I'm Baaahk from NY Sheep & Wool

Spotted Jacob sheep, a rare breed.

NY Sheep & Wool is like Xmas:  I look forward to it all year, and when it's over, it's such a let-down that I start looking forward to next year to cheer myself up.

Last year I wrote a blog post about it, which you should re-read because you have forgotten it by now.

A few points to stick in for this year:

1) The Taconic State Parkway is lovely & scenic & also the deer capitol of the known universe.  Not just the odd deer grazing by the side of the road at dusk, right as I am driving home, but dozens.  Each year I worry that this is going to be the year one of them leaps in front of my car.  But this year there were none.  I didn't see a single deer, alive or dead (there are usually several of the latter).  It was weird.  I had been wishing NY would reintroduce wolves.  Perhaps they did.

2) There are parking areas along the Taconic to facilitate admiring the majestic views of the Hudson River Valley.  Except that when I see signs for "parking area" I think of a place to make out.  Someday I hope to be able to drag a long-suffering boyfriend to NYS&W just for this purpose.  The snogging will make up for him having to look at fibre animals and yarn and eat fair food all day.

3) It's a tradition to knit a so-called "Rhinebeck sweater" to show off, or at least a Rhinebeck hat, scarf, shawl or similar item of outerwear.  People oooh and aaah all day, complimenting strangers on their skill.  I tapped one woman on the shoulder and gushed over her intricate cable scarf.  She told me the pattern name and it went straight into my Ravelry queue.  (For my non-knitting readers, Ravelry is a website that provides a database for you to input all of your yarn, needles, books, etc., and create a queue of patterns you want to knit.  There are also discussion groups, and online project 'notebooks' where you can add photographs, details of what yarn and needle sizes you used, and notes on projects.  These notes help other knitters who knit that same pattern in future, both as inspiration and to point out difficulties, customization, errors in the pattern, etc.  Basically, the people who invented Ravelry are gods in the knitting world.  They deserve to be canonized whilst they are still living.  It is the best website on the Internet, and I am including every porn site in that assessment.)

Anyway, back to the Rhinebeck sweater:  It has been a record warm October and it was 78F on Saturday.  Some people just sweated it out in their woolens, determined to show off their hard work, others said fuck it and stripped down to t-shirts and tank tops, an odd sight amongst the fall foliage.  The vendors selling hot cocoa and cider must have cursed the weather.  Me, I enjoyed not freezing.

4) Speaking of vendors, I decided not to waste an hour of precious yarn fondling time in line waiting for a lamb sandwich at lunchtime.  I held off until 4pm, by which time there was no line.  It was worth delaying lunch, despite the fact that the vendor, keenly aware of both its popularity and monopoly, had increased the price from $10 to $12 this year.

5) Each year I allow myself to purchase a few unique skeins, yarn I would not be able to find again if I did not buy it then, and take photos/notes on the rest.  I fantasy shop, looking with envy at everyone with their bulging bags (there are people who save up all year for a yarn buying orgy at Rhinebeck), each time thinking next year I will have money to buy whatever I want, even a custom-made spinning wheel and some Gotland sheep.  And next year comes and I still don't have any money.  It's depressing and this year I really should have bought nothing.  As restrained as I was, it was still extravagant to even spend the gas money and admission price.  I felt guilty buying anything at all, as well I should.

This year's tiny but pricey Rhinebeck haul. Yes, those are hand-dyed gradients.

One thing I said no to was the world's sexiest sweater.  I would have bought just the pattern, saving it until I could afford the yarn at some point in the future, but the vendor, rather unusually, was not selling the pattern separately.  You had to buy enough of their yarn to make the garment and the pattern came with it.  In this case, it would have taken 5 skeins at $30 apiece to make the sweater, so of course it wasn't an option for me.  But just look at this cardigan, one of the most flattering I have ever seen.

For my non-knitting readers, let me introduce you to the concept of "negative ease."  A garment that is tight and shows off your figure is said to have negative ease; conversely, a loose garment has positive ease.  Whether and how much of negative or positive ease you want is a matter of personal style and preference.  As someone with a pear-shaped figure, I need my clothes to fit like a second skin in order not to look like a hippopotamus.  In other words, beaucoup negative ease, like you see here.

