It’s been quite some time since we last checked in with the genteel racist and Holocaust-denier who calls herself The Thinking Housewife. Flipping through her blog archive today, I could not find it in me to click on posts with such unappetising titles as “Usury and Homosexuality” and “Martin Luther King: Commie Fraud.”
But her recent post on lady astronauts got my attention. In it, Laura Wood (her real name, evidently), throws some reactionary shade at NASA for the unforgivable sin of training four women for space work and a possible trip to the Red Planet.
As Wood sees it, Mars does NOT need women, because a trip to yucky Mars pales in comparison to the joys of full-time housewifery.
[T]he things these women could accomplish within the dramatic and exciting Inner Space of their own homes so dwarfs what they could accomplish on Mars (where they won’t be going anyway), that the very suggestion is an outrage.
Wait, I thought Innerspace was the movie in which Dennis Quaid got shrunken down to microscopic size, Fantastic Voyage style, and accidentally injected into Martin Short?
Who would trade insipid, lifeless, finite Mars (Yuck!! Revolting!!) for the chance to create and influence human beings, each one of whom is a fascinating planet, an eternal sphere of consummate adventure, a being that is utterly unique and made in God’s image?
Apparently, God is a tiny bald, incontinent person who can barely walk straight and communicates mainly through shrieks and vomiting, yet is somehow also adorable?
If that isn’t power, what is?
Uh, being president? I mean, having a kid is a momentous thing, for mothers and fathers alike, and fulfilling in many ways that even being president or taking a trip to freakin Mars couldn’t ever be. (Or so I’ve heard.) But it’s not power.
And seriously, if the thing you value most about your children is that they’re small enough to boss around, you’re probably not cut out to be a parent. Go run for president, or something.
God gave men galaxies and distant planets and asteroids to compensate them for the misfortune — and unfairness — of never being able to become mothers.
And God says this where? I’m a dude with no uterus, and I never got my owner’s certificate for everything in the sky.
Outer Space takes their minds off the unfairness of it all, something women have been kind enough to recognize in the past by not denying those who have dreamed of being astronauts since they were little boys of the chance to experience the “vomit comet.”
I’m just going to let J-Law here handle my response:
Dudes, if you’re truly furious that some darn woman has stolen what should rightfully be your spot on the “vomit comet” — the affectionate name for the plane in which astronauts first get used to the joys of zero gravity — you can actually just pay these guys to have the very same experience.
Women don’t want it anyway. If someone came to my door when my children were young, blossoming creatures and said, “Hey, lady, you have just won a trip to Mars!,” I would have told him to get lost. I would do the same now.
Uh, yeah, and so would I. But I’m not all men, and you’re not all women, and neither of us has the right to be making these decisions for other people.
I just hope that Mars turns out to be as cool as the moon.
A disturbing thing I’ve heard Christians say in the last few decades, at least of the evangelical variety, is all about the special “destiny” God had “just for them.” And phrases of that nature. That, and the talk about all the “power” you get from doing what God supposedly wants and so on, makes me think that this is a very different church than the one my folks took me to as a kid, where I was enjoined to be humble and think of others before myself.
Um, these four women? Except no, because two of them are already mothers, so they didn’t “trade” anything.
I know I’ve been commenting a lot lately, (sorta had nothing better to do as of recently) but this fucking outrages me. For one thing, what about all the little girls that have dreamed of being astronauts when they grow up? Guess this “Thinking Housewife” couldn’t give a shit about them. Also, not all women want to be mothers, shocking as that revolutionary opinion is.
Also, men do have the ability to create life. They may not be able to actually carry a fetus in their bodies and give birth to it, but didn’t they sort of…put it in a (cis) woman’s body in the first place? A human inherits half the mother’s DNA and half the father’s. It is evenly split. It’s not as if (cis) women spontaneously generate babies out of nowhere. Men can create life as well, by being fathers if they desire.
pfft, more like unreflective full-of-herself housewife.
Why are there so many people who think that we all should behave the same way, want the same things, be the same?!! The world would be so boring… but no, reactionaries wanna shove everyone back into some tiny box.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/yuck.gif
Wow, I have never been more turned off having children than I have right this moment.
Shorter The Thinking Housewife: “I’m a big old scaredy-cat with no imagination or ambitions outside of being a baby incubator, so no woman should be allowed to pursue her dreams!”
So, God is a red, wrinkled peanut covered in grease and bawling and dripping with snot?
(Actually, that might explain why he made so many people as embarrassingly dim as this one. If that’s what she calls “thinking”, I’ve clearly had better “thoughts” than hers while straining on the toilet.)
Isn’t crank magnetism wonderful? We actually have a racist, antisemitic and science-denying female mysognist!
you know, if these ladies don’t actually want to go to Mars you have to be impressed at the lengths they have gone to to spite all the astronaut hopeful men out there. Years of arduous academic and physical training since childhood just to be spiteful- that is some work class evil genius stuff right there.
Do I need to follow up The Guy Who Hates Flowers and Candy with The Woman Who Hates Planets?
I can’t believe this is serious. I say stuff like this sarcastically and don’t expect anyone to follow the words. Like, guuuuuuurl, who the fuck are you to tell someone what they prefer to do?!
Should I be practicing my evil laugh? I have two impressionable minds to mold and warp however I wish. Lately I have been filling their little heads with the perverse idea that they are both people.
I can think of a few women who don’t regret going into space. And a few others who don’t regret trying.
My husband’s high school physics teacher, for one. She was on the short list for the last Challenger mission.
I guess I was an expert misanderer before I even knew what that was. Who’d have thought wee little WWTH was being so evil and mean to the menz when she dreamed of being an astronaut and watched Voyage to the Outer Planets and Beyond several times a week?
I guess there is at least one person in the world who didn’t like The Martian.
