Debunking that old feminist lie: My love affair with grocery shopping.
I like grocery shopping.
While some of you may be cringing and the coupon-clipping, the cart-toting, the list-checking, and the standing in line, I must say that I truly, honestly love grocery shopping.
I have been reading and doing a lot of mulling over Peter Pan lately. In this process my well-trained feminism alarm has been going off almost constantly. I've been academically reared to view the types of things Wendy does (and claims to like doing) as disgusting expressions of masculine oppression. Wendy likes darning socks? Who likes darning socks? Read this straight from the book, no edits:
"Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for herself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting double pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on their knees."
Just the fact that she has time (not to mention a favourite time) where she's sewing and darning for other (male) people makes her oppressed, right?
But I have discovered that I genuinely like grocery shopping. Yesterday as I was cleaning the house for company, I turned to my husband to ask for help. Eyes already fluttering shut, he was too, too tired - the epitome of exhaustion - physically wasted, no chance of resusitation. He'd stayed up the night before, writing the wee hours away. He was legitimately sleep-inclined. So I cleaned it myself. Watching him nap contentedly, I discovered, there are times when I like cleaning the house for my husband.
What? This isn't supposed to be! I have a degree, I read books, I write papers, I make discoveries - I'm involved in the public sphere. How can I like adopting a position of domestic servitude to a dominating male figurehead? Perhaps it's that I've been brainwashed by the domestic machine at last. Hallelujiah!
But that's not it.
Darning socks or going grocery shopping or even cleaning the house while your husband takes a nap - none of these things are intrinsically oppressive. What disturbs me about this movement (which is supposedly my own) is the lack of female choice, even in modern-day expressions of feminism. A book of criticism on Peter Pan (peer-reviewed academic articles) came out this year and in the introduction the compiler and editor of this collection disdains Wendy's darning and Mrs. Darling's impeccable domestic charm.
"All of the literal fimale characters [in Peter Pan dream] only of marriage and childrearing... the possibilities for [women] in the story are stifling. Wendy always made me faintly ill with her prim manners and fondness for darning socks... Despite the fact that she is the only genuinely nice character in the entire story, I can say nothing but nasty things about Wendy. She tries not to be selfish, she takes care of other people, she has emotional range. But she trades so much for so little" (8).
What, exactly, does Wendy trade? Indeed, what does any woman trade by embracing domesticity? Feminists sometimes tend to think that domestic life excludes individuality, that there is no room for expression of the self in "dreams of marriage and childrearing." Wendy trades herself - she is simply a domestic utensil to be used by the callous Lost Boys and their heartless masculine head hancho, Peter.
It's true, a full-time housewife is more involved with the nurture and care of others than herself. But hers is not the only profession to embrace this type of service. No one criticizes the doctor for not being individualistic enough. "Poor man - trapped inside his doctor's office. All he does is take care of sick people. Never a thought for himself. Do they even appreciate his efforts?" Or even the social worker or philanthropist: "All she does is distribute medical supplies to needy African children all day long. Doesn't she ever get tired of being other
people's slave? Doesn't she want to expand herself, get beyond such a stifling existence of servitude?"
Granted, life when female servitude was expected was certainly worth getting out of. This series of pictures, if under the context of forced domestic servitude, is both darkly funny and somewhat disturbing:
I can't quite tell what situation this is. It seems to be appetizer, main course, then mid-after-dinner beer (note, a new apron is required, though not a new outfit on her part). I'm guessing she eats at the servant's table in the kitchen, hence, no place setting for her at the 'grownup' table.
But really, we're well past this battle. The fight for working rights is over. If I want a career, I simply have to step out and get one. If I want an advanced degree in anything from the Humantities to the Physical Sciences, I can get one. I can get a job and I can get a job that pays just as well as a man's job pays. If someone harasses me sexually, even in the slightest degree, I will have the full support of the courts. If someone even gives me the slightest guff because of my sex, I could probably sue their house, their boat, their dog, and the shirt off their back. And heck, if I don't want to get married and start a family, society won't even tell me to do that anymore.
But I can't choose to embrace domesticity. Why? Because certain females still, in their backwards, anti-feminist rantings, oppose this model of femininity. I choose to darn, I choose to clean, I choose to grocery shop because it gives me joy. It is a moment of pure creativity - of self-guided artistic expression closely tied to the people who matter to me. So I do, really do, like grocery shopping.
I like wandering the aisles, unrushed and curious. So many possibilities. It must be something like a painter set free in an art supply shop: running their fingertips over those soft, velvety brushes; dazzled by the glittering collection of metallic-bottled hues; pondering grandly the potential of scene and color on rows and rows of empty canvasses, the canvasses growing there with each row -- ever-larger, ever more grand. Kitchen cutlery is my brush collection, onions and peppers are my paints, and empty bellies are my ever-growing canvasses. I get serious emotional payoff from this. Nothing fills me with a sense of self like my domestic creation - and it just so happens that that creation, all that work, is for someone else's benefit. You may say that it is servitude - delightfully self-affirming servitude.
Without this type of self-sacrifice my life would feel thinner than a well-worn trouser knee. As I watched my husband sleep, I thought of how much I would love to nuzzle my face into those soft cushions after an exhausting day and a night of scant sleep. I didn't think of how angry he would be if he woke up and the housework weren't done, or how it was my place to keep things tidy in the house, or even that I should clean the kitchen because I work in it more than he does (in fact, my husband always does the dishes - even after meals he makes for the both of us). I chose to clean because it was a way to express myself. It was affection coming out in round strokes as I wiped down the countertops and sudsied up dishes in the sink. I can't think of a more articulate expression of self: the love that I feel.
To me, embracing domesticity is one of the more real and tangible expressions of myself. My home and my creations there, even if these are nothing more than simple tidying or filling pantries, are me. I chose them, and I am not the less for it.