The pumpkins are just for decoration; I grew them in my backyard.

6) The Vetricyn was a gift-with-purchase of the chicken book.  Wait, chickens at Rhinebeck?  Is someone making yarn out of chicken feathers?  No, poultry are not fibre animals but the book sellers often include some non-knitting books and this author had written the best guide to keeping chickens I have ever seen.  Due to the rising popularity of chicken husbandry, zillions of poorly-written how-to books have flooded the market but this author knows her shit.  My hairdresser recently bought a house and is planning to get chickens.  She has been asking me zillions of questions so I got this for her Xmas present.  It's perfect.

The wine?  There is an entire building of local food vendors, including the NY wineries.  This had the virtues of being both cheap and the most unusual wine I have ever had, to be saved for a special occasion.  The jams include blood orange (2), cranberry, and raspberry bourbon, and the peanut butter has dark chocolate in it.  Each year, I stock up on three tubs of the Gobs of Garlic spice mix, which is the 'secret' ingredient in just about everything I cook.  (Shhhhhh.)

Fertilizing the Present with the Manure of the Past

(My city friends will find that an unappetising post title but we talk manure a lot in the country.  When we say nothing gets wasted, we mean nothing.  Yesterday's chicken feed becomes tomorrow's vegetable garden fertiliser.  The circle of poo.)

Yesterday I explained how some women are becoming so disillusioned with life in the 21st century that they are leaving the workforce and becoming traditional housewives.  In some cases, it is the man who becomes the homemaker but the vast majority of the time it is the woman.  I talked about the impetus for this trend as well as why it is dangerous for women's rights if we go backward and embrace traditional gender roles.  Today I begin parsing out exactly what we are nostalgic for and how we can recapture it without women losing the right to vote or own property.

We miss:  Salespeople who are polite, friendly, helpful and actually know their business and their merchandise.

How we can bring it back today:  Avoid big box stores and shop at independent businesses and farmers' markets whenever possible.  Before supermarkets and other chains took over, and town centres became vacant, shoppers walked to the green grocer, the butcher, the baker, the florist, the dry goods store, the milliner, the dressmaker, the tailor, etc.  Each merchant knew his or her business, and shop assistants were taught it before they were allowed to interact with customers.

Why it is challenging:  Many Main Streets are lined with vacant store fronts, chains in strip malls on the outskirts of town having driven them out of business.  Some people live in suburbs that are purely bedroom communities, with no proper town centre at all and no stores other than chains.  These suburbs often lack sidewalks, making it impossible to walk safely to the shops.  Also, independent businesses tend to close earlier than chains and have shorter weekend hours, making it difficult for working people to get there.  The biggest challenge, of course, is cost.  With the economies of scale enjoyed by chains, independent merchants cannot offer such obscenely low prices on goods and services.  Which brings us to the next point....

We miss:  Quality goods that last, emblematic of a less disposable culture.

How we can bring it back today:  Buy less!  Mend and repair and make do.  Instead of paying less for an item that will wear out shortly, pay more for a better quality one that will last.  Think of each household purchase as permanent, an investment in an item that you will maintain for the rest of your life.  Look for items that are made locally, where you can contact the manufacturer for parts and repair. Look for items made by independent businesses, where the maker of the item is likely to take some pride in their work.  Look for items made under humane working conditions, where the workers are likely to care more about doing a good job.  Take pride in making items last rather than in having the latest and greatest.  If something breaks, try to repair it before replacing it.  If it cannot be salvaged, do research before buying a new one.  Find the sturdiest one available, utilising reviews and recommendations from unbiased sources.  Don't buy things you know you will only use once or that are meant to be disposable (e.g. disposable cameras, faddish toys, party items).  If you want to explore a new hobby or cooking technique, try to borrow or rent the equipment before buying something that may gather dust in your cupboards.  Think of the health and environmental implications of EVERY purchase.  Ask yourself:  Do I need this?  Why do I want this?  How long will this last?

Why it is challenging:  They really don't make things like they used to.  Most items manufactured today have a planned obsolescence; they are made to be disposable, so it can be difficult to repair them or prevent them wearing out.  Few items are made locally or even in the West.  Even if you are willing and able to pay more for a higher quality item, you may not be able to find it.  Do your best.  If no-one buys cheap crap, stores will no longer sell it.

We miss:  Home-cooked meals, eaten together at leisure and without distraction

How we can bring it back today:  The number one benefit cited by couples where one spouse is a full-time homemaker is meals taken together.  The rush for both spouses to get to work, get in a run or other morning work-out, and, if you have kids, to get them to school, precludes a sit-down breakfast for most modern families.  But breakfast together allows families to connect, to confirm plans for the day, and to start the day with proper nutrition and hydration.  Lunch is trickier to eat as a family.  Men used to come home for lunch if they worked close enough, and children sometimes came home from school, but this meal was the most likely to be eaten separately before the family came back together for dinner, to re-connect and recount their day for one another and eat a balanced, healthy meal without interruptions or distractions.

Of all the suggestions on this list, this one is the easiest to implement.  It takes commitment, and a desire to make it work, from each member of the household.  There may be resistance at first but, once each family member reaps the benefits and the new schedule becomes routine, it will become second nature. First, agree upon who will cook breakfast, set the table, and clean up—it may be the same partner each day or it may vary with work schedules or individual preferences.  Agree on a time when all family members can be present with enough time to sit and eat before they must be on their way to work or school.  This will mean getting up and going to bed at an earlier time.  For family members who work out in the morning, they may have to start their run in the dark, but play with your morning routine and see what works for your family.  Next, banish all electronic devices from the table—no TV, mobiles, eReaders, etc.  The only exception may be a hard copy of the newspaper, if your family still subscribes offline, as the news of the day can be a legitimate topic of breakfast table conversation.  Dress for meals—no coming down to breakfast in pyjamas or dinner in sweatpants.  Instill in your family the idea that meals are a time for conversation and interaction, to pay attention to their food and to one another.  Finally, make the meal worthy of your family's attention.  Put nothing on the table in its original container, and nothing in plastic—e.g., pour milk into a jug, don't set the carton on the table.  Put fresh flowers in the center of the tablecloth, use cloth napkins, and cook from scratch.  Eat local foods in season, growing as much of your own produce as possible.

Why it is challenging:  Getting everyone on the same schedule, with long commutes, shift work, extracurricular activities, etc., can feel overwhelming.  It is easier with kids because as the parent, you make the rules, and you can require them to be present at meals.  Not as easy to wheedle a spouse who would rather warm something up in the microwave and play video games in his precious free time after work.  Start with insisting that the family gather for one proper meal together per day, and add on from there.  If it is difficult to coordinate schedules, relax the rule about dress to maximise the opportunity for family members to be present at the table at the appointed time.  The effort required to cook and clean up meals before and after a long day at work is the biggest impediment to the two-income family from enjoying the traditional sit-down meal together.  The only shortcuts here are to alternate which partner takes on this duty, get older children involved in helping, and to plan meals in advance, cooking things at the weekend that can be reheated on the night.  I realise this won't help two-lawyer families where both spouses are trying to make partner and working 12 hour days but there are no perfect solutions here.  Either one spouse is a full-time homemaker or they split these duties, each shouldering some of them in addition to their paying job.

We miss:  People who take pride in their appearance and do not look sloppy.

