Harmless and delicious? WRONG! You are looking at my PRISON!
Dear reader, today was kind of a cranky day. Like, first? I was bothered by this post at Sociological Images, a blog I love very much, where today someone claimed – in part of a larger point about prescribed gender roles – that cooking was drudgery. You know, taking care of oneself by selecting and preparing food – what an onerous chore! Why should anyone even have to bother?
So why should I care about this one, measly little word in a sea of internet talk-out-the-ass-ness?
Here’s the thing: I read feminist blogs. And I love them (mostly). And this “housework and kid care is so borrrring!” stuff that asses itself into some (note I said some) feminist discussion?
I get it, I really do. Allow me a summation if you haven’t devoted yourself to the conversation so far. First off, there is a tremendous disparity when it comes to men and women living together; women do a lot more of the domestic work that needs to get done to little respect, status, acclaim, or pay. If you aren’t aware of this you’re uninformed – it remains to you to decide if this is (however subtly) deliberate on your part. If you’re aware and you’re not really doing much about it. Um. Perhaps you shouldn’t be reading here.
But let’s say for arguments sake you’re aware that yes, in heterosexual partnerships the laydeez end up doing more of the kid care, the housework, and the “invisible” errands (like tracking everyone’s schedule, making dentist appointments, knowing where the shot records are kept, keeping track of shoe sizes, shopping for clothes and groceries and, and, and… you get it). Those of us bent on egalitarian treatment want this to change. And part of that is we want our families and our media to quit socializing girls and women to take care of everyone else while any attendant menfolk reap the benefits of this invisible but in large part necessary work. To housework-dissing feminists’ view, housework is de facto “less than” and women deserve a piece of the whatever pie really matters – status, money, acclaim, astronaut jobs (Note: I’m not addressing housework-dissing anti-feminists here. Another post, perhaps).
And of course, I understand this. Make no mistake: women are still pressured to and expected to juggle career, good looks, a hot body, environmental stewardship, solid and healthy friendships, volunteer work, wifedom and motherhood, and run a smooth household. Penalties for flagging in these pursuits can be severe. Just-minded women and men are bucking the concept that these goals should be mandatory for women (especially those married to or partnered with a man). Where I differ from some feminist perspective is I refuse to denigrate those things that are, traditionally, female or femme. After all, the denigration of the female is part of the problem – hello wage gap for instance.
So: picking on the work of self- and household-care using pejoratives and diminishing language to describe it? What a win! (I am totally typing sarcastically!) Funny thing: I cook a lot, and I clean the house and wash clothes and stuff, and I don’t get paid nor much externally-afforded status for the ins-and-outs of, you know, regular life, all functions to varying degree necessary and normal in Being and enjoying the wonder of our existence (it is only modern convenience and privilege that allows us to opt out). Perhaps you can take a moment to imagine how I feel – after seven years out of paid work – when my sister-laydeez then heap insult on injury by telling me what I do is so farking mindless and boring! What a way to make sure to never recognize the efforts, integrity, expressive life, and personhood of those who’ve chosen the path! (and who, P.S., baked those fabulous cookies your co-worker brought in that you took two of at break time).
Because, hello, and I literally can’t believe I have to say this, but cooking and cleaning really is work that, you know, has to be done, notice I’m not specifying any particular standard but, hey, it really is a fact of life. It’s not like you can opt out of eating (for very long at least), so show some respect for whoever did the cooking. Also, hello again, if we want men to do their part in heterosexual partnership maybe we should quit disparaging the whole business?
So irritating, really. And here’s the hurtful thing: it’s not one person every now and then who tosses out this kind of diminishment: it’s a subtle but seemingly endless drumbeat – by loads of those with (male) privilege, sure, but including, sadly, should-be-savvier feminists whom I otherwise love and respect in every way. So: thanks for that. Heck, we haven’t had a breather from “Women’s work is lesser work” since the 20th century at least*, so why should feminists give us one? (Seriously! I can’t stop with the sarcasm! And yes, I know this indicates a deficiency of me as a writer!).
I hate the de-statusing (NOT A REAL WORD) of any job or vocation – period. I remember as a child hearing jokes about janitors and how crummy and menial and kind of creepy/sketchy they were. You probably don’t remember janitor jokes because: your dad wasn’t a janitor! Ta-da! At the time it was confusing because I knew my father was a hard worker who chose jobs he respected and did well at them. The diminishment of his profession and personhood didn’t match with the man I knew. Now I’m wishing I would have loudly stopped the Haters in their tracks: “Shut up. My father is a janitor. Polish the floors yourself if you think he’s so unnecessary.”
I can’t go back and defend my father post-humorously to a handful of elementary-school children, but I can sound my horn in defense of my work today. I’m proud of my work. It has value. My work is caring for other people – not just the ones I partnered with and gave birth to but also the neighborhood children, the working mother and father whose kids need a sleepover, the friend who’s sick, the husband who’s “real” work means he can’t get away for personal errands during the day, the cancer patient who is cheered by my loaf of homebaked bread. These are all real examples from my last week.
Thich Nhat Hanh – who’s been on my mind and in my blog lately – has written a couple dozen amazing books. If I may be permitted (and yes I may), I’d like to relate a deeply meaningful passage from my book Anger: Wisdom For Cooling the Flames (warning: be careful not to get reader’s whiplash in the difference between Thich Nhat Hanh’s literary tone and my own):
About fifteen years ago, an American Buddhist scholar visited me while I was in the United States. She said, “Dear teacher, you write such beautiful poems. You spend a lot of time growing lettuce and doing things like that. Why don’t you use your time to write more poetry?” She had read somewhere that I enjoy growing vegetables, taking care of cucumber and lettuce. She was thinking pragmatically and suggested that I should not waste my time working in the garden but should use it to write poems.
I replied, “My dear friend, if I did not grow lettuce, I could not write the poems I write.” This is the truth. If you don’t live in concentration, in mindfulness, if you don’t live every moment of your daily life deeply, then you cannot write. You can’t produce anything valuable to offer to others.
A poem is a flower you offer to people. A compassionate look, a smile, an act filled with loving-kindess is also a flower that blooms on the tree of mindfulness and concentration. Even though you don’t think about the poem while cooking lunch for your family, the poem is being written. When I write a short story, a novel, or a play, it maky take one week or several weeks to vinish. But the story or the novel is always there. In the same way, although you are not thinking about the letter you will write to your beloved one, the letter is being written, deep down in your concsiousness.
You cannot just sit there and write the story or the novel. You have to do other things as well. You drink tea, cook breakfast, wash your clothes, water the vegetables. The time spent doing these things is extremely important. You have to do them well. You have to put one hundred percent of yourself in to the act of cooking, watering the vegetable garden, of dish washing. You just enjoy whatever you are doing, and you do it deeply. This is very important for your story, your letter, or anything else you want to produce.
Enlightenment is not separate from washing dishes or growing lettuce. To learn how to live each moment of our daily life in deep mindfulness and concentration is the practice. The conception and unfolding of a piece of art take place exactly in these moments of our daily life. The time when you begin to write down the music or the poems is only the time of delivering the baby. The baby has to be in you already in order for you to deliver it. But if the baby is not in you, even if you sit for hours and hours at your desk, there’s nothing to deliver, and you cannot produce anything. Your insight, your compassion, and your ability to write in a way that will move the other person’s heart are flowers that bloom on the tree of your practice. We should make good use of every moment of our daily life in order to allow this insight and compassion to bloom.
Thich Nhat Hanh is eighty-four years old this year. He has never partnered with a woman nor had his own children to care for, yet he sees as deeply into our common lives as anyone could. His words ring of truth and are like clear, cool water after the ugly thoughts that swirl in my head and the passions that grip my heart when I see my life’s work so repeatedly devalued.
And this passage – the truths this teacher relates here – are in large part why, even though living in a world that so often devalues women’s work, I don’t consider cleaning, or chopping carrots or searing garlic, or putting a bandaid on the knee of my child a worthless enterprise. Even if some of the men and women I want to stand with and fight alongside, do.
Mentioned:
“Little Girls Wear Whisks” at Sociological Images