How wrong can a man be about womens work? Hugely

[intaglio]

Today I came across a rant by a "gentleman" called Gavin McInnes. I will add very little more about his rant as a better review of his ideas can be had at P Z Myers' "Pharyngula" and Jennifer A. (Kedzie) Raff's "Violent Metaphors; however one thing he did insist upon was that throughout history men have been the breadwinners and feminism is destroying this. This I find hugely offensive.

Personally my mother and maternal grandmother were for large periods of their lives the breadwinners but also even a cursory look into the history shows how plain ignorant is this idea that women are only suited to be homemakers in contrast to men (grunt-grunt-rahr). Below I list just a few of the general and specific counter examples that came to me.

Bal maidens and women workers at other types of mine.
Fish wives, who baited the hooks, packed the fish and carried laden baskets to market.
Woman who pulled a plough because the family mule had died.
Women bent double reaping the grain with a mediaeval reaping hook.
Spinners hoisting a mass of wet linen fibre up on a distaff.
The female shepherdesses (see below for Jake Thackray's unromantic take on this).
The gladiatrices of the Roman Empire.
Sarah Guppy.
Tabitha Babbit.
Louisa Courtauld.
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.
Stephanie Kwolek.

Feel free to add your own.

[raging moderate]

1. My mother raised four children mostly on her own.

My mother worked as a stenographer, then as a secretary for a small company, then as a legal secretary. She was working full-time, with only a brief respite here and there, until 7 weeks before she died of pancreatic cancer. My father was a mentally unstable intermittently violent alcoholic who gave her little support once the children were born. I am grateful to her for getting that final divorce when I was 8 and my little brother was 6.

My mother's mother worked first as a schoolteacher, then as an independent piano teacher to supplement the family finances. She also worked as the sales department for my artist grandfather, taking his artwork around to various publishers and advertising agencies. He suffered from asthma and intermittent agoraphobia.

My grandmother's mother was an active Methodist Episcopal minister's wife, doing much of the organization for the music ministry, Sunday School, sociable meetings, and social justice programs. She also did much of the kitchen gardening and raised chickens to gradually buy them a set of china.

My grandfather's mother was an active farmwife, also doing much of the gardening and animal care.

My father's mother was one of the first women secretaries at the Armory in Rock Island, Illinois.

[redqueen]

2. Saw this linked in a comment at Pharyngula

Looks interesting

The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap
http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/0465090974

[mercuryblues]

3. My

Mother had always worked. With 5 kids at home. Funny thing is, she had 4 kids in 10 years before 1963. Her mother was a nurse and midwife, with 6 kids, a garden, farm animals, picked potatoes among a few of her contributions to the household. Her hubby worked on the railroad and did some logging.

My husband's great-grandmother would grab her shotgun and go hunting for dinner, come home skin it, gut it and fry it up in a pan. His grandmother worked her whole life to support her family, while her drunken, wife beating husband was busy pretending to be a carefree single man.[ Yeah, he had a job, but the money was scarce.]

None of them had time to pretend to be anything.

[Squinch]

4. I think we need a category called, "things some guys say about women that are simply too stupid

to warrant any attention." And we need to tell them when they have won the award from that category.

Honestly, the stuff that comes out of the mouths and pens of some of these guys. You'd think they would have the grace to be at least a little embarrassed.

[ismnotwasm]

5. I was thinking along those lines

What an elitist shit.

[Squinch]

6. Though I suppose giving them a category is giving them attention. It's a conundrum.

[ismnotwasm]

7. HeH!