“ The Political of Housework” by Pat Mainardi starts off with talking about the main differences between liberated women and women’s liberation. He tells us that a liberated woman is someone who has a career but takes part in a lot of sex, someone who isn’t your typical housewife. As for women’s liberation, they would fall under the more typical housewife who goes out to buy the groceries, cooks, and cleans the house. As for the man he is the one in charge, he is the one who is served and taken care of, nothing else. The main focus though is the oppression that women go through when being housewives. Not much help is offered and when it is offered some sort of excuse is made so they only do the bare minimum. For example “I don’t mind sharing the housework, but I don’t do it very well”. Mainardi gives us multiple examples of how men offer to help and the reasons they give in order to do as little as possible. Men can’t work they are strong and usually larger than women but when it comes to doing something as little as washing dishes, the idea of doing a small task 7 days a week just seems too much for them. We then continue the ready learning just how much oppression comes with women’s liberation. Oppression is built into the system and men receive all the benefits while women are left doing work. This reading taught me just how imbalanced gender roles are even when it comes to things such as cleaning and cooking, things that I would find normal because that’s what it has been made out to be over time.

In the article “The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi. It is argued about the idea that men have generation by generation that women should be submissive, calm, she should obey her husband and they should take care of domestic work in the house. This is because a stereotype was created that women are the weaker sex and men are the ones who have to be in control of everything, but that is not true, everything can be 50/50 between both sexes. Mainardi argues how the woman is the one who gets the idea that she should stay at home and the man goes out to work hard. My opinion is that everything should be mutual, just as the man can work himself, the woman can work and divide her responsibilities, because it is a union of living together, not of having a burden

reading reflection 8

The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi focuses on gender roles and how housework relates to them. Though women do not complain about the power of husbands, each complaint about her own husband, or the husbands of her friends. It is the same in all other cases of servitude; at least in the commencement of the emancipatory movement. The serfs did not at first complain of the power of the lords, but only of their tyranny. Liberated women-very is different from Women’s Liberation! The first signals all kinds of goodies, to warm the hearts (not to mention other parts) of the most radical men. The other signals-HOUSEWORK. The first brings sex without marriage, sex before marriage, cozy housekeeping arrangements (“I’m living with this chick”), and the self-content of knowing that you’re not the kind of man who wants a doormat instead of a woman. That will come later. After all, who wants that old commodity anymore, the Standard American Housewife, all husband, home, and kids? The New Commodity; the Liberated Woman, has sex a lot and has a Career, preferably something that can be fitted in with the household chores-like dancing, pottery, or painting. On the other hand, is Women’s Liberation and housework. What? Do you say this is all trivial? Wonderful! That’s what I thought. It seemed perfectly reasonable. We both had careers, both had to work a couple of days a week to earn enough to live on, so why shouldn’t we share the housework? So I suggested it to my mate and he agreed-most men are too hip to turn you down flat. You’re right, he said. It’s only fair. Then an interesting thing happened. I can only explain it by stating that we women have been brainwashed more than even we can imagine, Probably too many years of seeing television women in ecstasy over their shiny waxed floors or breaking down over their dirty shirt collars. Men have no such conditioning. They recognize the essential fact of housework right from the very beginning. Which is that it stinks.

“The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi focuses on gender roles and how housework relates to it. This week we discusses how “the personal is political” and this reading is a great example of this concept. Women being expected to be responsible for housework is a personal issue rooted in political issues. As a result of the patriarchy and gender roles, housework has become a feminine task seen to be something that should be done by women. Mainardi talks about women being under the power of men, whether it’s a father or husband, and in a role of servitude. Society has conditioned women to be a supporter and servant, to be dependent on men a living to please them. Mainardi expresses how women were almost brainwashed to find contentment in doing housework and other duties associated with their role as a women. Politics contributed to this brainwash, creating a hierarchal society that puts women down. Making liberation seem unachievable or unappealing for most women because of the power men have over them. “The Politics of Housework” showed how intertwined personal issues, especially for women, are with political issues. Most people wouldn’t relate housework being something expected to be done solely by women to politics. This reading really opened my eyes to how much gender roles are instilled in us and our society.

In “The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi, the idea that some men believe housework is a job for women is the main example spoken about , this also has a lot to do with the thought of women’s Liberation & what a liberated woman is. Housework shouldnt be seen that way throughout history. The author talks about how women have been portrayed doing house work and the man coming back home from a hard day of work chilling. I agree that I’ve seen plenty of scenes in a movie, show or cartoon where a woman is the maid or doing housework. Why couldn’t it be a man or both because of sexism? I think so. In reality in my life at least …Women do the majority of the chores in the household. The man becomes irritated or feels like it isn’t right when he has to. This introduces the thought of what Liberated Women is and What women’s liberation is. What I learned from the article: A liberated woman knows her worth enough  to  not live under sexist expectations, that society built from patriarchy. Women’s Liberation is The freedom of women from sexism. In The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm by Anne Koedt Myths and Facts were spoken about. Giving people who don’t have a good understanding of vaginal orgasms a better understanding. It didn’t only speak about organisms it also spoke about some myths/ facts functions or similarities of the clitoris and penis. In general I liked this weeks reading.

