Can a Housewife Be a Feminist? On Freedom of Choice

Does one rule out the other? And why should it? A housewife and a feminist, beautiful and smart!

We love dualisms. Black and white, male and female, housewife and feminist…

But we very often forget that life isn’t so simple that we can sort everything into polarised opposites.

How wide is the spectrum of colours between black and white? Yes, huge.

And it’s the same with every other category.

As always in analyses like this, it’s best to start with myself.

Countless times I have “felt bad” for enjoying something “that contradicts my outspoken feminism”. But there’s no need!

Because that is exactly what feminism is: freedom! The freedom for a woman to choose what she does or doesn’t want to be, what she does or doesn’t want to do.

Today was “my day”, when I was supposed to go into town, to some café, and write. Just that, enjoy myself and let my hand dance across the keyboard. But I didn’t.

Why? Was the decision conscious or automatic, the kind we all carry somewhere in our subconscious when that little worm switches on, “well, you could spend more time with your family”, or “but you haven’t brought in the laundry and here you are gadding about”, and a million similar sentences, learned and deeply carved into our heads?

I like to believe that this time the decision was mine and rational, because hey, why spend another 5–7 euros today when I have perfect coffee at home?

But all of that matters less.

What does matter are those damned learned behaviours that every woman carries with her, no matter how emancipated or educated she is, how well she knows and practises her feminism.

Yes, I am a feminist, and not a hidden one at all.

But yes, I still carry my learned, internalised “female” behaviours (deeply carved in by patriarchy) around with me.

But am I any less of a feminist when I enjoy my role as a mother? Or as a wife? When I get up before everyone in the morning and make packed lunches for Marko and Sofia, and do it with a smile on my face?

Honestly, I wouldn’t say I am, because it’s my personal choice.

Being a wife and a feminist doesn’t rule out either. That is exactly the beauty of freedom of choice.

If I want to do something for myself, I can.

If I want to do something for the people I love, I can do that too.

And What About “the Others”?

Don’t women who “by the template” wouldn’t be called feminists deserve equal rights too?

A few days ago Marko and I finally started watching the documentary series “She Awakens”, and already in the first episode we had that “aha” moment.

The documentary mentions that if a woman takes “too much” care of her appearance, especially through lots of cosmetic procedures, society automatically sees her as “empty” (not to say stupid) and reduces her to her sexuality, which, of course, is understood in a negative way.

But wait, aren’t those double standards?

And is it really a fact that “pretty, well-groomed” women can’t be feminists?

Do they have less right to freedom and choice?

If those of us who don’t wear make-up, don’t diet and don’t want to fit into “industry standards” demand to be accepted as we are, then isn’t it just as much a legitimate choice for other women to look the way they want: in full make-up, with implants, in high heels? I would say it is.

Because reducing anyone to their looks, by the principle of dumb and pretty versus smart and ugly, is problematic in itself and part of that very same patriarchy.

A woman is a woman. And every woman must have the right to choose, in every sense and every respect!

So the fact that Pamela looks the way she does is her right, her choice, and it doesn’t mean she is stupid, any more than any other woman is. Nor does she deserve to be treated as less important, less valuable and looked down on by men or by other women.

I think Billie Eilish proved this best with her own example. Recently she was called out online for suddenly becoming too feminine overnight and then going back to wearing baggy clothes. When she was asked why, she said, plain and simple: because I can! And that is feminism!

If today I want to walk around in shorts with unshaved legs, I can.

If tomorrow I want to put on a ball gown, I can.

One doesn’t rule out the other, and you are no less of a woman or less of a feminist if you switch between those two “extremes”.

And that is what we need to understand.

Woman, Mother, Feminist

Being a devoted mother and wife doesn’t make you worth less as a person. Nor does putting your own needs before your family’s make you a bad mother or wife; it simply makes you a person with needs.

And yes, this is very different from the times before feminism. Because our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had no choice; they had to be what was expected of them, and nobody even gave them the option not to.

We can. So why shouldn’t we?

Why shouldn’t I enjoy cooking lunch? Why shouldn’t I be the perfect housewife today? Complete with my men’s haircut, in tight leggings?

And tomorrow sit with a coffee in my hand, reading a book, while my husband sorts out the laundry? And enjoy it.

I am a woman and I’m proud of it.

And only I get to choose what I will and won’t be. And that can change.

Because feminism is freedom for all women, without exception.

And that’s why I am a feminist. First of all for myself, and then even more for Sofia.

I want my daughter to have even more choice and less pressure than I have. So that she doesn’t have to fight battles with herself, and above all not with others, over what she can and can’t be.