Joan Walsh at Salon has a great piece on famed anti-feminist Caitlin Flanagan and her latest book, To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.
Walsh takes her to task for most of her feminists-ruined-everything arguments, but it’s Flanagan’s faux stay-at-home mom status that gets most of the article’s attention. And for good reason.
Caitlin Flanagan isn't a stay-at-home mother, she's an accomplished writer who plays a stay-at-home mom in magazines and on TV.
Anti-feminists touting the virtues of “traditional� motherhood and femininity while actually being one of those “career gals� that they seem to hate so much isn’t exactly new. Remember Beverly LaHaye? (Go to #23 on the page) But Flanagan certainly has seemed to make her lie of stay-at-home motherhood as artful as her anti-feminism.
Check out the whole piece, you’ll see what I mean.
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What, she's not allowed to write at home?
If you read the article, you know it's about a lot more than that. Come on.
Salon's gated; I know no such thing.
The part I find saddest is that she acts as if love is this quid pro quo "bank of affection" and that her husband only took care of her because she'd already made so many "deposits" -- in other words, she'd done more for their marriage than him for all that time.
I wonder: if you can only take care of someone with cancer when they've deposited enough affection, is she saying that, because her balance was more full, she would not have done the same for her husband?
It's also interesting that she thinks it's basically a job for the woman to deposit affection, then withdraw it when she is in her greatest physical and emotional need -- apparently, her husband's deficit doesn't trouble her at all.
But what if she'd never had cancer? Would she have slow-burned? Is the account of affection just the biggest bit of passive-aggressive behavior ever?
These questions deserve some answers. I can't believe, though, that she's basically implying that if a woman's husband leaves her during a time of trial, it's because SHE didn't do enough for HIM. Ugh.
By blaming feminism for everything, Flanagan is conveniently avoiding personal responsibility. We make our own choices. Feminism doesn't have the power to *make* us do anything. If Flanagan feels feminism has bullied her in some way, maybe she should grow a spine.
Or she could just have her nanny do it for her.
I read a review in Elle Magazine about Flanagan's new book and I thought my head would explode. BadFeminist also mentioned something about it. This recent post also inspired a little blog rant of my own (it doesn't seem to be tracking back, oh well). Bravo for Salon for taking the time to rant about what the rest of us wanted to rant about, but couldn't find the time to do because we were to busy trying to do it all . . .
Uh, the article is not gated, David Thompson. Thanks for playing. Try again later.
Flanagan has a career many young female journalists and writers would kill for, but at what cost? I hate girl on girl fighting.
did you read the profile in Elle? it's even more devastating than the Salon piece.
what with flanagan's new book, maureen dowd's book, and Mommy Wars, we have learned all we are going to learn about contemporary american womanhood via anecdote -- more specifically, the anecdotes of a few affluent, very well-connected women. i know we can't really expect them to shut up, but i, for one, am done reading.
Good site, good blog, thank