On Saturday, the NY Times ran an unquestioningly sexist little article about career women who long for wives. No, sadly, the article is not about lesbians in the workforce. It’s about straight married women who want someone to take care of all the housework. And apparently “housework” still automatically denotes “wife.” Need someone to pick up after you and to take care of the kids? It seems that “man,” “husband,” and “maid” still aren’t in the lexicon of possibilities.
Now that women have solidly earned their place in the work force, many find themselves still yearning for something men often have: wives.
“The thing I most want in life is a wife. I’m not kidding,” said Joyce Lustbader, a research scientist at Columbia University, who has been married for 29 years. “I work all day, sometimes seven days a week, and still have to go home and make dinner and have all those things to do around the house.”
It is not just the extra shift at home that is a common complaint. Working women, whether married or single, also see their lack of devoted spousal support as an impediment to getting ahead in their careers, especially when they are competing against men who have wives behind them, whether those wives are working or staying at home. And research supports their argument: it appears that marriage, at least marriage with children, bolsters a man’s career but hinders a woman’s.
One specialist in women’s studies dismissed wife envy as something women “are usually joking about” and another called it “a need for a second set of hands, regardless of gender.” But therapists who work with couples on equality issues say it is no joke.
“I hear it all the time,” said Robin Stern, a psychotherapist in Manhattan and author of “The Gaslight Effect.” “It’s a real concern. Things that used to be routinely taken care of during the week are not anymore.”
God. If this is what we still think that the title “wife” means in our culture, I hope that someone is planning on revoking my claim to it.
You know, what this article should have been about– and to some extent, is about– is the cultural inequity between marriage partners. But the article doesn’t even begin to question why that inequality exists. And though it discusses how married women still do significantly more housework than married men– something that was just proven again in a recent study– it doesn’t call for husbands to get up off their asses. It doesn’t say that women want husbands who pitch in more with the housework and child care. In fact, the women they quote don’t express that they want that, either. It seems that their experiences don’t even allow them the opportunity to imagine it as an option. Apparently, if you want a spouse to help you out and make your life better and more fair, in our society, you just have to look for a wife.
Have women just given up? What exactly are we looking at, here? An ironic joke on the part of tired women, who recognize that even though they have careers, they are still expected to play the role of domestic slave? Or a genuine admiration for their male coworkers who don’t have a “second shift” to take care of, and a social conditioning so strong that they don’t see other possibilities? If women are waking up to the unfairness of “wifely duties,” why are they perpetuating the sexist system instead of questioning it? What about the piece itself? Is the straight female desire for a “wife” anecdotal fluff or genuine phenomena? What the hell does this say for our chances at progress in the area of gendered inequities?
And am I the only married woman (or hey, just woman) out there who is really offended, and feels like telling the Times to go shove it up their ass?
{ 17 comments }
The impression I got from just this excerpt you’ve included here is that this phenomenon isn’t only about someone to help with the housework… The article mentions a “lack of devoted spousal support,” and I’m a little offended (even though I’m not legally married) that the only thing mentioned in your response is housework!
Entering into a legal husband/wife relationship is still about a Relationship between people who are supposed to love and Emotionally support each other. Reading this excerpt, what I felt the women were getting at, (and why they verbalized it as Wife instead of Maid): they’re not getting the emotional support and encouragement for their careers either.
The movie Mona Lisa Smile comes to mind, the scene where they’re having “wife” classes. The instructor poses a challenge scenario, in which the husband springs last minute dinner guests on his dutiful wife: The Boss & His Wife. Here she’s supposed to throw something together fabulous and gracefully act as his cheerleader…
The Man comes home from a Long Day At The Office and needs a foot rub and to be told he’s a great provider, by his Wife. I think that’s what these women feel they are lacking, the cheerleader aspect of spousal support. They want someone to reassure them that they are competent in the workplace and stroke their ego a bit, because their work matters, they matter. I mean, just because our Donna Reed sisters were wives and homemakers, they did do more than vacuum!
(btw, I’m new to your blog and just love it! I found you on Feministing)
Hey! Just came across your blog via feministing. This post was great & I like what you have going here. I’ll be adding you to my blogroll. :)
Thanks to both of you!
