From White to Other Shades of Existence

White women feel often that they are unfairly criticized for staying home to take care of the home and their children. Mothering is honorable and homemaking is equally important, they tell us. And so they are - if you can afford them. 

And it is here where the discussion becomes an argument, and feelings begin to run sky high. Homemaking is a choice, something women choose to do, white women insist. But what about single mothers, widows, women whose husbands are disabled? What choices do they have?

But let's dig a bit deeper. What choice did black women living in the South in the 1950s have? As maids they raised the children of white women while their own children were taken care by others, until they were old enough to become maids themselves - if they were girls. Where was the honor of mothering and the importance of homemaking in Birmingham, Alabama?

But why don't we go a bit further, and consider the choices black slaves had in 19th century America. While white women sipped tea in the afternoon, their black sisters toiled in the fields, or served their white owners as servants and maids. And while the children of the white women were cared for by the black slaves, who took care of the children fathered by the white masters who considered the bodies of their black slaves their rightful property? Where was the honor of mothering and the importance of homemaking in Virginia or Texas?

Sojourner Truth put it succinctly:

"That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?"

The white woman's homemaking in the Antebellum South was made possible by the black woman's work, just as the modern white woman's homemaking is made possible by the labor of poor women all around the world. Our First World men make enough money to support their homemaking wives because we collectively exploit the labor of the poor around the world. I suspect that if our women had to get by with 250 dollars/month, we would hear less of, "It is a choice," and more of, "I don't know how to do this," which is what a large portion of the world's women say while they watch their children starve, and their futures vanish before their eyes. 

This is what poverties.org has to say about the subject:

"The feminization of poverty – i.e. the growing number of women in poverty – has been ongoing for the past four decades. What is it? The phrase means that there is a growing proportion of women in the world who suffer from poverty and that poverty is becoming a problem that affects more women than men. This makes sense when you consider social and  cultural biases against women in many developing (and developed) countries. Quite often, women aren’t allowed any possessions, not to mention land or a business. Many are denied education as girls, since a majority of parents worldwide prefer investing in their boys. As a result, they’re even more affected by unemployment than men because their lack basic and advanced skills, which leaves them even more at risk of poverty. In rich countries, the feminization of poverty works in different ways – due to the growing problem of discrimination against single mothers who have to work and raise their children on their own." (Read the whole article here)

Where homemaking is mandated by culture or religion, women have few, or no options, to escape poverty. Without education, they often cannot find suitable work. With no, or limited, access to birth control, women are unable to plan their lives, which means they cannot control where the money comes from, or if it comes at all, while the crushing demands of the world around them require that they find a way to feed themselves and their children.

What can be done to stop the madness? First of all we must realize that black and brown women are women too, just like Sojourner Truth said. If we insist that all women should have the right to choose to be homemakers, we should make sure all women have access to that choice. By educating girls and insisting they stay in school, we can create a generation of women who can make the choices they need for themselves and their children. White women take this for granted, why shouldn't all women?