| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 402.1 | DUCK ! INCOMING !! | ARMORY::CHARBONND | Noto, Ergo Sum | Tue Jul 21 1987 12:12 | 1 |
| Look up the word 'husbandry' ;-)/2
|
| 402.2 | re: .1 | ULTRA::ZURKO | UI:Where the rubber meets the road | Tue Jul 21 1987 12:23 | 5 |
| Well, since I'm looking for something that works at a gut level,
not just to people willing to rush to their dictionary, I get the
feeling husbandry ain't gonna make it! :-)
Of course, it's got to work at the dictionary level too!
|
| 402.3 | Person. | NSG008::MILLBRANDT | Think Pantasy | Tue Jul 21 1987 13:40 | 18 |
|
Person.
Every time you create a new label, you create a new division. E.g.:
family woman - you mean the rest of us aren't family women?
hearthperson - someone who's tied to the fireplace? Cinderella!
nurturer - you have to stay home to nurture?
housewife - you married a house?
homemaker - but homes get made without homemakers, too
If you're looking for a word to use, it's so you can classify that
whole group of people in a couple of syllables. But the convenience
of a label eventually captures the people inside it - a new stereotype
is created, or an old one is reaffirmed.
Skip the label.
- Dotsie
|
| 402.4 | Should we ignore that part of [all of] us? | ULTRA::ZURKO | UI:Where the rubber meets the road | Wed Jul 22 1987 11:07 | 7 |
| re: .3
I think you're wrong. I have no way to talk about that skill set.
We never talk about it. It's not valued. It doesn't exist. If labels
make you itchy, I'll settle for a verb or avocation. I can talk
about programming. I can talk about gardening. How do you talk about
taking care of home, making it a good place, making it part of you?
Mez
|
| 402.5 | 6 of us brats, dad on swing shift | ARMORY::CHARBONND | Noto, Ergo Sum | Wed Jul 22 1987 11:29 | 1 |
| At my house we use "Mom" and everyone understands.
|
| 402.6 | Un-useful pedantic aside | WEBSTR::RANDALL | I'm no lady | Wed Jul 22 1987 16:23 | 25 |
|
You can't use this one any more, either, but I thought I'd mention it
anyway...
In the antique days of Old English, ca. 500 a.d., "huswif", which
became "housewife", meant what you want.
"-wif" in Old English was a suffix that meant "one who cares for or
works with [often sells]" something. Thus "fishwife" for one who sells
fish, "alewife" for the person who runs a tavern, "housewife" for the
person who took care of the house. (House, by the way, had heavy
connotations of maintaining the social unit and only incidentally
referred to the building in which the family lived.)
Only as society changed so that the person who took care of the house
was usually female and usually married to the man who owned the house
(the physical entity) did the term "wife" come to mean a married woman
and the term 'housewife' meant what it means to us today.
Incidentally, promoters of the importance of maintaining the household
have been trying to coin new words for household economy since at
least the 1700's. That's how "home economics" came about.
--bonnie
|
| 402.7 | How we treat then -- not what we call them | HUMAN::BURROWS | Jim Burrows | Thu Jul 23 1987 18:59 | 18 |
| I don't think it'll help to find a new word. What I think we
have to do is harder than that. We have to stop putting down and
looking down at housewives and home makers. So far as I can
tell, the modern snobism that home makers and housewives aren't
really working is relatively new. I come from a long line of sea
captains, and it is quite clear that the jobs of their wives who
ran the household and the farm was vital and recognized.
Earning a living outside ofthe home can be very important if you
are to acquire the necessities and goods of life, but raising
children, keeping the household economy, raising and preparing
food and all of the other jobs within the house are also very
important, at least as much so. Let's not worry about what we
call them. Let's work on how we value them. Let's recognize what
our ancestors knew--that not all things of value have a monetary
price or are exchanged for money.
JimB.
|
| 402.8 | Homebody vs 'Hearthkeeper' ? | BETA::EARLY | NEVAH .. NEVer ..say NEVER again :^) ... | Fri Jul 31 1987 12:55 | 11 |
| One word I'm familiar with, which is (was) MORE applicable (in useage)
applied to women, but is non_gender specific is "Homebody".
Such and such a person is quite a homebody. If they are primarily
there to care for the child(ren) then they're also called a "parent"
or a "nurterer" to quote Doonesbury: " Co-nurterer ".
I realize its just an offering, but to me cokeeper of the hearth
sounds like a 'Cinderellan' term.
.bob.
|