Mainardi and Koedt touch on very important aspects of the oppression of women, specifically their sexualities, that was rampant in the 1970s. Mainardi says that it is hard for anyone to acknowledge, accept and change how they participate in the oppression of others, especially in the subconscious actions of daily life. I think about this idea a lot; it’s present in all forms of oppression. Many people are resistant to admitting their privilege and choose to stay in their “ignorant bliss.” I see this as cognitive dissonance as they often do know that there IS a problem, but don’t want to talk about it and admit to it. Since it isn’t affecting them, they can put it off to the abstract and hypothetical. One of my favorite lines from Mainardi was “The measure of your oppression is in his resistance.”, also that “that his rationalization is little different from that of the racist who says, “Black people don’ t feel pain’ (women don’t mind doing the shitwork)”
Koedt talks about the myth of the vaginal orgasm from the 1970s which is still relevant and true in today’s society. We have a lack of sexual education in this country, so the main belief that sex is for the man’s pleasure only remains at large. Some women continue to accept this belief because they don’t know otherwise. Also, some of the talk about genital surgery regarding the clitoris is similar to trans-affirming surgery today, showing that these procedures have been around for decades.

In “The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi, the issue that many men believe housework is a job for women is the center of attention. Housework being seen as equal work for everyone is crucial for women’s liberation. Throughout the piece, she uses statements from her own husband and then translates what his words really mean, as they are spoken in a way that is the opposite of supporting equal women’s rights. I can’t really tell if her husband is saying these things unconsciously because society has taught him these things his entire life, or if he’s aware that he is basically implying his wife doesn’t deserve equal rights in their marriage but doesn’t care because he believes he is superior. Her piece aims to vocalize the ways women can become liberated by changing the meaning of housework in their homes. In The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm by Anne Koedt, her purpose was to raise awareness of female sexual pleasure and the ways that men have quite literally made up false ideas, all for their benefit, and they didn’t think there was a single thing wrong with doing so. Her piece is very educational and also a bit heartbreaking. Some women went seeking for a cure to a problem that didn’t exist. These women were forced onto an endless journey of self-hatred and were fooled into a new insecurity. The men in their lives and society overall are to blame.

I grew up in a traditional family but I always very care about my personal right since I was a kid. If my little sister grabbed my toys without asking that is not about I don’t want to share, that is about she didn’t ask for my permission when she tried to touch my personal property. I guess I watched too much lawyers TV shows at that time.

But as a girl growing in a traditional town with this mindset helps a lot. You know your rights, your personal property and you want to protect your right. It is good to have this kinda sense since you were a girl. Because while your family would tell you what to do can help you to get married or while other people worry about they wont getting married at certain points in their lives, what I care about is-if the marriage law protect my right? if the marriage law in my country doesn’t protect my right, then marriage won’t be benefiting for me, why would I get married?

Same thoughts as the pieces we read this week, if more than one person living in this house, why would only one person responsible for the household? Especially we know how much to hire a cleaner per hour or a nanny per hour, why would being a family member make our work becomes free just because of love? And if it is about love why would these housework makes my back hurt and why would my partner only say nice things to comfort me but it doesn’t decrease my back pain at all and what he can do is taking the laundry our instead of giving me a hug and saying things. And that’s the real deal there, if they avoid to help that means yes they also think that work is annoying or would hurt their backs too. And they rather your back hurts.

The Politics of Housework informed me that splitting household chores ‘evenly’ between hetereseoxual couples seems to have been a feud that has been going on for centuries and not just in my childhood home.

“There is a taboo that says women mustn’ t strain themselves in the presence of men-we haul around 50 pounds of groceries if we have to but aren’t allowed to open a jar if there is someone around to do it for us.” This specific quote made me think back to one of the previous articles that mentioned why men hold doors open for women. (I cannot recall the title at this time.) But it also made me realize why I’m so uncomfortable when men do things for me I didn’t ask for, especially strangers. I think I’m fine when my friends do it but when it’s a random stranger (and I get it’s meant to be polite chivalry blah blah) I feel like I owe them a thank you, like if I didn’t I would be considered rude automatically.

The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm was very informative to me also, but when I informed my mother of it she merely rolled her eyes at me and I was reminded that (most) old people don’t like to listen to ‘new information’ because ‘it wasn’t that way when I was young.’ I digress, but the fact that female anatomy has been so misunderstood by men for so long that even the most common sex position is one where the woman actually doesn’t gain pleasure really made me sit back and think. I didn’t even know that “the degree of insensitivity inside the vagina is so high that ‘Among the women who were tested in our gynecologic sample, less than 14% were at all conscious that they had been touched.” Or even when it went into greater detail about vaginas not needing anesthesia during surgery, that was scary almost.