In between huffing and puffing in the kitchen, I did get back to Metafilter a few times and eventually dropped some comments. The more tired and more grumpy I got, as well as the more accomplished I personally felt as a lowly degraded housewife today, the more I knew I just had to say something. I probably said it poorly. I will probably be misunderstood and jumped on for my thoughts. Really don’t care what a bunch of men at Metafilter think about me (’cause the men there always seem to be the loudest about women’s rights — until someone makes a post about a woman, and then the sexism just bursts out of them). Anyway, behind the cut I have pasted my comments for posterity on my own web site.
Like I said, I’m tired and grumpy, so I am not even sure if I made any sense. My mind is somewhat on other things … like my kitchen and making dinner … but well, I had to rant just a wee bit. :)
I have been following both threads as best I can, time permitting, and several times I have wanted to jump in with a comment or two. I think we are all lucky I haven’t had the time, but I do have say something about this, which I hope sums up my feelings on the whole matter:
women — in a lot of countries, the poster’s included — can now vote, work, wear trousers, and say “make your own dinner, asshole”
Yes, and here I thought, growing up in the sixties and seventies, when women were burning bras and telling assholes to make their own dinner, that what women were fighting for was the right to have a free choice about how they lived their lives. The message I have been getting today is that women are free to live their lives any way they choose, except to happily chose to be a housewife, to do the cooking, cleaning, and serving of food and drink to whomever they chose.
Has no one considered that the women in this family have chosen to do that, not because they don’t have other options or because the men in the family will smack them down if they don’t, but rather because they want to do it and enjoy doing it? Is choosing to follow a more traditional gender role not a valid option for women in the 21st century? What I am hearing in entirely too many comments in both threads is that any woman who serves a man in any way is degrading herself and she should kick the asshole to the curb and get a real life, as if the choice to be a traditional housewife is somehow NOT valid choice. Well, that’s some free will these equal rights have granted.
I find a lot of what people have said here today to be extremely offensive and disrespectful to women who have chosen a more traditional gender role … more offensive than a boyfriend asking his girlfriend to fix him a plate of turkey on her first visit to his family’s home.
If you’re granting all women free choice, then you have to stand behind the OP’s discomfort with this act.
May we all never have to do anything that brings us discomfort, even if doing so means potentially being rude to future family members.
When I visit my in-laws, I attend their very fundamental Christian church. I didn’t the first time we went. I missed the funny thing that happened on the way to church. I missed the post church stop for White Castles and ice cream. I missed the Sunday stop by the grandparents’ house. In short, because I didn’t want to do something that was the norm in that household, owing to it making me uncomfortable, I missed out on being a member of the family for Sunday. They still all talk about the funny thing that happened on the way to church that time even after 15 years, but it’s a story I am not a part of … a bit of family history I don’t share with them.
I did not make that mistake the second time. Was I uncomfortable attending their church? Yes, a little, but the pay-off was getting to see them interact as a family during something that was important to them, and I got to spend time getting to know them and where they were really coming from.
The way to learn about the actual family dynamics of a group isn’t by immediately walking in and bucking the system because you find their habits and ways distasteful. If you are entering a home in which traditional gender and family roles appear to be the norm, it does you well to go “under-cover” and do as the natives do. I guarantee you, as a woman, you will learn far more about the actual family dynamics, as well as your potential spouse by spending the day doing what the women do.
All those “traditional” women in all those kitchens aren’t working silently like automatons. They are gossiping, talking about the men, their marriages, sharing recipes, sharing themselves as family members do. In fact, in a husband/wife or bf/gf team, one gets to hear the gripes and gossip of the men and one gets to hear the gripes and gossip of the women, and afterwards you share … and then you both know everything which can be very interesting. And don’t think those poor women slaving in the kitchen are starving themselves either. In fact, if they are, that also tells you something about the way that family functions.
So yes, the OP certainly doesn’t have to do anything that makes her uncomfortable, but choosing not to do so may come with a price. She may miss out on learning a lot about her boyfriend’s family and how things actually work between the members, and she may very well be perceived as rude and haughty, depending on how well she manages to cover the fact she finds the work the other women are doing disgusting. Disgust is a very hard emotion to hide well, especially from people who may be watching you more closely than usual (being the new person).
What’s really got my nose bent though is the frequency with which comments have been posted along the lines of “OMG!!! I would NEVER!!! How freaking DEGRADING!!!” By extension then, the women who will be doing this on Thanksgiving (and presumably on a more regular basis than that) are also being degraded, but I’d bet good money they don’t see it that way and would think less of anyone who suggested otherwise. Traditional gender roles should not be considered degrading if freely chosen, and it hurts exactly no one to do as the Romans do when in Rome, so long as it is understood by your partner that it will not be the norm in your household, if you don’t want it to be.
You can learn a lot more by blending in with the “locals” than you can by insisting on having things your way. Why, a person could even discover that those women carrying plates of food to hungry men have chosen to do so and are willing and happy participants in such a “degrading” action. This sort of thing the OP won’t know until she actually gets to know the family and sees how they interact with each other, and they best way to do that, as I have said, is to serve the man his plate of food while keeping eyes and ears open and mouth mostly closed. That’s just really good advice for anyone walking into a significant other’s family gathering for the first time: try to fit in as well as you can and pay close attention to everything. Right now, all she has is her boyfriend’s perceptions on the matter, and chances are high he only has 50% or less of the information necessary to assess the whole situation, being as he is a man and not doing the serving with the women.
Sorry this got long, but I don’t know if I will get back here tonight or not. I have to go degrade myself by making dinner, serving the meal, and then doing the dishes … after which I will continue preparing my kitchen and home for Thanksgiving.
Now back to my kitchen to further degrade myself by being domestic and freaking LIKING it. :flip: