I suspect I could find much more agreement with you than with Mr. Martin. If we reverted to a state in which half the population had to be employed in farming without powered machinery, then certainly farm families would revert to a form of labor organization in which the husband managed the heavy livestock, went out repairing fences, etc., while the wife kept the chickens, weeded and cooked the vegetables, etc. Plowing with a team of oxen wouldn't go well with a toddler underfoot. It doesn't follow from that that they must revert to a condition in which the husband is the wife's lord and master, is pretended to be more intelligent and moral than she, and will have sole control of their cash income and life decisions.
It appears that is the state that Mr. Martin prefers, but perhaps not you. How is "feminism" to be defined? If feminism means a belief that there should be no gender differences in activities, so that 50% of the 'plowpeople' ought to be women, yes, that kind of feminism wouldn't last long. My husband preferred to define feminism as "the radical notion that women are people." Everyone can be given the status of personhood, as in Native American tribes with influential women, and their work valued (as you point out by highlighting the fact that a couple engaged in subsistence labor were both understood to be working), while it is recognized that not every person can or should contribute in identical ways.
It so happens that I was always too weak to think of doing most traditional "men's work", but smart enough to be very good at intellectual labor. It was feminism that gave me the freedom to attend college, be hired for a job requiring education, and write (under my own name yet), which women in more patriarchal centuries rarely or never had. Oh, yes, and the freedom to vote and own property. That sort of feminism, I am vehemently unwilling to lose, and see no reason why the decline of industry means that I should.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2022-07-18 04:59 pm (UTC)It appears that is the state that Mr. Martin prefers, but perhaps not you. How is "feminism" to be defined? If feminism means a belief that there should be no gender differences in activities, so that 50% of the 'plowpeople' ought to be women, yes, that kind of feminism wouldn't last long. My husband preferred to define feminism as "the radical notion that women are people." Everyone can be given the status of personhood, as in Native American tribes with influential women, and their work valued (as you point out by highlighting the fact that a couple engaged in subsistence labor were both understood to be working), while it is recognized that not every person can or should contribute in identical ways.
It so happens that I was always too weak to think of doing most traditional "men's work", but smart enough to be very good at intellectual labor. It was feminism that gave me the freedom to attend college, be hired for a job requiring education, and write (under my own name yet), which women in more patriarchal centuries rarely or never had. Oh, yes, and the freedom to vote and own property. That sort of feminism, I am vehemently unwilling to lose, and see no reason why the decline of industry means that I should.