How we can bring it back today:  Just like dining together as a family, this is another change that requires time and discipline to implement.  If you are feeling nostalgic for an era when men wore hats and well-pressed bespoke suits, with polished shoes, and women were always perfectly coiffed and turned out, with lipstick, hats, gloves, and stockings, then take advantage of all of the information available on retro hair, make-up, and wardrobes.  People used to own far fewer items of clothing, which they mended to extend their life.  Ignore the cheap, trendy clothing in the chain stores; invest in fewer, higher quality pieces.  Make older children save up for some of their own clothing to encourage them to think carefully before they buy.  Find and build a relationship with a tailor or seamstress.  Have clothing made, or at least altered, to fit you well.  You will feel more confident in clothing that fits you better and flatters.  Unless you are at that moment engaged in exercise, banish sweat clothing and trainers from your wardrobe.  Wear nothing "distressed" or with holes, rips, and tears, no matter how strategically placed.  Wear nothing shapeless or baggy.  Keep your shoes polished.  Choose a flattering, classic cut for your hair that does not take too long to style in the morning.  Shave, wax, pluck, exfoliate and moisturise—this goes for both sexes!  Update your make-up seasonally and don't go down to breakfast without it.  Dress with self-respect and take pride in being well-turned-out every day.  Look for hats, gloves, scarves, and incorporate them into your daily outfits.  Carry handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues, and a beautiful refillable pen instead of disposable ballpoints.  Put these into a clean, structured bag, not a shapeless sack.  Carry a full-size umbrella, not a telescoping one.  Plan a week's worth of outfits in advance, with accessories, so you do not have to worry about what to put on each morning.  At the very least, have your closet and accessories well-organized so you can choose your outfit quickly and without stress in the morning.  If you have children, insist that they dress well.  You do not have to indulge their desire to wear sloppy, casual or trendy clothes.  Reclaim your authority as a parent!

Why it is challenging: Everyone dresses so casually these days, even at events that used to require a bit of effort to dress up (I cry when I see people in jeans at the opera, and just try to tell myself that at least they are there), that you may feel self-conscious, and attract comments, when you are better dressed.  Ignore the comments.  Smile serenely and thank people for compliments.  If they ask you why you are so dressed up, tell them it makes you more confident and makes the world a more pleasant place.  Tell them it is a sign of respect, for yourself, for them, and for the occasion.  I know that bespoke clothing and footwear, and quality ready-to-wear items that will not be out of fashion next season, are expensive.  If you cannot afford to replace a casual wardrobe all at once, invest in new pieces as you can afford them, with an eye towards wearing them as long as possible, not discarding them when fashions change.  Or learn to sew and make clothing for yourself and your family.

We miss:  Fewer choices.  No, really!  Hear me out.  I do not mean fewer life choices based on sex or race, nor fewer choices in health care, nutrition, education, or anything like that.  What I mean is that the choices we face in everyday life are so overwhelming that people are starting to implement self-imposed limitations in order to bring back a sense of control and reduce stress.  It is one reason that people fall prey to organised religion and fad diets—they provide an externally-imposed list of rules that creates boundaries, limitations that help filter the overwhelming number of choices we face every day.

How we can bring it back today:  Since it is not the actual number of choices that we want to limit, but the stress that they cause, set your own rules to filter choices.  I find the handiest filters are health and environment.  If you only buy goods produced in an environmentally-sound manner, that automatically rules out much of the crap that is for sale.  Buy nothing produced in a sweatshop or by child labour.  Likewise, if you decide that your family will eat nothing with artificial colours, flavours, sweeteners, or preservatives, you will look at the grocery store in a whole new way.  Instead of a bewildering array of choices, there will be very little that you can eat.  Limiting your food choices to what is locally-produced and seasonal takes that a step further.  If you decide, as I did many years ago, not to use toothpaste with artificial sweeteners or colouring, suddenly there will be only a few brands that you can choose amongst rather than fifty.  If you only buy clothing made with natural fibres or linens dyed with non-toxic dyes, you will find your options for clothing and bedding reduced dramatically.  If you decide that your next car must get over 40mpg, that eliminates most vehicles on the market.  If you decide to only use native plants in your garden, selecting annuals and perennials from the nursery is suddenly a much less overwhelming task.  Try it.  Remember, you are not limiting your choices based upon arbitrary rules, or rules imposed externally by superstition but, rather, looking after your own and your family's health, and the environment.

Why it is challenging:  We are bombarded with advertisements and coupons, urging us to try new products or choose what is on sale, regardless of whether it meets our health and ethical criteria.  Even with our self-imposed restrictions, it can still be overwhelming to look at a shelf of 100 different deodorants and have to read all the labels, and research online, to find the ones without toxic ingredients.  But it gets easier.  I know now that there are only a handful of items sold by a conventional supermarket or chemist that are natural enough to fit my health and environment criteria, so I don't see the choices that are on the shelves as choices anymore.  They simply don't exist for me.

