Friday, April 21, 2006

To Hell With All What?

Caitlin Flanagan's book of essays "To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife," a neo-traditional treatise about the ideal woman (who happens to be her) really doesn't deserve all this attention. It's just hard to resist commenting because she's so off. And the best part is, when she gets called on it, she feigns surprise and hurt, and uses that to buff her public persona and whip up yet more publicity for herself.

She blames women who work for not staying home and taking care of the kids and husband. She seeks to create a world that by her own admission, never really existed (happy homemaker for her workerbee husband and perfect kids) and of which she is really not a part -- being a gainfully employed writer for the New Yorker and contributing editor for the Atlantic Monthly, and now, an author clearly on a book tour. I imagine someone back at home, certainly not one of those nannies she's always grousing about, must be cleaning for her, caring for her children and cooking them meals in her conspicuous absence. At some point someone might want to let her know that's the feminist movement at work -- allowing her the lifestyle she enjoys -- but it's not gonna be me.

As she appeared on the Colbert Report, I heard no figures to back up her pronouncements about how women who aren't like her are ruining America. They're messy! They're tired! They're bad cooks! They order take-out! Would someone please think of the children!

She claims to speak for those weary husbands everywhere, not getting any love in households badly run by moms who don't stay home enough. But as my husband made clear as he watched her on the Colbert Report with mouth agape, and then, foaming, she doesn't speak for him. So, for proving that my husband is exactly the guy I think he is, without me having to do much of anything that she preachily works and writes about, I want to thank you, Caitlin Flanagan. Except that, I probably don't have the time.

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