This post by Leslie Bennetts at Huffington Post about how the cult of female dependence is only going to get more dangerous for women in an economic downturn is just fascinating. I admire Bennetts for writing her book The Feminine Mistake, which is about the financial pitfalls and dangers of allowing yourself to become dependent by choice on a man, no matter how upstanding a guy he is. This isn’t a popular thing to say. You’re stomping on the image of the happy homemaker, which is near and dear to the conservative heart, but you’re also going to find hostility from feminists, who are afraid to violate the tenets of choice by suggesting that some choices have more pitfalls than others. Or there’s even just a fear that it sends the wrong message, like, “Housewives can’t be feminists,” which isn’t true. So, when this book came out, I feared Bennetts was going to get it coming and going, but I think feminists have mostly left her alone because she presents her information as just that---information to take into account before you make a choice to be dependent on a man. It’s true enough that people that are empowered with good information are less likely to make certain choices (god knows good information has reduced the teenage birth rate considerably), and saying so doesn’t constitute an assault on the right to make choices.
But what her post reveals is that anti-feminists find the almost obvious point that it’s generally better to have your own income stream than not extremely threatening. Megan Basham, who has written a book telling women to quit their jobs and dedicate their lives to making their husbands more successful, has trotted out the usual slanders about feminists and how they only want women to protect themselves because they’re too ugly/bitter/bitchy to get some man to care to take care of them, and of course contrasting young women who are so adorable and fuckable and totally believe that men will always be a reliable source of financial support, and old hags who are bitter. As a youngish woman, I’m offended at this characterization, and side with the raggedy old crones who think that it’s probably wise to put your energies into bolstering your own life, and treat men, whether permanent fixtures in your life or just coming and going, as equals and companions, and I’m really offended at the idea that having no wrinkles or gray hair yet means that you’re stoked to make your husband your job while he makes his job his job.
I found this revealing: