The Flipside of Feminism

A Cottage Garden in Full View

by Val Norman

Feminist occasionally try to make a point about the use of modern inventions by homemakers: driving a car, using a computer, publishing books, having a home or cottage industry, earning money with personal talent such as art, crafts, etc., and so forth. Their claim is that without feminism, women would not be allowed to read, write, drive, or conduct business.

 I have always answered that the feminist movement was never needed. Their claim of being responsible for all these privileges is false.  These things were enjoyed by women long before the 20th century feminist movement.

 From a Biblical perspective, Christ freed women and made them "heirs together" in the grace of life. 1st Peter 3:7.  The only liberator women need is Christ, and they do not need liberation from their duties as guardians of the home. Discontent at home, feminists insist that women need not use their talents for the family, but should make their mark outside of the home.   This has done great harm to the home and the family, as it indoctrinates  young women not to desire the honor of being wives, mothers and homemakers.

The best way to make your mark outside the home is to do a good job inside the home. Good works from the home never go unnoticed and do create a reputation for the home.

In tiher book, "The Flip Side of Feminism" by Suzanne Venker and  Phyllis Schlafly, Phyllis addresses this same comment, stating that feminism never helped her succeed in anything.  You can view her speaking about it on a video here. It is also imbedded at the end of this post.

One thing I have not seen addressed much  is the constant mockery that prevails toward the homemaker, and especially the Biblical homemaker who desires to home school, make her own bread, grow a garden, sew clothes, and create a home life for their loved ones.  Those who promote feminism have to first break down the things that stand in their way, and this is seen in the amount of derision, deriding and despising that is aimed at this honorable and Biblically approved life. 

The concept  of  the pedestal has been scorned to such an extent that these days, no one dares to mention it in regard to the reputation men and women must uphold in their own spheres. One chapter in "The Flip Side of Feminism, titled "The Pedestal," states that women need to get off men's pedestal, and get back on their own.  Helen Andelin made this concept more widely known, when she wrote that the women needed to stay in their feminine role. She warned that sometimes people would try to shake her pedestal and want to bring them down to their level, away from her lofty position as wife, mother and guide of the home.

My own belief is that God gave women a wonderful way to live through His Word which teaches them to take charge of the home.  There is plenty to do at home for the young, even without children, and when they become older, they should be teaching others about the things they just finished doing. One stage of life prepares them for the next. Young women must learn to keep house, practice it and become good at it, and when they are older, show the younger women how to do it. The trials and errors of homemaking, child-rearing and marriage prepare women to be teachers of good things. Even a woman who has learned from her mistakes can be a good teacher, as she attempts to help the next generation to have good judgement.

In His wisdom and perfection, God created the most natural way of life for women. If this is the right way, why then, do women worry that it is not enough, that it will not work, that it will give them no rights, or that it will not be possible?  Why do women listen the world advising them to have "back-up-plans," or "something to fall back on"?  Does God's word need a back up plan?  Women need instead to back-up God's plan by putting it into practice.  Yes, in a sense, we need back-up plans, but they should be re-enforcements, not substitutes. When you want to keep the wind from blowing away your soil, you plant trees and shrubs around it. When you want to stay home, you find ways of doing it, and ways of proving that it works. I repeat: we need to back up the plan God already gave us in Titus 2, Ist Timothy 5:14 and others.

Proverbs 31 seems complicated and exhausting, but in the New Testament, the last will and testament of Christ, which is our spiritual authority today, the role of a woman is much simplified, and it is for her own peace. It gives about three main things for the woman in the church of Christ, to do: marriage, raising children and keeping house. This is reinforced in several different passages as guiding the home, guarding the home, training children, respecting the husband, and having a quiet and gentle spirit. One way to acquire that quiet and gentle spirit is to limit your activities to just the important ones that are given in the Bible: the care of the home and the guiding of the family.

 God knows the nature of women and the danger of being over loaded with the worries of this world, and wisely allows her to be a home, where she can choose how she will look after it, what talents she will pursue, and how her children will be trained. In order to retain the quiet and gentle spirit, a woman must not take on the role of a man.

