Quickies
Quickies: Domesticity, women’s fashion, and science visualizations
- Against domesticity – “Whenever I speak to friends, and ask what they think of domesticity, many say they enjoy living with their partners or spouses. They say they love the familiarity, the comfort, the movie nights. The ones who respond with complaints are always women, which confirms my suspicion that domesticity mainly benefits men.”
- It’s not about you: When men take women’s personally – “To believe that we as women solely adorn ourselves for the specifically sexual gaze of men is, looked at in this way, a denial of humanity.”
- 10 Christmas carols even an atheist could love – Greta Christina gathers up some songs that won’t make you roll your eyes too hard during a sing-a-long.
- The best science visualizations of 2014 – My favorite is the frog vocal sacs.
The “Against Domesticity” article is a bit weird to me. The teaser quote and the story about the author’s mom make it sound like she is setting up an argument against domesticity which will be about male exploitation of female labor in domestic relationships. But then the rest of the article is about her personal preference against “boring conversations,” and statements like “I never, ever want to talk about the toilet brush with someone I want to fuck. Ever. There is nothing less appealing to me.” Which, okay, fair enough, but that preference is hardly universal. It kind of seems like the author just doesn’t get anything emotionally out of domestic relationships, but wants to allude to larger social issues to “justify” her personal preference.
My partner and I have had a great domestic relationship for about seven years. Sometimes we have to talk about the toilet brush. Sometimes we have to do harder work and have more difficult conversations to ensure that neither of us is being unfairly taken advantage of in the domestic work or other aspects of our relationship. Sometimes we have to make an effort to keep things from getting boring. But overall it suits both of us, and we’re happy with it. Evidently the author of this piece would not be, which is fine — there’s plenty of room in the world for both people who enjoy the type of intimacy that comes with a domestic relationship, and for people who prefer a little distance in their romantic relationships.
Basically, I think the article conflates domesticity-as-relationship-style (toilet brushes) and domesticity-as-patriarchal-social-structure (story about the author’s mom). Smash the latter, but plenty of people (male and female) like the former, and I think there’s nothing wrong (nor inherently superior) with it.
re – “its not about you” While I agree that women don’t exclusively dress for men, the notion that ‘you dress for yourself’ seems to me to be a bit untestable. How can one be objective in a society that ‘teaches’ women to dress from cradle to grave?