Last week, the New York Times published an article titled "The Femivore's Dilemma," combining two of my favorite topics: food and feminism.
The writer, Peggy Orenstein, argues that there is a new branch of feminism sprouting from our nations growing obsession with local and organic food. Femivore's are women who have focused their energies on growing and providing organic, healthy and flavorful food for their families. They've gone past just maintaining a small vegetable garden. They now jar their own jams and buy chickens to provide them with eggs.
Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?
Then there's the economic argument for women going to the coop instead of the boardroom:
Conventional feminist wisdom held that two incomes were necessary to provide a family’s basic needs — not to mention to guard against job loss, catastrophic illness, divorce or the death of a spouse. Femivores suggest that knowing how to feed and clothe yourself regardless of circumstance, to turn paucity into plenty, is an equal — possibly greater — safety net. After all, who is better equipped to weather this economy, the high-earning woman who loses her job or the frugal homemaker who can count her chickens?
I can understand a parents need to explore avenues where their children can get the best possible nourishment, and I think people deciding to grow their own food, if they can, is great. I also really like the idea that feminism can mean a lot of different things, and that it can be expressed different ways.
However.
My worry here is that encouraging women to go back to the land is just another way to keep them from heading to the boardroom. And of course, it's not every woman's desire to be a CEO or chief legal council, but the business and academic world will never be made more female friendly if more and more women flee it. This, then, brings up how much each woman is responsible for furthering opportunities for other women. If a woman quits a high paying job to start growing tomatoes and canning pickles, does it become a detriment for all women trying to make their way up the corporate ladder?
It's possible I may be getting ahead of myself here, in regards to this piece. The NYT declaring Femivores a new trend might be like the way they declared the "opt out revolution" a trend years ago: it focuses on a small group of upper class women. Because the ability to not have to work is a luxury in and of itself, and really is only an option for Americans whose spouse makes a lot of money.
In any case, it's an interesting read, and writer and self-declared femivore Jessica Knadler writes about her difficulties combing feminism and farming in this post at her blog, Rurally Screwed:
The irony is that while there’s no question I’m more resourceful and frugal and self-sufficient in my new life, I actually fell like less of a feminist than ever.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Number one, DIY living, as far as I’ve experienced it, is still pretty much a man’s game. Much of the local economy revolves around construction and, to a lesser degree, farming, whereas satisfying, reasonably well-paying jobs for women are few and far between. So a lot of my peers end up staying home to raise the kids. For some, this is a wonderful opportunity. For others, I get the feeling it’s for lack of anything better to do. The result is that a masculine blue collar ethos holds sway. I’ve been to more than a few dinner parties where the men end up dominating the conversation discussing chain saws and diesel engines while the wives try to get a word in edgewise (or maybe that’s just me?), or else drift off to the kitchen to hang out with the children. Maybe there’s similar segregation at Brooklyn dinner parties, I don’t know – I left NYC before my peers started having kids — but I always find myself thinking, how very The Waltons. And not in a groovy, DIY homesteading kind of way but in a weird, retro 1950s kind of way.
It seems that even when women flee to the coop, the roosters are still in charge.
4 comments:
The Rurally Screwed post was very interesting.
When I read Orenstein's piece on Sunday, I rolled my eyes--it perfectly exemplified, especially the first paragraph you quoted, what comes across at the NYT's elitism. Orenstein even mentions that she lives in Berkeley, where this trend has hit its apotheosis. Living on the land has certainly become trendy, but it's not enveloping huge numbers of people because it's economically unfeasible for many and plain unappealing to others. I understand the argument made, and if I was in this situation, I'd feel similar--retreating to the kitchen to pickle cucumbers, because I like food and not manure.
It seems to me that every decision has a tradeoff, and that living an idealized feminist life is folly. Living in such a secluded area means that women have to find their own outlets so they aren't crowded out by the "masculine blue-collar ethos". But it's also to keep in mind something one of the commenters on her blog said: that a woman like Jessie Knadler had choices, is educated, and can earn money on her own (and does so to a degree). She also has a partnership with her husband, one that generally works well, and that farming is a partnership way of life.
My worry here is that encouraging women to go back to the land is just another way to keep them from heading to the boardroom. And of course, it's not every woman's desire to be a CEO or chief legal council, but the business and academic world will never be made more female friendly if more and more women flee it. This, then, brings up how much each woman is responsible for furthering opportunities for other women. If a woman quits a high paying job to start growing tomatoes and canning pickles, does it become a detriment for all women trying to make their way up the corporate ladder?