Fully embracing and enjoying the role at home is not dependent on money, as feminists would make us believe. Read my comment about one of the gods of this age, the economy, which women submit to as an excuse to leave their homes and families and pursue wages, on The Thinking Housewife.

Widows

I've been asked several times by different people to address the subject of widows.






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My sources for information on widows come from two places: the references to widows in the Bible, and the memory of widows of the past.

Every woman should be able to imagine how she will manage in the role of a widow.Much of what happens to a widow begins earlier on in her life. Her life before widowhood is her spiritual insurance policy. How she copes as a widow has a lot to do with how she lived her life. A life of seriousness and dedication to duty in the home will be rewarded in widowhood. If she has raised good children who have an honoring spirit, she will be paid back for her efforts should she ever be a widow. If she has taught good things to younger women, she will reap rewards as a widow.

Young women need to really take seriously the role of wives, mothers and homemakers. If they spend their youth partying and getting into one relationship after another, putting their children in the care of others, and neglecting to be good house keepers and good homemakers, they will not find the comfort and honor they will need later in life, should they become widows.

For that reason, young women would do well to live their lives above the world, tending to matters at home, and really do all they can to make their houses real homes and their families really interested in serving others through hospitality, having a good knowledge of the scriptures, and wanting a Christian education. In the end, the movies and the parties and the shopping and the social life, even the BALLGAMES, ladies, will be meaningless. These sort of things do not "pay off" when one becomes a widow. Hospitality, teaching, working quietly at home, diligently training children in manners and respect, and making the home a home, will come back to bless you in your old age.

Although we seem many generations away from the last era that practiced any kind of widowhood etiquette, we can still find principles to follow in the case of widowhood.

Being a steady, faithful church member as a young woman, is important because as a widow, that sort of background will qualify you to teach others. Being a woman who maintains Biblical principles while you are young, is an investment for your old age. As a young person, you can study and practice things that will help you develop the character and the skills you need to become a woman worth looking up to when you are older. These can be things like:

-being on time and being a good steward of time.

-managing money well.

-managing a home, and being a good homemaker, including neatness, orderliness, cleanliness, cooking, sewing, caring for the sick in the home.

-looking after property, and keeping the house in good repair.

-finding ways to influence others.

Just from an over-all reading of the Bible, one can conclude that widows should behave in a dignified way, not being silly, not out in the bars drinking, not partying. In the Old Testament, widows sometimes went back to live with their parents until they found another husband. One reason for a young widow to remarry was to have help and guidance with any young children the couple had. Another was to keep the young woman safe with a protector and a provider, a husband, over her. Without marriage, she might take to wandering from house to house, talking about things which should not be talked about, and being idle.

This seems to be good advice for single women, even if they are not widows. Without a husband, house and children to care for, it is very tempting to be footloose and fancy free, using spare time for socializing and partying. If young girls learn to do this, the habit is not easily broken once they marry. They become discontent and restless and do not know how to occupy themselves as wives and homemakers. This is not to say they will be inside of a house every minute, as most of us certainly are not, but it shows that many women do not know about the millions of things that can be done as full-time homemakers.

Widows who are older, who have had long marriages, will be incredibly lonely after the loss of a lifetime mate. This can make them vulnerable and many have jumped into second marriages out of a feeling of loss and desperation. A portion of these have made very happy, lasting matches.

However, it is still important that the widow be very careful. If she has children and grandchildren who occupy her time, she may not benefit at all if she remarries. Remarriage means his children, her children, step this and step that, and a whole complication of relatives. Remarriage may involve problems of the family she marries into. If she remarries, her time will be occupied by her new relationship. If she is a grandmother, she may find her time even more divided. If she has a good relationship with her children, and they have reservations about her remarrying, she needs to consider this.

