Earlier this week I was tickled to notice that the Daily Mail was running a poll asking whether or not you can be both a housewife and a feminist.
The poll happened to be part of a feature entitled: ‘How the latest generation of graduates are choosing motherhood over full-time careers’. In an instant, I saw this had ‘Daily Mail Classic’ written all over it.
It actually gives out a lot of unexpectedly mixed messages from the start. On one hand we've got the statistic pointing out that most women who return to work after having children do so because they need the money and it's also noted that some of these women would actually prefer to stay at home - they just don't have that luxury. Could it be that the Mail is touching on class privilege?
At one point someone from a Westminster think tank is quoted, talking about the fact that feminism shouldn't be defined purely in terms of the workplace. You're almost thinking you could be about to read a sensible article.
But scroll down and it’s not long before you'll see the Mail's obsession with ‘not being able to have it all’ creeping in. You'll read several smug paragraphs of ‘my-life-is-fabulous’ musings from women who gave up ‘high-flying careers’ when they had children.
They talk about how this means - horrors - holidaying in the UK and living in small houses, as if the idea that you can be content without being wealthy is a new one. The act of not buying designer clothes and only eating out once a month is portrayed as shockingly sacrificial, which of course is classic Daily Mail - the myth of a world in which the average middle class family ‘gets by’ on a mere £150,000 a year.
The women extol the joys of taking their children to the park while being able to have dinner on the table when their husbands get home from work - all the time justifying their choices like mad. In case you hadn’t got the message, the Mail has shot them all wearing floral dresses and heels, brandishing feather dusters and doing the dishes.
People patronise them at dinner parties! Feminists bristle at their decision to be there for their kids! They get treated with pity and are considered to be letting the sisterhood down! But do they really? I think I say this a lot but I've always been hard-pressed to find women who hate stay-at-home mothers.
One of the women interviewed says:
“I know it makes me sound like a Fifties housewife, but I love my life. I want to see my children's first steps, hear their first words, and be there to take them to school and pick them up.”
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm not really understanding what's so ‘Fifties housewife’ about wanting to see the development of your children first-hand.
By the end of the piece we're left with the usual sentiments: women, you CAN'T ‘have it all’. Don't even bother trying. Look how content these women are. Look how idyllic their lives are. Look how their husbands love them being at home.
You have two choices: carry on working and be a bad wife and mother who will never serve afternoon tea on a Cath Kidston tablecloth. Alternatively, give birth young, quit your job, ‘betray feminism’ and achieve fulfilment and purpose in life.
No matter how much it talks about ‘choice’ and about all women being different, the message is clear. The right sort of woman (graduate, professional husband, comfortably off) should be spearheading an exodus from the workplace in order to safeguard future generations.
Now of course there's another agenda here which is highlighted further in the Mail's Thursday edition. Yes, the latest health scare to hit the tabloids involves the fact that some studies have shown a link between older mothers and breast cancer, complete with cautionary tales highlighting the dangers of ‘delaying’ motherhood in order to focus on your career.
Despite the fact there are obviously many more factors involved and the debate over causes is a complex one, it’s another opportunity to heap blame for this ‘disturbing trend’ on women who don’t have children. Not only are they being selfish and unnatural, they’re also giving themselves cancer.
Just in case you don’t already feel guilty enough, the story takes the opportunity to discuss links between breast cancer and weight, alcohol consumption and lack of exercise as well. In other words, we can’t win.
The message seems to be that we should all make sure we’ve popped out at least one baby by our mid-twenties just to be on the safe side. Unless we’re teenagers or single or taking advantage of the welfare state, that is.
So get to it – what are you waiting for? Just make sure you’re planning to quit your job as well and you too could become an acceptable specimen of womanhood.
Image via X Ray Delta One's Flickr.