Isn't this one of the fundamental tensions between Second Wavers and Third Wavers?
It seems to me that feminism can't have it both ways. Either individual women should have genuine freedom of choice or individual women should feel some sort of pressure to advance the women's movement.
I often read contemporary feminists trying to side-step this conundrum by insisting that women, if given true freedom of choice, would elect to pursue a career path similar to men. But this is begging the question. We don't know what choices women will make in the aggregate, and it's not necessarily clear whether those choices will parallel men's choices.
During the Democratic primary, I remember you wrote an excellent post which discussed this generational tension, and you seemed to come out in favor of choice. This is how you justified your opposition to Hillary Clinton on feminist grounds.
I'm certainly not trying to play "gotcha," but I'd really like to know how you reconcile these two positions.
Great post, Emily.
I admit to being intrigued by the Femivore Movement, though this is the first I've ever heard of it. The Back to the Land! type movements tend to spark my imagination more than Storming the Boardroom! type movements do; but that may be because I'm truly more of a boardroom type person than not.
And, aside from agreeing with MM (and I do), your last line really sums it up for me:
It seems that even when women flee to the coop, the roosters are still in charge.
Femivores may be doing all the things they say: feeding their families well, reducing their carbon footprint, exc. But if women then still end up subservient to men, or have their voices drowned out by men's at places like dinner parties, then really, what has it done? It may make an individual woman happy to go and have a home garden and it may give a sense of accomplishment, but it does little to reinforce the notion that she is an equal player within her society and within her relationships. That's really my problem with these types of movements, and yet why they're so inviting. There's the rugged individualism of them, but that then separates you from the ability to start changing the structure.
Plus,
After all, who is better equipped to weather this economy, the high-earning woman who loses her job or the frugal homemaker who can count her chickens?
I'm still going to go with the high-earning woman. My aunt, a high earning woman, is worried about losing her job. At her salary, combined with how high up the corporate ladder she is and how long she's worked there, gives her a good benefits package if/when the economy's effects get to her. Same with my mother, though to a lesser extent. The frugal homemaker? Has chickens, but may not have enough money to supplement that frugalness with necessities like running water.
It seems to me that feminism can't have it both ways. Either individual women should have genuine freedom of choice or individual women should feel some sort of pressure to advance the women's movement.
It seems to me that many feminists are more concerned with Em's last line - how to foster equality among men and women, no matter which sphere women decide to inhabit. Without respect granted in either realm, women are still at a profound disadvantage.
Mikhailbakunin-
It seems to me that many feminists are more concerned with Em's last line - how to foster equality among men and women, no matter which sphere women decide to inhabit. Without respect granted in either realm, women are still at a profound disadvantage.
Yes, of course. But to further answer your question:
You're right that those are the fundamental tensions between Second and Third Wavers, and both points hold merit. I can see the viewpoint that we all need to stick together in order to acheive a common goal, but I also understand not everyone wanting that goal, and preferring to do what they choose.
In the end, though, I do still come out in favor of choice, and my paragraph above was more musing than anything, because the responsibility part is definitely something that I struggle with. When I ask "If a woman quits a high paying job to start growing tomatoes and canning pickles, does it become a detriment for all women trying to make their way up the corporate ladder?" I'm genuinely asking that question. I think that women would have an easier time climbing the ladder as more women climb it before them, creating policies that are more woman/family friendly. On this front, I sometimes think that no one else is going to help us besides other women who are fighting this fight.
The word choice, though, gets tricky because women sometimes don't have much of a choice. With the exorbitant cost of day care and the pressure on women to make sure their kids turn out alright, how free are they to make the choice to raise a family and have a career, if that's what they want? And with the high cost of living in some cities, some families need two parents working just to get by. With true freedom of choice, who knows what we all would pick. Would men still choose to work? If "Mr. Mom" jokes didn't abound, maybe they would rather stay home instead. The word choice has also come back to bite women. If a working mom is up to her eyeballs in stress, childcare, housework and elder care, well, it was her choice, right?
With these "choices", we will never all come to a common ground. But without choices, however, we would be assigning a role to women that they might not all want- which is just how it used to be BEFORE feminism, although those roles were assigned within the household instead of in the boardroom. Restraining all women to one role is still wrong, in my eyes, and would still backtrack on most of what the movement has accomplished. So, for the record, I'm still for getting women the most access to choices- genuine freedom of choice- as possible. But we're still far from that goal, too.
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