Another thing a widow needs to be careful about is relocation. Although friends and relatives may urge her to rid her house of all her husband's things and move to a smaller place, it is not always the right thing to do. If she has been happy there and if she loved her husband, and if it gives her security to have the familiarity of her own home and his things around her, why should she leave? Change is a trauma in itself. She has already lost a husband and is adjusting. Moving will create another adjustment problem. It is better if she stays put. I know one widow whose husband provided a house for them in their retirement. His plan was to have a place for her should she ever be a widow, and he had it made with ramps for easy access to the doors, and every convenience for her. After he died, her grown children talked her into selling it. It sold so fast she did not have time to find another place so she was talked into buying from a realtor a place much further away from the town, the children, and the church she was used to. The first night she was there alone, a robber entered the house, but she called the police and he was scared away. The distance she had to travel took its toll on her car. Eventually her children had to help her move to a small apartment in town where she could be checked on more easily.

Other widows I have observed who have stayed in their own houses, have lived much longer and in better health. They do suffer from missing their husbands, but it is not accompanied by the anxiety that packing up and moving around causes. There are exceptions, of course, and personalities are different. Some widows really need to move if the house is run-down and dangerous or if the children really want her badly to come and live with them, or if they are living a long way from relatives. Some widows feel they have stayed home enough in their lifetime and prefer to travel, but it is generally better not to cause too much upheaval in an already shocked and grieved woman.

One reason it is important for young women to develop some kind of thing that she can use as a service to others, whether it is hospitality, teaching sewing, crafts, or teaching younger women, is to give them practice. Then, when they are widows, they have their experience and talent to occupy them. They will have a driving purpose in life. They will be full of life and enthusiasm for the home and the family. They will be able to encourage younger women.

Woman as Guide of the Home

The Bible speaks specifically of a woman as the guide, or guard of the home. Many people misunderstand this to mean that the women have to do all the work at home, but this is not true. If it were so, she would be worn out before she even got started in the care of the home.


In being the guide of the home, she is like the Chief Information Officer. She may not put everything away, but she knows where it should go, and will assign the task to someone in the family. She may not wash the dishes all the time, but she knows how it is to be done, and will guide others into helping her.

She may not take out the trash, but she will inform others of the need of doing it. She may not answer the phone all the time, but her family knows she wants a record kept of them. She may not do all the cooking, but she has a general plan for the meals. She may know where every thing is, even if it has yet to be put away.

As CIO she always knows where people's shoes, phones, wallets and keys are, even if she does not take care of them or put them away, herself. She is the keeper and guide of the home, not the industrial worker, keeping a time card. She is there to find ways to make the home run smoothly and function at its best for the development of the family, not just as a janitor.



Members of the family should never get the idea that just because the woman is at home she should do all the work. That is not what she is there for. The work has to be done, it is true, and there are some things that only she can do. For example, I have a few rooms that I cannot employ anyone else to do because the items require my personal evaluation before putting them away or discarding them.



The homemaker's job is to guide the home and see that the things are accomplished so that the members of the family can function. It is not her job to pick up after everyone or wait hand and foot on everyone. Generally her energies should be reserved for those who are more helpless, such as babies and toddlers and those who are not well or physically able. The family is not there to be catered to constantly by the homemaker, but rather to aid her in fulfilling her noble purpose of guiding the home.


In helping her fulfill her role in guiding the home, it is important that the other members of the family, including husbands and sons, not create more burdens upon her. At work, they would would not be allowed to leave piles of personal posessions around in other people's work space, and so at home, their consciences should be stricken if they create more work for the keeper of the home. If they are not bed-ridden or severely handicapped, they can do something to aid her in her goal of guiding the home. They should be aware of her likes and dislikes. They should care about how she feels about the home.

Remember, that being a keeper of the home does not mean that she spoil everyone to the point that they become helpless, and create more distress for her and more messes around the house. Some homemakers can be stretched to the point that instead of enjoying their beautiful homes, they would rather be somewhere else, just because the members of the family are so inconsiderate that they expect her to do things that they physcially can do for themselves. They should not create unnecessary work for her.





Sometimes husbands and grown children get the idea that because they are out working somewhere else, bringing in a paycheck, that it constitutes a right to slack off and be pigs at home. In claiming to be completely relaxed, they drip food all over the house, leave their plates and cups wherever they last sat, and strew the newspaper all over the floor. They leave these messes just waiting for the homemaker to "do her job" and pick them all up. This is a completely ignorant misunderstanding of the work "guide" and "Keeper" of the home.

