The Housewife Theory of History by Rebecca Solnit




“This might be the secret of the housewife theory of history: These women take the qualities that are supposed to render them irrelevant and use them defiantly as well as strategically. Starting with what they love, they cut straight through the quicksand of motives and purposes to point out that harm has been done and should be stopped. In some sense, they depoliticize politics, which is what makes them so politically potent . . . . She fights not for revenge, but for rights . . . . The community she develops generates organizations, legislation, laws, education, and awareness . . . . The unsung builders of those associations make a shift from the personal and local to the national and the principle, which becomes the only way to continue taking care . . . . the EPA, the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Education for All Act, that’s a radically different landscape than we might have occupied had these activists not stood up for themselves and their clan.”

“We are governed mostly by elite men, quite a lot of them seemingly dead, and everything in our culture encourages us to regard these rulers not just as the central but the sole source of power. But history is changed again and again by people who are supposedly powerless, including the women veiled by the dismissive moniker housewife . . . . The Greek word oikos, meaning house, is the root of the word ecologist, which could be defined as, among other things, housewife.”

Read the full article at Orion Magazine

Keywords : women, mothers, housewifes, family, community, social movement, activism, social change, history
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“The Greek word oikos, meaning house, is the root of the word ecologist, which could be defined as, among other things, housewife.”

“We are governed mostly by elite men, quite a lot of them seemingly dead, and everything in our culture encourages us to regard these rulers not just as the central but the sole source of power. But history is changed again and again by people who are supposedly powerless, including the women veiled by the dismissive moniker housewife.”

“This might be the secret of the housewife theory of history: These women take the qualities that are supposed to render them irrelevant and use them defiantly as well as strategically. Starting with what they love, they cut straight through the quicksand of motives and purposes to point out that harm has been done and should be stopped. In some sense, they depoliticize politics, which is what makes them so politically potent.”

“. . . . the EPA, the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Education for All Act. That’s a radically different landscape than we might have occupied had these activists not stood up for themselves and their clan.”

“. . . . the housewife-become-activist shifts from defending her own tribe to defending the principle that everyone should be free from fallout or dioxin, that everyone should have an education or know the truth about what the government is doing. She fights not for revenge, but for rights. The community she develops generates organizations, legislation, laws, education, and awareness. It’s a saga of expanding connections, while the killer heroes in the movies remain strikingly isolated. One of the problems for unions and organizers in America is that our dominant stories about how the world gets changed feature lone heroes, not collectives and associations. The unsung builders of those associations make a shift from the personal and local to the national and the principle, which becomes the only way to continue taking care.”

[tags]feminism, housewife, women, love, social change, activism, history, politics[/tags]


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