I have had a busy (for me) week and no time to write several different posts I wanted, so I decided to unite them all in one big miscellaneous post:) Here comes:
One of the things which irks me to no end is how moderns distort the plain meaning of words to suit their feels or to appear more "caring" and politically correct. I'm not alone in this as C.S. Lewis complained about the distortion of the meaning of the word "gentleman" from "someone of a noble birth" to "someone NICE" in Mere Christianity.
The word "housewife" is going the same direction. According to my Longman dictionary from 1992, housewife is a lady who "works at home for her family, cleaning, cooking etc., especially one who does not work outside of home". A housewife could have a (very) small part-time job but she would devote the bulk of her time to staying home and managing her own household. The Biblical equivalent would be "a keeper at home" which in less enlightened times was interpreted as a woman who didn't "gad abroad" but would mind "her own family affairs".
Now there are all sorts of reasons why (married) women choose to work. Her husband may insist on it, they are in debt, the husband is unable to earn a living etc. I'm not trying to criticise anyone. What gets me, is when some of these women, even working full time declare that they are still housewives/keepers at home. Why, I don't call myself a career/working woman, even though I've written a book.
A housewife is an occupation, like a construction worker. The fact that even working women have to do at least some housekeeping, doesn't change it, no matter how they "feel in their heart." I may feel in my heart that I'm the Queen but I doubt people will start calling me "Your Majesty" any time soon. (End of the rant).
Speaking about housework, here is one lady's suggestion on what to wear at home. A 1960 book which I have recommends a sturdy denim/woolen skirt (for summer and winter) for housework, two suits (not pant suits, but those with a blazer and a skirt), at least two woolen dresses, one from silk, two simple and one official summer dress and several blouses/twin sets. Sounds about the same.
Men nowadays often complain that all the women are rabid feminist monsters, not worthy of a wedding ring, and yet, when a woman decides to turn her back on modern life, she can't find a husband! Joanne Frances, an English lady and a fan of all things 1940, ditched computers and washing machines in favour of simple living. She is willing to take care of her husband, bring him tea and do all the housekeeping and yet men run away unable to adjust to having an outside WC and missing sports on TV. We moderns are rather a wimpy bunch:)
While some ladies immerse in WWII realities, I'm going further than that! My interest in history has taken me to Ancient Greece and Rome. Did you know that Romans used to eat dormice, those funny little animals, immortalised by L. Carrol in Alice in Wonderland? One of the later emperors, no doubt, a great lover of nature forbade the practise, but they kept doing it! They also ate a lot of barley, which is one of the world's healthiest foods, and will save you from cancer, diabetes type 2 and heart failure.
Don't believe me? Read for yourself. While I discovered barley flakes and emmer pasta in a health store, I decided to refrain from buying them yet and restricted myself to baking Ancient Greek pancakes for lunch. Yes, Ancient Greeks did eat pancakes, which according to Wiki consisted of wheat flour, olive oil, honey and curdled milk. I created my own recipe, of which I'm very proud. Here is the result:
The list of ingredients:
1/2 c white flour
1/2 c whole wheat + spelt + rye flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
+/-1/2 c jogurt
+/- 1/2 cup water
The batter will be thick.
Yield: in my case, 7.
You are free to recreate it in your kitchen and post the results on your own blog/Facebook, but don't forgive to give credits to yours truly!!!
In other news, the weather is lousy and the cat is getting wild. It's March, after all
Ladies and gentlemen, till the next time!
Modern days are interesting when it comes things "people feel in their hearts". If one has woman's body, but she "feels" she is man, nice doctors cut her and give her hormones to create -not a man, but a mutilated monster.
ReplyDeleteI also read about this Joanne Frances. Rather interesting.
Housewife, nowadays it's all about "muh feels":)
ReplyDeleteThe English are seriously into the vintage lifestyle, some of them. I wonder why?
I didn't know there were people who live vintage life, until I read about this couple couple of months ago:
ReplyDeletehttp://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/meet-washington-couple-lives-victorian-era/story?id=34920909
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/9/9275611/victorian-era-life
It would have never accured to me that people are ALLOWED to do something like this. :) I am sometimes so narrow-minded.