If you implement all of the foregoing suggestions, you will be able to recapture some of what we are nostalgic for in an earlier era, without becoming a full-time homemaker and risking your financial independence.

Smorgasboard of the Past

Yesterday I wrote about the lure of vintage living in the modern world and the dangers of women retreating from the workforce to become retro-style housewives.  Yet, it is obvious that our current lifestyle, dominated by convenience rather than community, is taking its toll on our health and well-being.  Women of all socio-economic classes are finding that they are still, half a century after the women's rights movement, having to choose between having a career and a family and men are still oblivious to that problem.  What is the solution?  It is not for women to simply tie their aprons back on and retreat from public life.  There has to be a way to get to the root of what we are nostalgic for yet avoid the rigidity, conformity, sexism, racism, and other ills of that era.

At university, City Boy was a member of an organization called the Society for Creative Anachronism. Their motto was, "the Middle Ages as it ought to have been".  The members were nostalgic for the aesthetics of the mediaeval period, but could do without the plagues, mediaeval medical care, mediaeval sanitation, the lack of socio-economic mobility, the theocratic oppression, and the body lice (although City Boy noted that many SCAers seemed to adopt mediaeval hygiene, so I am not certain about that last one).  At SCA events, members could step out of the modern world, put on their mediaeval garb, accent, personae, and rose-coloured glasses, and experience some semblance of a heavily romanticized and idealized age.

If we want to dispense with what is not working for us in the present and reclaim what we long for about the past, we need to adopt a similar custom of picking and choosing.  We would not want to return to that era in its entirety.  There was a lot of misery in the 50s.  The appeal to young women today of becoming a housewife lies in the fact that it is a choice.  Real post-war women lacked that choice.  Plenty were depressed and anxious and were the first consumers of modern prescription mood-altering drugs.  Women were stuck in marriages with abusive or cheating husbands because they would be financially destitute if they left.  It was women's discontentment with their circumscribed lives in the 50s that fueled the women's rights movement of the 60s.

So, what we need to do now is list what we long for about the past and figure out how to bring it back in the present, without the bad stuff tagging along.

Tomorrow's post will feature my own list, along with reader suggestions.

Let's Do the Time Warp Again, Or Not

There is a growing trend of young women choosing to embrace traditional gender roles and become housewives. I am not talking about women who are unemployed by circumstances rather than choice, nor women with children who have chosen to stay home with them. I mean, full-blown 1950s-era housewives, whose days consist of cooking and cleaning and other domestic drudgery. In most cases, the financial sacrifice that the couple is making requires many home economies to make ends approach, so the modern homemaker often embraces old-fashioned skills like sewing and mending, and making lunches for her hubby to take to work. This trend is both intriguing and alarming. It raises two obvious questions: Why is it happening and why is it so frightening?

The former query is easy to answer. As women have fought tooth and nail for equality under the law, in education, in the workplace, and in all areas of society, they have never lost the responsibility of homemaking. And making a house into a home is a full-time job. This means that women who work have two jobs, one of which must be squeezed into early mornings, evenings, and weekends. Some women can hire cleaning ladies, send out the laundry, and otherwise pay for others to do much of the housework, but that is a luxury for the wealthy. The more usual result is that the housework doesn't get done and the house is a place to crash but not really a home. Meals are not eaten together in a relaxed manner. Breakfast is a granola bar on the train, a yoghurt gulped in the car, or a bagel and coffee purchased on the way into the office, and dinner is microwaved or ordered in, eaten in front of the TV or computer. Parties are catered and cooking is reserved for special occasions, a rare effort when there is more time at the weekend rather than a daily ritual. In general, the necessities of life are purchased rather than made from scratch, and entertainment is passive, i.e., listening to music rather than playing it.