Lisa, you are correct that the article also talks about “spousal support.” Of course, I think that spousal support includes a hell of a lot more than housework– but the article seems to directly link the two. Maybe you’re right that “support” is more what these women need and what they mean when they say that they want a wife, but what they’re saying is that they need more help around the house. There’s an example in the above quoted text.“The thing I most want in life is a wife . . . I work all day, sometimes seven days a week, and still have to go home and make dinner and have all those things to do around the house.”
Cara, you’re right, Lustbader mentions dinner and chores and the article does seem to miss any other Wifely contribution.
It’s so sad to me that these women choose the word Wife, which has an emotional connotation (versus Maid), yet are unable to verbalize their emotional yearning.
I find this so fascinating – I try to snap up and read as many books/articles as I can on this whole ‘wife mystique’ thing. I didn’t get from the article that the women were talking about much more than help around the house – one specifically says she has a good marriage, and obviously talks about these issues with her husband (suggesting that he’s emotionally present at least).
On the second article, I have a sincerely difficult time understanding how couples who carve out an egalitarian household prior to marriage while they’re living together fall into old stereotypical gendered relationships after the party – but every book/article/anecdotal relationships via my married friends have played out in this way. We need to change what it means to be a ‘wife’ I think – and apparently also what it means to be a ‘mommy’ as evidence by the husband from the first article articulating what he wanted in the house (creepy, by the way).
Great work on Feministing last week Cara, I hadn’t read your blog before but have always enjoyed your comments over there!
I, too, have followed you here from Feministing! I loved the work you did there, and I really like what I’ve seen so far here.
More to the point, I’m terrified of what cherylp was talking about. You have a great partnership that is equal before marriage, and then after vows, BOOM! You’re Donna fricking Reed. I worry about this a lot, especially since my boyfriend has recently decided that he might like to have children. We’ve had looong discussions about how if I have a four day work week, he also has a four day work week. For every toilet I clean, he’s cleaning one, etc., and he seems totally on board and enthusiastic about really pulling his weight, but I still wonder if that’s how it will really play out.
Will I end up being the one responsible for most of the cooking, cleaning, childcare, and half of our income??
I’ve nipped over from Feministing and love what you’ve written so far! I have to admit that I’m probably one of the few and awfully lucky women who has a husband who doesn’t mind watching our son when he gets done with work, helping out with laundry/dishes and cooking. A friend of ours recently commented that I seem to “dump” our son on my husband an awful lot. Excuse me? Then again, our friend is very old fashioned and has joked that my “feminist ways” are rubbing off on his fiance.
I can see where they would desire help for housework, but I don’t think it’s right to say “I want a wife to do the housework.” I grew up in a family where my dad did a majority of the housework and cooking. And I too from the quoted text think that they want that “cheerleader”. I know that when I come home from work kind of cranky, I like to hear my hubby going “You can do it, just relax.”
kissmypineapple–
I know this is getting to be a bit of a digression, but since becoming a mother 2 years ago I’ve learned a lot about what happens to egalitarian relationships. My partner and I have an egalitarian relationship once again, but we had to struggle to get it back. Why? Because– as we’re all urged (to put it mildly) to do, I breastfed our son. On demand. Every 2 hrs for 9 months, pretty much. He took a bottle for a little while in there, then stopped. You don’t think feeding is a big deal till you do it. But it takes over your whole damn life, esp. with the sleep deprivation. It’s incredibly hard to maintain equal parenting and breastfeeding, and NOBODY tells you this in those breastfeeding classes and books. And then, there you are. In a routine. And half-dead with sleep deprivation. And your partner has had weeks or months of having every session with the baby end in desperate wailing due to his lack of breasts. Great for his confidence. Guess who’s become the primary parent? As I said, it is possible to overcome it but you have to be really aware and willing to fight it. Sorry for the rant!
