The cv or the nursery
Today I sat down to work on a job application.
Feedback from my mentors said that I simply must rework my cv. Of course, as I worked on inserting formal citations for my publications, I decided that the nursery needed urgent attention. Do not rush to judge this as mere escapism: the nursery has needed urgent attention for, - well, longer than I care to admit.
But in this world of ours, somehow, for the majority of the population, the creation of a pleasant home has become a womanly endeavor. A dirty or untidy home reflects on a woman (the “housewife”) and not on the husband, no matter who may have contributed to its appearance. So tidying homes, cooking tasty dishes, organizing homes, replacing furniture, planning spaces, and throwing parties is for women.
I have generally observed that men engage in discrete tasks - do that diaper, do the trash, chop those onions. Happily, there is enough of a time gap between their tasks as to enable them to forget exactly how to chop those onions and exactly where the baby tylenol is: so she tends to do it herself instead of explaining the entire task over and over each time.
Men tend to take pieces of the Household System. Men tend to do Chores. Women tend to “take care of the house.” (And if you know a man that is an exception, please list his name, marital status, sexual orientation, and address for my single friends.) Now, let it be noted that this blog post appears thanks to Svend’s willingness to watch Raihana this evening. But for the overall picture, Pierre Bourdieu notes that hunter-gatherer men go out and do the Big Task - chop down the firewood or kill the animal. Women labor all day long in unrecognized, small, endless tasks.
This is why household work is unpaid and unrecognized. It also fades into women’s self-hood, so that when a woman goes out to shop for a new frying pan, “she’s shopping” as if “she’s sunning herself.” When she cooks a fancy dessert, it’s as if she’s lying on the divan and eating bon-bons. If you disagree with this picture and have evidence to the contrary, again, please list the man AND woman responsible for creating an alternative setup so I can recognize them here.
When a woman spends a few hours cleaning up, she only has spiritual and emotional satisfaction that she has contributed to the well-being of her family. She doesn’t have a cent in her pocket to show for this labor, day after day; and if she is divorced, she was “not working” so she easily ends up destitute. A woman’s self-hood fades easily into Others. A woman caring for her home is not doing much: it’s as if she is caring for herself. A woman caring for her child is a mother-and-child, and you can be annoyed with her presence in a nice cafe. A man caring for his child is a) a Man with b) a child.
In Pakistan, on a crowded domestic flight this summer, I struggled to hold on to Raihana in the cramped seat we shared. I briefly griped about how difficult it was to the educated and suave gentleman sitting next to me. “It’s women’s instinct,” he said.
Here in the US, about a year ago, I was working on a lecture in Jittery Joe’s Cafe in Athens, GA. Svend was watching Raihana outside the cafe. A young woman opened the door and congratulated me on my man: “I must say you’ve trained him well,” she said. I half-chuckled, and said, “I guess he’s okay.” The woman puffed up with outrage and said, almost pink in the face, “He’s OKAY?” as if to say, “well, then, push off and hand him over, hussy, if you aint gonna be grateful for the man, ‘cause I sure could use him.”
Yes, the bar is low.
I digress.
So I set aside the cv and I hurried off to the nursery. I called maintenance and asked them to fix the nursery window because the nursery needs fresh air, urgently, TODAY. I then vacuumed the nursery and picked up all the stray bits of paper, tissue, lids, caps, crayons, pens, etc etc that seem to reproduce around a toddler. Halfway into vacuuming, I decided that two years was enough, and the ceiling fan simply must be dusted. The window sill and the rocking chair could use some dusting too.
Then I decided that the chest and crib needed to be moved to the corners so that the sunny space could be used for reading. I moved a shelving unit from my room (where it was elbowing me as I tried to type) and stacked all the books neatly in its three shelves. I pushed the basket of stray toys into the corner to minimize child interest in it. I reorganized all the organizing bins along the wall - musical toys, vehicles, puzzles - all in their own bins. Of course the baby’s comforter smelled mysteriously of rotten milk, so that had to be laundered as well.
I had not finished lining up the organizing bins when the door opened and I heard baby-talk. Svend had actually brought Raihana home EARLY from school.
Raihana strode into the nursery and surveyed the strange scene before her. She babbled in surprise, delight and fear, and started pulling out toys and bringing them out to the kitchen again.
I’m back to my cv.
But before I do the cv, I must reconnect with myself via a blog post, to examine the status quo.
It would be better to content oneself with doing Tasks and Chores than with taking care of a System.
