Why do the NYTimes, BBC and CNN love to look at the results of small studies or interviews with 4 wealthy white women and call them trends? Remember all the articles about how the trend was that more and more highly educated women were "opting" to stay home when they had kids? Now CNN is reporting that it's a growing trend for childless wives to stay home. The only research cited to justify this assertion are the following statements (by men, I might point out):
"Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of 'The Secrets of Happily Married Women,' says stay-at-home wives constitute a growing niche... While his research is ongoing, he estimates that more than 10 percent of the 650 women he's interviewed who choose to stay home are childless.
Daniel Buccino, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine clinical social worker and psychotherapist, says stay-at-home wives are the latest 'status symbols.'"
Great, just what women always wanted to be, status symbols. I can't believe this justifies an article. If they had at least cited real studies and/or real trends. Especially in this economy, how many people can really afford to choose to stay home?
Okay, I keep writing and deleting additional thoughts on this but I don't want to make the post too long so I guess I'll end saying I think this article is silly and, look out, this trend is coming for you! (haha) Your thoughts?
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Stat-at-home wives without children - a growing trend?.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/8406
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
I saw this article, too, and got really frustrated. 10% of 650 women he happened to interview does not make a trend. It's just another way to show feminism is dying and allow people to comment on it's death.
It is also like many of the articles I have seen on cnn where they post a request for interviews ("are you a mom drinking caffiene to survive the day? We want to interview you!") and then pretend this is all that is necessary to support their argument. Which, by the way, is like tracking the women who announced their weddings in the NY paper, finding that many of them are stay at home moms, then saying this is a huge trend (yes, Linda Hirshman, I'm talking to you). Highly selective, highly biased, highly divisive, and not at all useful.
Oy vey. 10% of 650 women is not a trend. The good "doctor" needs to get a bigger sample.
I agree, doesn't seem like a "trend" but a small sample of people out of a large population that probably mostly consists of the wealthy. Especially since it's a "status symbol".
Like many things, the media labels stuff as a trend even though it is really only a small group. Pregnancy pacts, rainbow parties...
Hmmm...I wonder if I would count? I'm highly educated, married, my assistantship just wrapped up as I'm about to graduate from grad school, so I'm unemployed, married...I guess I've been job searching all week so it's not like I'm trying to be a stay-at-home.
And I'm not so good with the housekeeping, since I've been home the last 2 weeks (looking for a job) the apt has become more cluttered (as my partner pointed out).
Now I'm rambling...
I love that there's no analysis of the current state of the U.S. economy, and how it has impacted women in the workforce (who are already busting their asses trying to balance work/family).
So many of these pieces on the so-called "Opt-out revolution" imply that women become housewives because it's so much more fulfilling to take care of hubby's physical, emotional, and social needs without the distraction of paid employment outside the home.
When in reality, a lot of women are FORCED (by patriarchal social norms, inflexible employers, and a bad job market) to make the "choice" to leave the workforce when they'd rather not.
The only evidence for this "trend" is Dr. Scott Haltzman's book, which encourages women to quit trying to be men's equals because it's more satisfying to be an unpaid personal assistant anyway. Blech.
Real nice that housewives have become just another status symbol for high-earning men, though, right?
My first reaction was to ask what they do all day?? Children are time consuming. However, they lack those. I just graduated from college too and looking for a job as well. I started getting bored within the second week.
I hate these articles. I think they give a wrong impression to the general public who actually swallows this. So yeah, I think its annoying.
Hmm so if I got married I could continue to stay at home all day being 'lazy' (uni holidays and health problems mean I'm not working) and I'd be magically not 'lazy' but 'stay at home'...
I'd die of boredom. I'm dying of boredom enough as it is and I have cable tv...