If a man wants to be the king-of-his-castle, he needs to help the keeper of the castle in her job, and not turn it into a slum. If a man wants to be proud of the home and the family and look at it as his own accomplishement as well as his wife's, he needs to be considerate. This does not mean he has to take his turn doing dishes. It does not mean he will be in charge of the laundry, the vacumming, the bed-making, or cleaning the toilet. It does not mean that the husband has to make his side of the bed when he gets up, or that he has to clean out his closet. What is means is that, in view of the fact that the women in the family will be doing the laundry, he doesn't make it more difficult for them by leaving his own laundry all over the place for them to hunt down and pick up. Bad habits such as leaving things out, will not be tolerated in the work place, so why should irresponsiblity reign so much at home? Asking everyone to be courteous of the homemaker does not mean the household will be ruled mechanically with an iron fist. It just means that the other members of the family love her enough to help her.

The working son or daughter who has spent the day away from home, knowing the burdens of washing the dishes, will be considerate and not use all the glasses in the shelf, and then, when it appears there are no more, go to the china cabinet and get out the better ones and use them all up. They will find innovative ways of diminishing the work load. The best way to be conscious of this, is to pretend they are a guest in someone else's house, or that they are in someone else's place of work.

For example, instead of getting out a drink and leaving the container on the surface in the kitchen, they will dispose of it themselves. Maybe they will scrape their own plate instead of leaving it all for the one who is cleaning up the dishes. Maybe they will put away the peanut butter jar instead of leaving it out after they have made a sandwich. They will rinse the sink after using it in the bathroom, so as not to disgust others who happen by afterwards, and not to spread bacteria. They will toss out their paper cup after brushing their teeth, rather than leaving it out. They will be conscious of the burden they are creating for the keeper of the home.

I married a man who for some reason liked to have a pen in every room, and a pen on every shelf, every surface, every table, every where. I could not figure this out for awhile, because I owned one pen, and I always knew where it was. I was from a large, poor family, and we did not have a lot of things. I had a pen that had a little lever on it that allowed it to drink up ink from a bottle. It was kept in a top drawer of a desk and it was never lent out. In those days (time changes so rapidly, "those days" were not so long ago), pens were personal because the way an owner wrote with them could wear down the nib in a distinctive way. Others would not be able to write as well with them.

My husband was from a family of only two children, and I was from a family of 9 people. Therefore when they got a package of pens, it mean they could all have several of them. He put them all over the house so he would not have to look for one when he needed it, and that is why I kept finding pens all over the house. Add to this the papers that usually went with them, the wooden toothpicks, the tie tacks, his favorite mints in cellophane, the mail, and a dozen other little "things," and my housekeeping was driving me crazy.

I finally put it all in a big sturdy basket and showed him where it was. From now on, everything would go in a wood box or that big brown basket. As I mentioned before, he only wanted me to be happy and would have been very sorrowful if he knew I was distressed about anything, so he happily complied to this. He now knows where to go to find his pens. I still have my one pen in the desk. (I think part of the problem was that there was a time you could only buy one pen, and it was quite costly. Now, you can buy them cheaper by the dozen in huge cellophane bags and they end up all over the house.)

Another thing I did was to show him the list of things I had to do: the ironing, the washing, shampooing the carpet, sorting the laundry, making beds, etc. I also showed him some of my favorite books of houses and house plans and interiors, and told him what I was trying to achieve, and how my mind rested so much better without too much clutter. In these pictures you rarely see a stinky old pair of tennis shoes and dirty socks in the middle of a room for someone to trip over.

While out on a shopping trip, we ducked into a nice shop that sold things for the home. He enjoyed going in there so much that it became customary for us to shop there. I pointed out that one of the reasons it was so pleasant to go there is because there was no unnecessary clutter that would spoil the atmosphere or the view. Our grown sons and daughters could use these lessons to help them understand how order in the home contributes to a feeling of well-being and calmness.