Lifestyle like that sounds so fascinating, but I could never do it. I love my internet too much.
That vox.com essay I linked is really worth reading. Finally I realized why I prefer longer skirts! Here is a long quote from mrs. Chrisham who wrote that essay:
ReplyDelete[quote]"Wearing 19th-century clothes on a daily basis gave us insights into intimate life of the past, things so private and yet so commonplace they were never written down. Features of posture, movement, balance; things as subtle as the way my ankle-length skirts started to act like a cat's whiskers when I wore them every single day. I became so accustomed to the presence and movements of my skirts, they started to send me little signals about my proximity to the objects around myself, and about the winds that rustled their fabric — even the faint wind caused by the passage of a person or animal close by. I never had to analyze these signals, and after a while I stopped even thinking about them much; they became a peripheral sense, a natural part of myself. Gabriel said watching me grow accustomed to Victorian clothes was like seeing me blossom into my true self."[/quote]
Housewife, my browser can't open your link, says "page unavailable." Myself, I've been to England only once so far, but from what I read, there are lots of historical clubs recreating certain epochs. Some of them come to Holland; for instance, once we had Roman days in a historical museum and there was a group of Englishmen representing legionnaires. we also have annual British cars and lifestyle event which we used to attend and they were selling vintage dresses and stuff. I've also seen English books in our town's bookstore on how to dress vintage. Once a year they have a huge event in UK where all these historical reenactors come together, I think it'd be fun to visit it.
ReplyDeleteI like longer skirts, but my husband doesn't plus here they become associated with certain sorts of people. My skirts/dresses are nearly all knee-length, some slightly shorter, some longer, but never all the way to the ground. I detest really short skirts though. Victorian clothes were usually made from heavier fabrics then we use now so they hanged and draped differently.
I think most people who are interested in vintage living are just role players, they do not really live vintage life 24/7, it is only hobby.
ReplyDeleteLink works for me, so I do not know what is wrong with it. But if you Google "I love the Victorian era. So I decided to live in it." That essay in Vox.com will be the first hit.
Thanks, I read it. I guess some folks are just getting tired of modernity. It's true for most reenactors it's just a hobby, but I used to follow some Dutch blogs where people bought 1930s washing machines and drove 1930s cars, so I don't know:)
ReplyDeleteMy sympathies are more on the side of the 1940s lady, though; at least they had a radio and wealthy families enjoyed indoor plumbing. The clothes were more similar to ours, too.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is, progressives will recognize housewifery as an occupation when calling for the government to hand out cheques to women for housework, but only then. IOW, it's okay to recognize it for a wealth redistribution, i.e. cash grab, but not for any other purpose.
ReplyDeleteTypical progs...
It's not only progressives, Will...It's Christians, as well.
ReplyDeleteOf course, like the Gospel Coalition types:
ReplyDeletehttps://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/wintery-knight-and-dalrock-show-how-feminist-i-e-sold-out-to-the-world-the-gospel-coalition-is/
And others:
https://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/supplicating-to-rebellion/
https://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/womens-studies-complementarian-style/
I wonder why he never attacks liberals. Like you know, the churches which have female preachers, elders, everything. Complementarians seem to add some water by the wine but I'm not convinced they are real enemies. Some of his readers weren't convinced, either.
ReplyDeleteGospel Coalition I know nothing about. The church shouldn't be providing day care services anyway. However, there are also many husbands who encourage and even insist their wives work nowadays. It's not an entirely female problem.
ReplyDeleteI also fail to see how Doug Philips, of all men was a female supremacist.
ReplyDeleteDoug Phillips and Doug Wilson and others of their ilk advocate patriarchy, but twist it in such a way as to make men responsible for everything their wives do.
ReplyDeleteDalrock is an evangelical, and so he focuses on his fellow evangelicals (and he also observes the world at large, because we all live in it, and it's helpful to observe it, and see how the trends there affect those in evangelicalism). He ignores the mainlines because he's not within them, and they're obvious anyway, and dying out in numbers, rapidly shrinking compared to evangelicalism, which is still booming. (I'm surmising, but I believe that's why.)
(I mean, I pay far more attention to the infection of evangelicalism by feminism myself, than I do that of the mainlines, and do more posts on the former than the latter, because I find it more significant that even the more conservative churches are becoming infected, but that people aren't always realizing it. So that's why I pay more attention to the goings-on in the evangelical world than in the mainlines, overall. I presume Dalrock has similar motivations.)
ReplyDeleteIn Evangelical community there are plenty of churches with female elders and even preachers, especially among Pentecostals.
ReplyDeleteWithin patriarchal framework men were responsible for their wives' debts and even petty crimes they committed. The same way the captain of the ship is responsible for everything happening on board the ship. I have an idea some "manospherians" believe in authority without responsibility.
Phillips taught rigid sex roles with married women being restricted from working outside home, though they could have a small home business. He taught that unmarried women could venture on some enterprises outside home, but not have authority over men. He didn't believe women should have the right to vote.
According to God's Word, we all died in Adam, though it was Even first ate the apple. I wonder why?
Some manospherians may; not I. But I think it's a category error to confuse responsible in terms of accountability versus responsible in terms of cause; pastors like Doug Wilson fudge the two.
ReplyDeleteAdam with with Eve when she was deceived, and not only didn't stop her, but partook himself. And yes, Adam, as head of the household, is who is focused on in terms of being our representative. But both fell, and original sin was therefore passed on to all of us, descended from both.
Yes, evangelicalism is highly infected with egalitarianism, yet presents itself as less worldly than mainline Protestantism; that's why it must be exposed and focused on in particular. We all know Anglicans, Methodists, mainline Presbyterians, United Church, have atheist, lesbian pastoresses, Wiccans / Buddhists, other filthy heretics / apostates, they're obvious. Evangelicals delude themselves and others, and must be continually exposed.
ReplyDelete(The responses of Gerry and Carnivore here help draw the distinction that Wilson fudges:
ReplyDeletehttps://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/douglas-wilson-sucks/)
I will admit I'm not that much familiar with Doug Wilson. I know he was originally Calvinist but started preaching pedocommunion and was pronounced non-orthodox by other Reformed. His wife used to write about women and I remember she didn't have that much problem with married women working outside home, provided it was part-time. I'm not sure what he is teaching now because I'm not following him.
ReplyDeleteDoug Phillips was a Reformed Baptist and they were a pretty conservative bunch. I don't remember him ever teaching that women were not responsible for their sins, he just taught that since men had the authority in the family and society they were more responsible. I remember they were running articles on their website saying sisters should obey their brothers. Feminists hated him. I'm not sure what's your problem with the man.
I may be misremembering things I read at the Vision Forum website, but there were things there that never say well with me, even if I forget exactly what. I suppose in general, I view him as part of that whole, admittedly diverse, Reformed celebrity scene... And I have had issues with pretty much all of them...
ReplyDelete(Of course, Phillips had other issues, regarding his private life, which have now come to air, and resulted in his excommunication. I feel vindicated; if someone seems slimy, and are later proven to be, one can't help feel that one's suspicions were borne out.)
'sat' not 'say'; also, above, not 'Adam with with', but 'was with'.
ReplyDeleteWell, he posted all sorts of stuff on his website, not only written by him.
ReplyDeleteThe danger of taking pretty young women into your household to work as governesses has been publicised since Victorian times:)
Indeed. Yet people still foolishly do it, and Hollywood celebrities have had the same problems. Twits. :)
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine thinks he was set up but I don't care to get into detail on a public forum. You never know who's been reading it. But I do know someone whose political career was pretty much destroyed because his wife questioned female suffrage on the internet. That's why I say: it's easy to criticise when you are hiding behind internet anonymity, like a certain blogger.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. Online, you can be sure everyone connected is reading it; one of my fellow manosphere bloggers frequently reports on various crimes in California, and he always has to deal with friends / family members upset with him for his comments. :)
ReplyDeleteI've decided to amend my post, removing Doug Phillips' name, to be fair, since I have more beefs with the others, anyway.
ReplyDelete