You know what is missing from this conversation? The fact that women WANT to take care of their families. The whole (middle-class) feminist debate carefully ignores this and working class women find themselves confused, especially when they have children, when they don’t actually want to work a 12 hour day and leave their kids at the childminders all the time. Let’s face it – if that was what women really wanted then that is what we would do – instead our natural caring selves take over – and then we are made to feel guilty for this by middle-class feminists who regularly employ nannies, cleaners – any number of (other women) to allow them to work all the hours they can.
Well this woman was sold a crock of shit – in 1989 when I had my son, i thought I could have it all – I was a single parent earning reasonable money, but God almighty I was knackered. And not only that, I missed my son, who subsequently entered a drug fuelled, truancy, getting into trouble with the police phase between 14-17 years of age – and why? Because I was at fucking work. During that phase I didn’t give a shit about my job and I cried night after night because my son was so unhappy. And that was all that mattered. It is about time we recognised that we are different from men – not inferior – but different. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can fight the battle from the right place – the place where we can be women first and workers 2nd.
Matari, thank you for sharing our experience. I’m sorry that things went that way for you.
I do have say that I resent your assertion that women are “different” from men, though. Just as many women (like yourself) do want to stay home and be full-time mothers, many others do want to work. This isn’t a question of men and women being different, it’s a question of women being different. Why do we instantly accept that men can have a job and still be good parents, and yet question it when it comes to women?
Also, to be clear, this post had absolutely nothing to do with putting down women who stay at home.
Agreed, Cara. Also many men would probably like to stay at home with their kids too, but can’t because of gendered expectations. I read an article this morning that addresses this issue via a working mom with a husband who stays home. It’s not easy from either side (the woman in the article feels what it must have been like for her own father, and also falls into a few ‘male’ gender stereotypes herself, wondering ‘what her husband does all day’, and needing a drink to calm her nerves after the stress of a day at her job). Enjoy!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070814.wlexcerpt14/BNStory/lifeMain/?pageRequested=1
I wonder if Cheryl would recommend a good book about wives? Because I hated Wifework, but I’m still interested in the topic and would like to read a more palatable book about it.
Kissmypineapple, it doesn’t always work out in the Donna Reed way. I think it depends on both people — both have to seriously want an egalitarian relationship. I’ve seen men try to turn their wives into Donna Reed and end up in divorce court, but I’ve also seen women who won’t let the man near the baby and get irritable about his incompetence when he hasn’t had a chance to become competent. I think if the man and woman are both feminists, and are committed to their values, it’ll be ok.
Hi Dew… Wifework is next on my list of reads – any comments about what you didn’t like about it? Regardless, there’s not too much out there in the way of books that look specifically at this issue that I’ve found. I got into this topic because I wish to remain marriage-free and wanted to connect with others who felt similarly (which I did at this website – I provide the link where they list a bunch of recommended books where I got started: http://www.unmarried.org/marriagefree.php#books
So yeah, a lot of these issues are tied up in a kind of anti-wedding stuff that you might not be as interested in. One book I quite liked is called “Earning more and getting less: Why successful wives can’t buy equality” by Veronica Jaris Tichenor. It’s based on her PhD work I think, and it is a qualitative study (so it doesn’t have a lot of statistics and the like) – but is still a really interesting window into real people’s lives – most of whom have not been successful at dividing home-based work.
The first book I actually read on this topic is called “The Meaning of Wife” by Anne Kingston, which was a great read and is what spurred a lot of my interest in the social connotations of ‘wifehood’.
Another book that I like is by Jaclyn Gellar – I think most people have heard of it, but just in case, it’s called “Here comes the bride: anatomy of the comtemporary wedding”. It has a scathing anti-marriage tone to it, but has a lot of interesting information mixed in about the extra work taken on by women when they get married.
Anyway, others may have more recommendations to add. If they do, I’d be interested to hear too!
Dew has several extensive posts about Wifework on her blog, cherylp!
Thanks for the reassurance, and the book recommendations. I just finished reading “From the Hips,” and am about to start “The Price of Motherhood” by Ann Crittenden. Several of my friends are getting married, and a few have begun to have children, so this is on my mind pretty heavily.
Oops, thanks Cara. Will check it out!
Comments on this entry are closed.