I’m sure a lot of people would not personally choose to go on a Mars mission if they were offered the choice. It would be scary and involve huge sacrifices. But if you can’t see how another person, even an inferior vagina carrying person, might want to venture to a place where literally no one has ever been, you are hopelessly small-minded.
You know how when you repot a plant that’s gotten really rootbound, you have to cut or massage out the roots, otherwise they won’t spread and the plant will just continue growing as if it’s in the small pot? Sometimes I wonder if women like Laura Wood are like that. Their minds have been confined for so long by external pressures that it doesn’t occur to them that there’s any other way to be.
So because I have the ability to choose to painfully birth another human being from my loins – and/or otherwise put up with a menstrual cycle for 30 years – in order to make up for it, “Men, here, have an amazing world and universe to explore?” Wtf? Because being a woman as such, I have no interest in such things? >.>
I don’t understand people like this. Like a woman’s whole world is supposed to exist inside one house. But a man’s whole world not only exists within that home, but also extends beyond the far reaches of the universe. Lady, if you want to live like a zoo animal confined to a cage who’s sole purpose is to birth out more cubs, else your husband’s gene pool will go extinct, that is on you – but don’t expect the rest of us to agree.
Seriously, I can imagine that it must be shameful to you to even waste one ‘frivolous’ moment of your time looking out a window. You should consider boarding those up.
Sounds like someone who’s miserable about her life trying desperately to convince herself that women who don’t make the same choices that she does are even more unhappy than she is.
“Sally, I know that you lost your game today because it was rigged so that Bobby could win, but look at it this way: you get a ribbon! Yeah, he got a big, golden trophy, but it’s nothing like your ribbon. And frankly, you should be glad you didn’t get the trophy, you would only mess it up or something. You were meant to have the ribbon; it is your destiny. As it was Bobby’s to get the trophy. Think of it like this: while he sits there, looking at his glorious trophy, just remember that he will never get a ribbon. As he shouldn’t, ribbons are for gir…people like you. The big, golden, glorious trophy probably sucks anyway, because it’s not a ribbon. What you should do is stop trying to get trophies, and just be happy for ribbons.”
It’s not a perfect metaphor. After all, what if Sally wanted a ribbon? But it’s what I hear whenever I hear arguments like this.
I do not understand. She writes about different topics. Is that not contradictory? Shouldn’t she only think about baby food and other baby related things, and not about education, gays, politics, what other women do? How come she has access to internet and is able to write? Instead of wasting her time on writing a blog, she could spend time on baby related things. And on her husband. It is a sin to dedicate time to writing while her husband is waiting for warm meal.
How can she spend time on writing and other women mustn’t spend time on Mars??
You’d think that Little Suzy Homemaker: Anti-Feminist Edition here would stay off the internet, if her whole universe revolves around her precious little babbies. She might discover so many things that get her panties in a right twist, like how some of us don’t want kids, how some of us own businesses, how some of us work for a living, and how some of us manage to do all of the above and still cook for our families. Shocking. (Ninja’d by Petrovna!)
And every time this argument that a woman’s place is inside the home, raising/having kids comes up, I can’t help but think of my aunt who can’t have kids.
She dotes on her youngest nephew, who’s an adorable young kid (and who’s also going through lots of family problems). Is she somehow less of a woman because she can’t have kids? Is she not “womaning” properly because she’s the one who does the books and such for her and my uncle’s car shop and works with him all day instead of staying at home and cooking for my uncle (which she still manages to do, and she cooks for her dog as well)?
Methinks the “Thinking Housewife” should think a bit harder. Or at the very least, get some goddamned sunshine instead of staying in the kitchen all the time and shouting out the window about how we’re all doing it wrong.
Well, technically, transmen can also get pregnant and carry a child to term, but I imagine that dysphoria wouldn’t help with that for many of them.
And there are lots of non-binary people out there who might want to carry a child one day. 🙂
Not to sound rude or anything, I just felt like that needed a gentle correction.
In my experience people who belittle, demean and criticise others’ choices (usually children and adolescents, grown-ups tend to live-and-let-live) are very insecure about their own choices. This was particularly noticeable in the late 80s, when I had my first baby, there were many discussions about whether or not new mothers should go back to work. Thankfully, now, it seems most people agree that it should be her choice.
So what did God give to women to compensate them for the misfortune and unfairness of never being able to become fathers?
I honestly find this “hear my uterus roar with Goddess power” line crossed with unabashed patriarchy to be fascinating. How does someone get to that stage? What thought processes led to this particular synthesis? This isn’t the first time I’ve run into it, but I still don’t understand how a (cis) woman can convince herself that she is simultaneously the bearer of the greatest power of the world and also inferior to (cis) men in every important respect.
Not to mention, what about transwomen and infertile cis women who can’t fall pregnant? What about disabled or mentally ill women whose medical issues mean they are not suited for parenthood? What about women who just plain out aren’t suited for parenthood or child guardianship due to personality? Can they go to Mars? (Yay! I can go to Mars! I can go to Mars! I don’t care if it’s yucky, I can save the poor dear Rover!)
@ PI
No, you’re right! You definitely weren’t being rude, sorry I left them out. It wasn’t my intention at all not to include transmen and non-binary people as well. My mistake.
I’m pretty tired today, although I know that’s still no excuse. I guess the point I was trying to make is that men can also create life as well as women, and that goes for cis or trans/non-binary people if they desire. My deepest apologies for not including non binary people and trans men.
It’s not that I forgot, but mostly because I’m pretty tired I’m having a little trouble expressing exactly what I want to say today. That’s no excuse I know, I’m sorry. I’ll try my best not to do it again.
Anyway, better get to bed. I swear I didn’t mean to leave any trans/ non-binary folks out of the equation