”
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument