She is an unhappy woman with curlers and spoiled fate. Her environment – pots and pans. Her friends – Malakhov and Juan Carlos from the TV. This is the image of a housewife in the usual sense.
Although work in the office tires, many women will shudder, posing as a perpetual kitchen magnificence, without an office chair, white blouse and heels. In addition, there is an opinion that any intellectual from an endless household is gradually degrading and becoming deeply unhappy.
Is the woman enough at home and family to feel happy, the correspondent of SE explained.
Exemption
Perhaps, seeing the modern women, plowing at work from morning till night, Betty Friedan, one of the brightest leaders of American feminism, would have been pleased. In her book “A Special Gift of a Woman” she claimed that women, sitting at home, lose all interest in life and see nothing except the upbringing of children and a hot dinner. According to Friedan, as well as her other feminist followers, marriage and motherhood are only parts of a woman’s life, not her ultimate goal: “Love, children and home are good, but that’s not the whole world, although most of the words written for women, they say that this is so. ”
Perhaps, in part, thanks to the efforts of feminists, the times of severe house construction have passed. Before the modern woman there were so many opportunities that she joyfully, like a man, began to pursue a career, drink beer in a bar and drive a car. A simple psychological mechanism of restriction works – if a person is deprived of something for a long time and then given freedom, he will start to consume more than he needs.
Hence the distortions and absurd claims of feminists. “Gender psychology has changed. The woman began to be released from the policy that was before, – says psychotherapist, director of the psychological center “Harmony” Nikita Lozin. – But in fact, the foundations still remain. And the woman always was more responsible for internal life, than for external. ”
I want to go home
Recently, those who want to answer exclusively for their inner life have become more. In this case, not all have a bunch of children and a three-story cottage. However, according to the psychologist Alena Berdnik, among modern housewives, there are indeed more women who are well off. But in addition to material well-being, psychological comfort plays a role:
“Women often seek to make a career because a man can not be relied on. When there is a reliable man, I want to be a housewife. ”
As for men, among them there are also those who want to be met at home by a fresh wife, not exhausted by work, and waited for a fresh supper not from the nearest supermarket. “These are the men who have decided and are confident enough,” says Nikita Lozin. “If a man occupies a stable economic position, he seeks what it was before, so that a woman does household chores and he works. ”
Respect for washing
Nevertheless, there will be no enthusiasm about the traditional set of housewives in the form of cleaning-cooking-washing. First, along with those who manage and go to work and prepare dinner, the achievements of the housewife in the form of a washed plate look rather pale, and secondly, female labor even in those times when there was no washing machine was perceived with restrained neglect. “The attitude is the same as it was before – as to some work that is a woman’s responsibility,” continues Nikita Lozin. “And the disregard for this is because the patriarchy is preserved, and women’s labor is usually less valued, including housework. ”
The problem of disrespect for female domestic work exists in families where a woman goes to work, but it is more difficult for a housewife to gain sympathy and understanding, complaining of fatigue after cleaning. According to psychologist Alena Berdnik, women are to blame for this: “From the very first day a woman does not bother to give a man all this to try. Naturally, a man gets used to this state of affairs and does not think that domestic work requires a lot of time and energy. Keeping a house in order is already work. ”
Psychologists even introduced a special term – a housewife syndrome: when a woman falls into despondency from an endless amount of work (utensils will sooner or later mess up, order will sooner or later break), its uniformity and monotony.
However, Nikita Lozin urges women not to exaggerate the scale of the problem and recalls the huge number of men who go to work by eight in the morning and do the same monotonous work: “What is this? It’s a cog! What is the difference between a man and a woman who sits at home? If he is attached to something and does not develop, then he is in the same inner trap as a housewife. ”
Home Dependence
The desire for independence sometimes forces women to choose in favor of work, even in the case of material prosperity. Many fear ritual dances before her husband in an attempt to get money for pantyhose, which does not contribute to the development of self-esteem. According to sociologists, a working woman has great authority in the family, since she has greater economic opportunities than a housewife. Back in the 1960s, the aforementioned Betty Friedan wrote about the feeling of dissatisfaction even among those who always dreamed about the role of the keeper of the hearth.
The average housewife spends 48-70 hours per week on homework, but her work is not paid and she is deprived of recognition and status, which has a woman receiving a salary. According to Nikita Lyozin, there is nothing terrible in financial dependence: “The dependence should be mutual. If a woman performs well the functions of a wife, mother, and a man with her comfortable at home, he also becomes dependent on her. It’s bad when the relationship becomes uneven. ”
Groundhog Day
Home quiet situation, comfortable clothes give birth to a feeling of total relaxation and even laziness. The life of a housewife does not boil, but gurgles quietly like a chicken broth. Given the lack of a life rhythm and drive, such a woman risks becoming passive in the worst sense of the word. A caricature image of a degrading housewife, from which all men flee, is ready – a robe, curlers and remote control from the TV. “When a man and a woman met, she did not sit at home. She studied, worked, engaged in some kind of activity, and aroused the interest of a man in his activity. An interesting person ceases to be, when he ceases to develop, then the attitude towards this person changes, “explains Nikita Lozin. A modern woman has a lot of opportunities to prevent this. But for this you will have to leave your place of violence and go beyond the usual situation. Visagiste courses, seminars on psychology or the study of a tea ceremony – what development will look like depends on a woman’s personal preferences.
In order to develop from the inside, it is necessary to draw something from outside and have external social ties, without them even the most domestic woman withers, loses its tone and feels thrown overboard.
Tired of living the lives of other people and wanted to assert themselves in the outer life? It takes considerable courage to get out of the four walls and become one of the office ladies. Over the long years of social exclusion, it is likely that the communicative skill will be lost. According to Alena Berdnik, many women do not cope, and some do not even try. “If a person has been in other conditions for a long time, adaptation is always difficult. But this is not the biggest problem, the main thing is that it will be difficult for the housewife to decide on this, “confirms Nikita Lozin.
Nevertheless, the active life position does not depend on the location. It is possible to degrade, sitting in an office chair, or to develop by raising children.