Students particularly are fond of coming into the home, slamming the door, dropping bags, going to the kitchen, eating, leaving a mess, dropping their clothes in a corner in their room, or even on the bed, and for weeks and weeks they live like this, while their mothers become more stretched out with their time and their nerves. The homemaker is the keeper and the guide of the home, and that does not mean she is just there to work.


We all have yard clutter, too, and paintings like this are good teachers for the family, as they can appreciate the serenity of the house. Yard tools and such can be housed properly, and people do not need to create more stress for the homemaker by expecting her to put them away.

In the end, the place we love the most will be the home, but the homemaker is not the only one responsible for its atmosphere. Other members have to be responsible to make it run smoothly. Remember, she probably does not get a paycheck and is trying to make a profit by doing most things herself. She doing this out of the goodness of her heart and the conviction that she is in charge of it.

To summarize and as a reminder of the main point: The woman is the guide of the home. She may not do all the work but she is responsible to see that someone does it and that somehow it gets done. The members of the family are responsible to help her achieve her goals of completion of tasks, cleanliness, orderliness, and beautifying. In doing so, they stand to benefit enormously. If they create more problems and stress for her, they will suffer from personal confusion and stress themselves.

Additonal comments: It is also a good idea to prepare the family to get along on their own, so that the woman, in a sense, works herself out of a job, or at least part of it. That way, when she is older, she is not still doing the same things, especially those things that require more hard labor.

She ought to, as she gets older, have trained the family well enough that she can put up her feet and read something, or do some needlework, while other members prepare dinner or do the washing up afterwards.

Unfortunately, the trend of our time is all too much the opposite. Instead of becoming more independent and taking care of themselves (not to be confused with the Biblical concept of inter-dependent), the husband and children retreat more into baby hood. This is partly the woman's fault if she spoils them.

There is nothing wrong with waiting on your husband or children if you want to, and if it gives you joy, but they should not demand it and they should know you are a human being with only two legs and two hands and do what they can to eliminate the burden of jobs in the home, especially if they are creating a lot of the mess.

When I was a teenager we were invited after church to visit a preacher's family. They had four daughters, all teenaged. When we got there we were rather taken aback at their attitude. Their mother asked them to help, and to wash some dishes that had been left, but they would not do it. She ended up serving us all by herself. Their kitchen was always piled high with dirty dishes and yet they had four able bodied girls.

I would have understood it more if the family had busy boys who were working or were not too adept at dish washing, or house keeping, but with four able-bodied girls, I felt ashamed for the mother and for them. They were not cooperating with their mother in preparing the meal and not helping at all with the washing up. I never understood it and was at the time quite apalled. I was only 16 at the time and would never have talked back to my mother the way they did theirs.

Little did I know that this was going to become a trend amongs modern families. It was like sliding downhill with no way to go back. Over time, more and more families operated this way.

The mother of this girl eventually got sick and died. I think the family should be prepared to take over the house if the mother does get sick.

I'm sure most women get headaches and have down days, and it seems to me they could recover more easily if the house was kept up and if they didn't have to wake up from illness to face a mountain of laundry, dishes, clutter, and unnecessary work--work that was caused because people didn't put away anything or becaue of the trash people left around.

I cannot help wondering if some of this downhill slide in homemaking has something to do with the great amount of institutional living that goes on. Whereas school children once had to help sweep the floors and clean the chalk board, now they merely study while janitors take care of it.

When home, they may think that it is the woman's "job" to do all this--including sweeping out the garage and growing a garden for food...and then heap more burdens on her by their careless habits. Jesus chastised the Jewish leaders for the burdens they put on people, saying that they would not lift a finger to ease their burdens, but put more burdens on them.

The woman at home is such a precious and unique thing in our society it would seem that men and children and the relatives would do what they could to make her temperament good by cleaning up after themselves and doing what extra they can, also. She can be a better companion to them, and she can be an encourager, if she isn't worn out. I remember my mother was always a listener and an encourager, but she made us kids do all the work!