Back-to-the-Land Apparently Means Back in the House, Too

There is nothing wrong with the above scenario if hearth and home simply aren't important to you but, clearly, the lack of a home life is missed by some. It is a feeling that dovetails nicely with the slow food and locavore movements, the resurgence in chicken-keeping and small-scale farming, canning and preserving, knitting and spinning. The disconnection in the modern world from the sources of our food and textiles has become so extreme that it has spawned a desire in otherwise normal city folk to raise their own sheep, shear them, spin the fibre, and knit it themselves. Handmade items are wildly popular, and sites like Etsy are thriving. Work itself is also becoming less satisfying and secure. People change jobs frequently, and work longer hours for less money and fewer benefits. Not everyone has a profession that they chose, a fulfilling career that satisfies. Most people, women and men, are working to make a living and would gladly quit and take up gardening or knitting or bread baking if they won the lottery.

So, it is not difficult to see how a couple might decide that returning to an earlier model of the division of labour, with one spouse maintaining the household and the other working to pay for it, makes sense. The women who make this retro lifestyle choice report being happier, more relaxed, less stressed by the modern world. It's a retreat from the rat race, into the cocoon of the home, where one has more control.

Now, as to the second question, I think I can venture an explanation for why women who have fought for the opportunity to work outside the home frown upon women who make a choice to reclaim domesticity. One reason is that the hard-fought, hard-won gains of the women's movement are still a work in progress. Women are still fighting for equal pay, prestige, and respect in the workplace. There is still a perception amongst male, and even female, bosses, that women aren't as dedicated to their jobs, that they are apt to quit if they have kids, or be more likely than men to have competing demands outside work, such as taking care of children, elderly, the home, etc. This is true, of course, but it is usually a necessity for women, not a choice, because men refuse to take on or even assist with these responsibilities. But the result is that women are not taken seriously in the workforce. Men have never had a choice about working. Feminism liberated women to choose to work or stay at home but it did not create that choice for men (yes, there are a few SAHDs & SAHHs, but they are rare and ridiculed), so any perception that women are just playing at work, just dabbling in the working world but can retreat home anytime is anathema to equality.

And let's not forget that working gave women the freedom not to marry; they didn't need a man to support them any longer. A homemaker, unless she has a trust fund, needs a breadwinner. Women have fought hard to gain financial independence from men, to be single by choice, child-free rather than child-less. So reverting to a model of women as homemaker (or even man as homemaker) is a return to a scenario of dependency. The money-earning half of the couple always has the upper hand, even if they choose not to play it. A single worker can cope without a homemaking spouse; a homemaker cannot survive without money. Women entering the work force and paying their own way went psychically hand-in-hand with women being equal partners in marriage and not subservient to the master of the house, the controller of the purse strings. It wasn't so long ago—my mother remembers it vividly—when women could not get a mortgage, credit card, bank account, etc., in their own names, even if they were earning their own living. So there is a legitimate fear that women returning home takes us back to a time when men ruled the world and women lacked equality in every aspect of life. Yes, some laws have changed, some forms of discrimination on the basis of sex are now illegal, and homemakers are legally entitled to part of their husband's earnings in divorce, but the perception that going home is going backward in terms of women's rights is hard to shake, and the ability of women to make a choice to work or not leads to resentment on the part of men, single women, and others whose life circumstances don't permit that choice.

Additionally, some of the basic tenets of the women's movement revolved around the idea that homemaking was stifling intellectually, that women were capable of being doctors and lawyers and engineers and using their brains as well as men. In an era when education for its own sake has been devalued, when it is seen as solely vocational, will women's access to higher educational programs and scholarships be threatened by the possibility that she might choose not to use her degree? It is dangerous: women lawyers, for example, rarely make partner. If the male partners thought the female associates might leave to stay at home, it would be the kiss of death for any hope of female advancement in the workplace. Can losing voting and property rights be far behind? 

