Post #7: Repsonse to “A Women’s Place (is?) in a Home”

https://medium.com/to-build-a-house-and-home/the-office-7d3a42c350d8

My mom is the classic 1960s housewife. She met my dad after graduating college and immediately fell in love- they tell my sister and I it was love at first sight. My dad was already an established stockbroker in town when they decided to have kids and settle down. My mom quick her job as at the firm my father worked at and became the picture perfect stay at home mom. She made breakfast for my dad in the morning, and walked us kids to the bus stop. She cleaned the house, did the laundry, volunteered our elementary school classrooms, and had dinner on the table by the time my dad got home from work. We were the cookie-cutter northeast Fresno family.

And that’s the thing, in Fresno you know, that society’s standard. Moms don’t work, and dads definitely don’t have blue collared jobs. It appears that everybody has family night on Sunday, every man is making advances in the business world, and every high school boy is projected to follow in his father’s footsteps. Simply put, I grew up in a very fortunate situation, but none the less, in a Man’s world.

In my town, girls go to college to meet a boy, fall in love, and live the happily ever after housewife life just as her mother did. Their goal is to become a “trophy wife”- an attractive women their powerful and rich husband can show off to the world. And as a feminist, this word drives me absolutely insane. It feels degrading, and my whole life I have worked so hard to break out of Fresno’s norm for its girls. I tell myself that I will never become a trophy wife. I never want find fulfillment in traditional women’s work. I want to be a powerful, educated young lady who can make a name for herself without a husband to rely on.

But after being at home with my mom for the last year, due to covid, I have learned that I was although this mindset screams ‘independent women’, it is anything but feminist.

Here’s the thing, having a successful career doesn’t make you anymore of a feminist. Our world has directly linked “making something of yourself” with making good money or succeeding in one’s occupation. But you can be a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or artist and still be nothing. Being “something” comes with the attitude you bring to the world. My mom has certainly made something of herself in my eyes. Her passion to care for others, her strength to raise independent women, her grace in which she leads my father to find joy in the little things, the smile that’s always behind her- that is what she was put on this earth to do, to be an amazing wife and mother.

Being a stay at home mom and a feminist is not mutually exclusive. We can’t pick and choose which women we support. Feminism is about having creating a world where women have the ability to choose their life path and are not limited due to their gender. Its about creating equality, but realizing we are not all the same- and respecting each others choices. So, if later down the line, I realize my calling is to be a stay at home mother then I will be the best trophy wife you have ever seen. Because my mom taught me that doing “women’s work” is not something to be ashamed of. My career does not define me as a women, I do.