Well, Actually is an ongoing reader-supported newsletter series debunking the mythconceptions and outright lies told by those invested in upholding patriarchy. For the price of a monthly glass of wine, I’ll supply weekly facts, figures and funnies to break down all the patriarchal myths and nonsense you need to help you stay calm at the next family dinner! You can find the introduction post here.
Yesterday, I shared Part 1 of this post - a discussion of the university commencement speech delivered by Harrison Butker, in which the conservative ‘champion’ footballer told graduating students at Benedictine College that women today have been “diabolically lied to” in regards to the pursuit of careers vs ‘homemaking’.
Here in Part 2, I’ll be breaking down the myth of “traditional marriage” upheld by conservatives and the religious right. Rather than being reflective of history, this so-called ‘golden era’ was a brief cultural flare designed to cement values of white supremacy, capitalist aspiration and gender roles for the middle class.
In Part 3 of this piece, I’m going to break down the racial politics of this nostalgia and how white women are complicit in erasing political and historical reality in favour of a generic narrative of blanket gender oppression. I think it’s an important topic that deserves the space of its own entry here, so please keep that in mind if you feel this entry doesn’t sufficiently address it in depth. Keep in mind also that the rebuttals of ‘happy housewife’ that I’m about to lay out for you are only part of the picture. As feminists, we must commit to understanding our own complicity in systems of racism and oppression - and that includes how we conceal that complicity in our own retconning of history.
Let’s get into it.
Part 2: The Long Decade
Please note, some of the below is excerpted from my most recent book, I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage, and specifically the chapter, ‘Honey, You’re Home.’
Amidst the modern day, conservative nostalgia for a so-called ‘simpler time’*, few things carry more weight than the idea of the traditional family unit.
Nestled in suburbia, where the streets are lined with fertile trees and every house boasts a white picket fence, this era of “traditional family values” seems to be remembered most fondly by people who weren’t there. Nevertheless, we’re assured it was a time of great prosperity and even greater happiness. A time when men were men, and women their adoring cheerleaders. Neighbours were trusted friends, and doors were kept unlocked as a result. On the weekends, the streets were filled with the sound of laughter and the smell of hot coals grilling hamburgers. Veganism had yet to be invented, as did gluten intolerance, homosexuality and anxiety disorders. Life was good.
In this Leave It To Beaver fantasy land of whiteness - white families, white schools and whitegoods - everyone had a place and a purpose, and they took pride in fulfilling the duties of their station. For men, this involved donning a hat in the morning and going out to work in the bustling marketplace of innovation, new technologies and bold ideas. As the family breadwinner, Ron or Jerry or Dick did what he had to do in order to provide for the family depending on him back in the suburban dreamscape. To thank him for his heroic efforts, his wife maintained the home, the children and, most importantly, herself.
These were the roles they were born to play - Dick out building the world in the great beyond and Jane safely ensconced at home, dusting it. As today’s adolescent male podcasters love to remind us, this is how men and women are supposed to be.
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