Obviously, this is an absurd situation for women. We are caught between a rock and a hard place. We have gained the right to work, but we haven't lost the responsibility to be the main parent and homemaker on top of it. Most women who work still do the bulk of the housework, childcare, elder care, social planning, etc. Women who made the choice to trade their aprons for briefcases just have 40+ hrs less per week to get done everything they had to do before. The home still needs to be made, the family cared for, whether both spouses work or not. And, as the author of an experiment in 1950s living called "The Apron Revolution" has been pointing out since she started her project, quality of life suffers. Few women have a career that provides intellectual stimulation and other forms of gratification; most women have jobs they hate but they need them to pay the bills. They're stuck in jobs as they were once stuck at home. As more women worked, the cost of living grew to the point where tremendous sacrifices must be made for a family to live on one salary.

Of course, most women would agree that, as difficult as it is to Do It All, it's a highly preferable problem to have than in pre-women's rights days when women had no legal rights and few professional opportunities, when they were frustratingly and absurdly perceived as both intellectually and physically unfit for public life. But women are exhausted from trying to do it all, and the solution of reclaiming homemaking is increasingly appealing. In a new, feminist guise, it is growing (Anyone read "Radical Homemakers"? I just ordered it from Amazon.), but it still forces women back into subservience to men and it is still mainly practiced by religious women, which justifiably gives it a bad name. If you are a SAHW or SAHM, and especially if you are a homeschooler, people like me will assume you are some type of fundie. That's a fact. There used to be a blog called "The Atheist Homemaker", started by a SAHM who tried to find others online but all the homemaking sites she found were run by Xtian women blathering about "obedience" to their husbands. That nauseating tripe taints the idea of homemaking; no-one sane wants to be tarred with that Stepford Wife brush.  Unless you are brainwashed by religion, it is a lifestyle choice that will be met with resistance, both internal and external.

Notice that it is the mothers (and other older female relatives) of homemakers who are the most vocal opponents of this lifestyle choice. They can still remember when women were fired when they got married, denied promotions, excluded from degree programs and professions. It hasn't been that long since women lacked legal rights, since they went from being their father's property to their husband's property, symbolized by the father walking them down the aisle to their husband, and changing their surname from their father's to their husband's. It hasn't been that long since women couldn't vote or run for office. It hasn't been that long since women were expected to be support staff and not the boss, secretaries and receptionists instead of executives or lawyers, nurses instead of doctors, elementary school teachers instead of university professors. It hasn't been that long since women could not open a bank account or obtain a credit card or a mortgage without a man's signature. It hasn't been that long since women lacked control over their fertility. It hasn't been that long since women were denied an education because how much did they need to know about philosophy or science in order to cook and clean and look pretty for the men, who were the only sex expected to have any brains or intellectual life. It hasn't been that long since a woman had no financial independence and could be left destitute if her husband left her or died. It hasn't been that long since women could not sue for divorce, and custody of children and property went automatically to the man.

Every gain in women's legal and financial equality has been hard won by women who fought doggedly against sexism and patriarchy, who stood up to men who said they shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about politics and law and medicine and world affairs and should stick to their ironing and sewing and let the men make the big decisions that affected their lives. If you can believe it, one of the arguments put forth against female suffrage was that a woman would never vote differently than her husband so he could cast the vote on behalf of the household. Many of the "firsts" for women happened within the lifetime of women alive today. Many gains, such as equal pay for equal work and equal political representation, have yet to be achieved.

There is a rational and legitimate fear that if women choose to be homemakers, they will not be taken seriously in the workplace. Women were once not paid as much as men for the same work because it was assumed that the man was supporting a family but the woman was just biding her time until she snagged a man to marry. This pay gap still exists, in the 21st century, and a return to traditional gender roles can't help but exacerbate it again. I read an article recently about a woman with a PhD in engineering who was taking time out from her career whilst her children were small. She was worried about the mommy penalty: losing ground in her field, losing up-to-date skills, and not being able to find a job when she re-entered the workforce. A man responded in the comments that her choice to stay home means that women should not be given scholarships nor places in graduate programs because they were denying space in those competitive programs to another (male) applicant who would use the degree.  It is scary to see that attitude, but that commentator is far from alone in his view.

So, in sum, it's difficult to negotiate a return to homemaking in the 21st century. It's hard to find a way for women to be homemakers yet not be guilty of intellectual vacuity, or religious zealotry, or anti-feminism, or financial dependence on men, and, above all, of not harming the careers of women in the workforce.