Also, this isn't historically true; women were and are a historically significant part of the industrial labor force, and before that did a good share of agricultural work as well. Certainly industrial labor had gender divides, but it's not a strange fluke that, say, most of the people who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire were women.

Somewhen in the last two centruries, the general population seems to have internalized the view that making money = work, keeping a house functioning = not work. It's peculiar, if you think about it, given how big a multiplier the latter is to the former. I'm guessing this is one of the early case of society falling victim to metrics - making money is easy to quantify and compare, housekeeping isn't.

Feminism stigmatized keeping a house functioning. “Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” became a slur thrown at women who had the nerve to not serve a corporate master.

One of my rules is: society always over-corrects. I think it’s because bombast and mockery gets more attention than rational and balanced thought.

We went from “women can’t do what men do” or “women should never have careers because it’s bad for the family” to “any woman who stays home is letting herself down,” or is stupid, etc.

How about this: women who want careers can have them, women who don’t can stay home, and both are okay because people have the right to choose their course in life.

I’m not going to downvote because it’s true there are feminists (including second-wave feminists who fought the really tough political struggles) who have shared the view that working in the home / building a family has less value than that of earning a wage / building a career.

However, feminism is a (very) broad church and the majority of feminist that I’ve come across would argue for legislative and other societal barriers be removed so that a woman is free to choose between motherhood and career – or whatever balance works best for her own inclinations and circumstances.

"would argue for legislative and other societal barriers be removed so that a woman is free to choose between motherhood and career"

Empowering for men too. Patriarchy is harmful to everybody

> However, feminism is a (very) broad church

and yet, feminists will talk about feminism in overall positive terms without qualification. If it's a broad church, it can't be all positive.

They do, do they?

yes.. anything useful to add?

Very useful to tell feminists what they are doing.

We are useful by default.

They have to prove themselves

Hard to tell what you mean.

Talking about feminists then "We are useful", I might assume you are a feminist, but switching between 1st and 3rd person.

Or, you say "We are useful by default" as if from the other perspective (i.e. mine). If so, hard to tell if you are responding to me specifically, or some "HN crowd" generally; in either case, yes, feminists have to prove themselves, or specifically their ideology. And no, I haven't said anything about "useful by default", that's your strawman.

I think you're being sarcastic, in which case your whole post is just a bad-faith, low-effort dismissal. It'd be useful if you'd respond less cryptically.

It is important to explain carefully to feminists exactly what measure of feminism they can actually maintain as satisfactory.

Hmm, sorry, are you talking to me?

None of what you say follows from my post at all. Unless you think "responding cryptically" is a form of feminism.

It's required by emancipation. Men who didn't prove themselves are useless too. And not only through words, but deeds too.

I think you’re confusing the word “work” with “having a job”. No one, as far as I know, thinks that running a house isn’t work. But they also don’t think that it’s a job