Ideological housewifery

Housewife. What do you picture when you hear the word housewife? When it comes to myself, I can't help but to imagine a 1950's something 30-year old woman, living in a suburban villa, wearing a dress, heels and apron. At times she's baking cookies, serving dinner or greeting her husband welcome home from work. Other times she's doing the dishes while struggling to keep an eye on a wild 3-year old meanwhile, simultaneously, breastfeeding her baby which sits on her hip. I know for certain that my minds images come from vintage ads on one hand, and modern day, feminist TV-shows like Mad Men on the other.

Do I recognize myself in these stereotypes? Yes and no. Of course, some days - especially now that we have a baby - it can feel like an endless, chaotic chore to try and cook proper dinner meanwhile keeping the kitchen tidy and baby happy, but I wouldn't assume that's because I'm a self-titled housewife, with the ideals of tidyness that follow. No. That would rather have to do with us being first-time parents. Or just parents, period. In fact, I'm less of a housewife now that Helge is on parental leave and we share our homebound chores. I'd also say there are days I think of myself as a modern version of the women from the vintage ads; Happy, well-dressed and loving I take care of our home and cook delicious food for my man. That happiness is my ideal, yet I am fully aware that the happiness portrayed in the pictures were oftentimes hiding a much more complex reality; after all, that's what ads do.

I won't go into detail the reasons why I chose to be a housewife or how I do it in this article, however, I may list the reasons in a later blog-post. I do what I do out of personal reasons. Personal reasons, turning into ideological, political reasons, which are in turn making my lifestyle feel not only rewarding but important on a societal level - hence why I'm intending to instagram and blog about it. I also view my lifestyle through a feminist lens. I'm not a housewife so much as I am a housepartner or homemaker. I'm not a stay-at-home-mom because I'm a woman, but because I'm a parent. I don't belong in the kitchen because of my "differently wired biology and psychology" as a woman. I am a homemaker and a caretaker of my own home, partner and child because that is, what I as an individual, desire. I, a woman, am fulfilling my lifelong dreams. If that isn't feminism I don't know what is. It is outdated, and yet so in tune with our times. When the societal ideals are transformed, and the housework is decided upon by the family - rather than magazines guides on how to be a good wife and housekeeper - homemaking, as I'd like to call it, can be an embodiment of our times ideals on sustainability. It is green, it is socially sustainable, it is financially sane and it can empower family relations.

...I am not alone in thinking so...

When creating my new instagram account and browsing interesting hashtags to follow, the swedish housewife-tag #hemmafru quickly made it's way into my feed. Lately I've been presented with suggestions of swedish homemaking-accounts to follow. To my surprise, though: very few of these seem to have much in common with me. Instead, I've found myself some quite bizarre competition, especially surprising in a swedish context: Christian, conservative, anti-feminist women who to me very much resemble Phyllis Schlafly wield housewifery as a (more or less literally) godsent gift of arranging your resources of time, energy, and personal skills to fit into a "biological" context where women once again are subordinate to men, are led by men, and serve their men for the welfare of the family. I already knew being a homemaker in 2020´s Sweden would be a struggle against current feminist ideology and capitalist ideals. However, I never would have imagined my could-have-been-allies - to be the ideological enemies they are. Fought against from both sides, I shall keep my enemies close, continue to understand their thinking, and as my fight to show that homemaking is a progressive and gender-neutral lifestyle at its core continues - prove that this lifestyle is what you make of it.