Freegans, Radical Homemaking, Etsy, Chicks with Chicks, Farmer-Chic, Food Rules — there is definitely a counter-culture forming partly out of necessity (economic downturn and unemployment) and out of politics. It's all about consuming less, homemade, and frugality.
There's been some resistance to this trend from feminists who say that making your own food and your own aprons out of doilies is very charming, but it is incredibly time-consuming and it places unreasonable burdens on women. You can't put in a 80 hour week on Wall Street and then come home to knead your own bread using your own starter.
In today's Salon, Madeline Holler writes about how she's a radical homemaking failure. She became a radical homemaker accidentally. Her husband gave up a high paying job to get a PhD and become a college professor. She really misses her stuff and didn't really like growing her own basil.
Hayes has an answer for my reluctance: Radicalizing one's homemaking
is a process. First, you renounce (Satan's not the boss of me! Fuck
Crate and Barrel), then you reclaim (you learn how to can). Finally,
you rebuild, which means convincing others to radicalize, too. No one
gets there overnight. Or, in my case, ever. I'm sure I'm not the only
one.Like a majority of Americans, I'll always
prefer direct deposit to getting paid in chicken eggs. I'm comfortable
with the smile-and-wave relationships I have with most of my neighbors.
While I share the Radical Homemakers' family, environmental and social
justice values, the way they propose bringing about change requires too
much of the kind of work I frankly don't want to do. I'm fine giving up
stuff. But I can't imagine spending afternoons rendering fat and
lacto-fermenting cucumbers. That would be too much like shoveling
rocks, even if it wasn't for Satan.
While I sympathize with Holler about seeing the drudgery in radical homemaking, I couldn't help getting a little bent out of joint. When we were writing our dissertations and raising Jonah, we lived on much less money than she did and we did it in Manhattan. She complains about renting homes near pit bulls, and I know all about pit bulls. She complains about driving a '97 car, which is what I drive. So, no whining for you, lady!
I suppose there is a difference between taking on a anti-materialism lifestyle out of choice and politics, rather than having it imposed on you because of circumstances. Holler tried to disguise her poverty with an ideology, but it didn't work.
Apt. 11d 
I think she’s committing the Hirschman sin (mind you, I haven’t read the article yet, so I’m just relying on my interpretation of your hearsay). She’s imagining that work she finds unsatisfying is unsatisfying to everyone else.
I know I like getting paid with direct deposit, and that I wouldn’t like peddling chicken eggs. But after a real reluctance to selling girl scout cookies, I’ve recognized the social good that walking door to door among your neighbors provides, to those who are willing to do it. I can see that someone else might like the relationships that would build, by, for example, trading your chicken eggs for someone else’s sweater.
I think the argument that such lifestyles are anything but another form consumerism of the privileged is silly, though. They should be chosen by people who like to knead bread rather than some other activity, not because the kneading of bread will save society.
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I’m vaguely interesting in getting the bread machine going again. Whole Foods wants $5 for a load of bread, the rat****ers.
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They also insist on calling it a “loaf of bread.”
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I bet a fair number of the “new hippies” own SUVs. My hippiest neighbors have an old SUV (their only vehicle) that hauls around their four kids, their kayaks, their bikes, and a trailer, as well as providing transportation for frequent camping trips. From looking at a friend’s blog, I see that another crunchy, outdoorsy family with four kids has just gotten an SUV.
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I love our 15 year old SUV. The new ones have either gotten huge or started to look like minivans with a ‘roid problem. I’m thinking of getting it repainted and calling it part of my effort to reduce consumption. Of course, any actual effort to reduce consumption would probably involve selling that SUV and managing with the other SUV.
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I drive a ’97 Camry and before that drove a ’91 Nissan for years. So there! I also cook a lot from scratch and live frugally as I can, because I am out of work and hunting for a job. I don’t think of it as “radical homemaking,” but rather “survival.”
Big “however:” I don’t know this firsthand, because I don’t run in the “radical homemaker” circles, but what are the men doing to simplify their lifestyles? It’s all well and good if the whole family is frugal, but I’d hate to see a return to the days when it was common for Mom and kids to wear hand-me-downs or homemade and Dad got to wear bespoke suits (like in Haven Kimmel’s “Zippy.”) or drive the car or take the long shower or whatever. Not to go all Linda Hirshman (gawd, she annoys me) but it’s always Mom does this, Mom does that – what does Dad do on the frugal front?
Laura, I’m assuming Steve was right there with you on the frugality thing. That’s as it should be, and when both spouses are “radical homemakers,” I don’t have a problem with it.
And pitbulls. I remember when I lived in Oakland the Animal Control people were so swamped with the pitbull messes that if you called them about ANYTHING else they’d blow you right off. At least where I live now, I can live the frugal lifestyle and still get city services because the town as a whole isn’t low-income and the cops, etc. aren’t in perpetual crisis mode. So I can call about my car being broken into and not get laughed at and told we have bigger fish to fry.
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1. Most “new hippies” middle class people I know who do some of these things have a much bigger carbon footprint than I do. These “radical homemaking” things seem more like a form of penance — “Forgive me, for I have sinned, I flew first class to Colorado for a ski vacation.” “Do ten Hail Marys and raise a free range chicken in the backyard for the eggs, and all will be forgiven.”
2. I’m pretty suspicious about feminist backlash. Is is a real thing, or just a few “controversial” women with columns? To the extent they have a point, it is that we only hear about women doing the radical homemaking. Unlike smoking (“You’ve come a long way, baby!”), the problem isn’t the thing itself, but the uneven distribution of it.
3. Girl scout cookies rock.
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It’s all about consuming less, homemade, and frugality and getting written up in the New York Times.
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snort. Totally, Doug.
We were never frugal out of ideology really. We were frugal, because of necessity. Even now, we drive a crappy old car, because we have to make up for the fact that we didn’t have a 401K plan until our mid-30s. Yeah, Steve is more frugal than I am. I had to drag him to the GAP to replace his crappy t-shirts last weekend.
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One of the more interesting aspects of our current world is that you can get a positve write-up in the NYT and End Times Quarterly for basically the same behavior.
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Steve is more frugal than I am. I had to drag him to the GAP to replace his crappy t-shirts last weekend.
I think there’s a difference between being frugal and lazy, or between being frugal and knowing that you don’t care so much about the shirt, you won’t get much pleasure out of a new one, and that going to the store will be unpleasant. (This later bit can even be wasteful, if you don’t spend on something you need because you’ll find it unpleasant to do so, but will pay more later.)
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I think there’s a difference between being frugal and lazy
Ietquea in rontfa of the iveswa.
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“Not to go all Linda Hirshman (gawd, she annoys me) but it’s always Mom does this, Mom does that – what does Dad do on the frugal front?”
Actually, on the personal finance/frugality blogs, men are rather prominent. I’ve posted this before, but this guy has a lot of guy stuff on his two-minute video that explains how he paid off his mortgage in 8 years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jJC0VWF3ao
“One of the more interesting aspects of our current world is that you can get a positve write-up in the NYT and End Times Quarterly for basically the same behavior.”
Thumbs up, MH!
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Huh. I always thought the feminist objection to the “radical homemaker” movement was all about the breathtaking level of vulnerability inherent in giving up an income.
That, and what Ragtime said—it takes a helluva lot of money to live the neo-“voluntary simplicity” life. Who is paying for that $170,000 addition on that farmhouse referenced in the article? The forty-some-grand income quoted must be net income from the farm after expenses are paid—the profit, not the total.
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