Little House on the Yuppie Prairie

Published on Monday, March 15, 2010, by Lessley Anderson / Edit Post

A story in Sunday's New York Times Magazine called out the trend of upper middle class stay-at-home moms in Berkeley and Oakland raising chickens and growing gardens. Writer Peggy Orenstein dubs it "femivorism," opining that growing crops and producing eggs relieves the "malaise ... [of] middle-class housewives trapped in a life of schlepping and shopping." Goin' back to the land gives them a purpose and makes them feel less depressed about quitting their jobs and having no life outside of the kids.

These were jobs that were, of course, traditionally women's work. And for some reason I feel an inward shudder at the idea of my sex turning back the clock. On the other hand, raising chickens is great, and the kids probably will appreciate growing up around nature. It's gotta be better than taking your kid to a Mommy & Me Mani. Are there any other readers out here, though, that feel slightly queasy at the idea of femivorism?

Image source: Tom Sicurella, CHOW.com

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  • i'll share a story from an elderly neighbor i helped care for towards the end of her life. she was a tough-as-nails farm wife (somewhat different from a housewife ;-)) who saw age 97 with an aspirin a day. her mother and later she herself stored the butter to be sold in a locked box in the spring. kept the raiding children from getting to it.

    many projects were funded with "egg-and-butter"...+READ

    i'll share a story from an elderly neighbor i helped care for towards the end of her life. she was a tough-as-nails farm wife (somewhat different from a housewife ;-)) who saw age 97 with an aspirin a day. her mother and later she herself stored the butter to be sold in a locked box in the spring. kept the raiding children from getting to it.

    many projects were funded with "egg-and-butter" money. one of my faves was the purchase of a set of fancy buttons. the women who went in on it shared them and they were moved from dress to dress as required.

    these were the same women who crochetted on the walk to church to be doing something "useful" with the time. they never said they didn't work. only wanted to know if you worked in or out of the home.-COLLAPSE

  • Couldn't agree more. Caring for kids, home, family, that is the realest job I can imagine, and one of the most important too.

  • cool! there's lots to be excited about. putting beautiful, fresh, nutritious food on the table is a wonderful high as well as a labor of love. i'm much happier when it's not something to be sneered at as being a pale substitute to having a "real" job.

  • I see your point! I hadn't been reading in that light because I'm so enthused about the subject matter.

  • i find terms such as "malaise," "trapped in a life of schlepping," "gives them a purpose," "feel less depressed," "having no life outside." sounds unfortunately judgmental to me. i think ms. orenstein does not approve of the women she's writing about.

  • I'm not seeing the judgment that you are, appycamper. In fact, I thought Orenstein's piece was rather nice and supportive. I do wish she'd connected the modern movement to the traditionally feminine farm occupation of caring for the chickens and selling extra eggs.

  • I certainly feel uneasy with the term 'femivorism,' but certainly not the movement. Lose the dumb moniker and take the trend for the positives: people are reconnecting with their food, and eschewing the mass-produced and dreck that's marketed as 'food.' A chicken by any other name will still lay fresh eggs.

  • could this be any more judgmental and condescending? i've described myself for years as a "feminist living a traditional lifestyle." i've worked outside the home for many years, often two jobs at a time. i much prefer spending time with lovely hens and tending a garden to surviving a recycled-air, politics-dense, underpaid office environment.

    i'm pretty sure there are others of our sex who...+READ

    could this be any more judgmental and condescending? i've described myself for years as a "feminist living a traditional lifestyle." i've worked outside the home for many years, often two jobs at a time. i much prefer spending time with lovely hens and tending a garden to surviving a recycled-air, politics-dense, underpaid office environment.

    i'm pretty sure there are others of our sex who don't feel marginalized, purposeless, depressed or lacking a sense of selfworth with or without children at home. really, i have to ask, was the point of feminism to put us all in a new paradigm of lockstep of workplace ambition and obedience? yuck.-COLLAPSE

  • Do what makes you happy and don't worry about the labels. If I had space and a city code that permitted, I'd raise chickens, too.

  • Not really, no, because "women's work" wasn't looked down on the way it is today. It was "women's work" because -- as opposed to spending the day plowing the back 40 -- it could be combined with other tasks in and around the house, not because it was unimportant. In fact, "women's work" was a critical component of the family business that was essentially what a family farm was. It was often the...+READ

    Not really, no, because "women's work" wasn't looked down on the way it is today. It was "women's work" because -- as opposed to spending the day plowing the back 40 -- it could be combined with other tasks in and around the house, not because it was unimportant. In fact, "women's work" was a critical component of the family business that was essentially what a family farm was. It was often the only source of cash, especially during the time between planting and harvest. It was only after much of the work women did became less labor intensive and/or was replaced by machinery, or simply became obsolete due to urban/suburbanization that "women's work" became devalued.

    Finally, I don't think it's feminist at all to let someone else's labels affect the choices women make.-COLLAPSE