This is a very interesting and worthwhile counter-argument to that failed radical homemaker piece I referenced recently.
There’s a kind of wilful incompetence that is endemic in our society, and it is the territory of privileged folks who characterize basic, functional human work as something you need a special gift for. And this serves them well As long as you don’t know how to do something, and can naturalize your “flaws” as just “how you are made” you don’t have to apologize for the fact that you are sticking someone less privileged with your work. In fact, you can totally sympathize with them, and totally care about justice for people just like them – at the same time that they get paid badly or treated badly for doing work you could do too.
If these are innate personality factors, there’s no reason to ask the question, why is it that Mrs. Sen is always so much better than you at wiping behinds, and why it is your wife doesn’t have the same problem with diaper leaks?
In this piece the author, Sharon Astyk asks:
Is saying that you fail at being a radical homemaker an argument of convenience – perhaps you could have more honestly said I don’t want to do the work involved?
And
Is saying that you fail at being a radical homemaker a way of saying that everyone succeeding at it must be doing so because they have certain traits, that you fortunately lack, which lend themselves to dreary labour-intensive subsistence tasks?
And
Is saying that you fail at being a radical homemaker somehow letting you off the hook from feeling guilty about the fact that you are paying others (rather insufficiently) to do the crappy work you don’t want to do yourself?
To which I respond with a question of my own..
Seeing as we’re raising the spectre of privilege here, and rightly so, what about the giant wad of privellege involved for most of us in ‘choosing’ to pursue a greener lifestyle?
This reminds me of the friend who complained about the traffic going past her inner-city house and the road works required to expand that road for even more traffic – why can’t more people take public transport like us? Well, for starters, not all of them could afford to live in the inner city. So, some of them are stuck right out of the city in little estates with absolutely no public transport, and then not all of them work a mere fifteen minutes bus trip away from their houses. And not all of them can walk their children to school (even though they’d probably like to) because some of them have an hour or more commute to work and they have to take their children to schools near where they work because school hours clash with standard work hours. And some of them work in big industrial estates, which incidentally usually don’t have any public transport, and some of them work really nasty shifts in those industrial workplaces so even where there is public transport it isn’t running at the times when they need it. And you know some of them just don’t give a fuck about the environment and they should, but honestly, the high horse comments on Astyk’s piece annoyed me no end.
Also, I am sure Astyk knows better but as her piece currently stands she appears to be making the very simplistic and false anti-globalisation argument that we can somehow stop the exploitation of poorly paid workers by simply buying a little less of their product (ie. one pair of jeans instead of two). Presumably sweatshop workers surplus to requirements in the carcinogenic denim factory will be immediately redeployed to less soul-destroying workplaces in down-town Dhaka. Less trade with developing economies won’t help poorly paid workers, more pressure on corporations to behave less like mini-governments in developing economies might.
blue milk 
Yes. Absolutely. When I saw your first link and then followed the link in the comments to Astyk’s post my brain crowded up with so many ‘yes, but no, but…’ thoughts that I was left speachless.
The politics of letting yourself off the hook was certaiy a point that I thought she made really well. However, taking the higher moral ground always annoys me, ’cause, let’s face it, we ALL have our slack moments, etc… And we tend to discount our failings so much faster than those of other people, because we are so much more aware of the justifications.
I have a real issue with the devaluing of those skillsets with “well anyone* can learn”.
Sure, anyone can learn mechanics/engineering/programming/plumbing/carpentry – they obviously don’t want to because they’re laaaaaaaaaaaaaazy. Oh that’s right, they’re masculinized careers that not only don’t get outsourced (usually) to the poor and disenfranchized, but they’re also careers and skillsets we acknowledge as requiring expertise.
I’ve always wanted a radical makeover of the industrial economy, but subsistence farming if adopted for everyone will very quickly see us back to C18th gender roles. And the mega rich will still be driving around in their carriages, laughing at the peasantry. Unfortunately, this C18th model didn’t have a good outcome for the poor/old/disabled, either.
I read both articles and I agree with both in different aspects. I think the point that really got under people’s skin in Holler’s article was that she was comparing failed ‘radical homemaker’ attempts to her previously wealthy, ‘easy’ life’. I felt like by the end it wasn’t really about her complaining about having difficulty adapting a new way of life (that happened to involve a smaller budget), but rather that she just didn’t like being poor.
And in terms of Astyk doesn’t really address the point about privilege and abilities to life certain lifestyles. And I thought she as a bit snarky in her counter-article.
In response, to your question…with another questions – while green living is becoming more and more popular, especially within certain demographics, why the hell hasn’t precycling caught on more? I think people’s willingness to recycle (which still allows you to buy your brand names, overpriced products ect) and unwillingness to precyle is demonstrative of a certain privilege and expectation of lifestyle.
I felt that way, too, about the first article.
What is “precycling”? I feel like I should know what it is but I’ve never even heard of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precycling
But it also includes larger items – for instance buying a used car that does not have as better fuel consumption as a new, modern, more ‘eco’ car. It’s about reducing production. Of course, this does not answer the problem of globalised production and consumption influences developing economies but I think it is a more realistic approach to eco-living that doesn’t involve a certain income.
Although the original article states that this radical homemaker movement “includes lots of men”, I admit my first thought was “oh yeah?” Just how many, exactly, and in what role, and compared to how many women? Just whose responsibility IS it, typically, to grow/preserve/plan/prepare all the organic food, fix/make/shop second-hand for all the clothes, and do all the childcare and provision of stimulating creative activities? Hmmmm. I’m all about making some efforts to unplug and get out of the rat race, but there are only 24h in a day.
Totally, totally agree!
I must confess that I really liked Astyk’s article; maybe because the angry edge makes good reading.
Blue Milk, I really do see your point about the fact that most people are forced into doing things like long commutes, living and working in places without public transport.
In terms of being privileged enough to choose a greener lifestyle, I think that privilege entails a social responsibility to choose it, even when it’s hard. (And that’s not diminished by an indulgence in the occasional whinge, which doesn’t diminish our contribution and after all can be all that’s required to dispel a level of dissatisfaction and allow us to just bloody well get on with it once it’s out of the way).
I think we all strive for that level of privilege. No-one likes to be poor (not just Holler). We’d all rather be in a position of privilege. And then yeah, it sure would be a hell of a lot easier to pay for organic groceries, drive a hybrid or just buy a place right next to work and school.
But at the same time, lacking money doesn’t necessarily mean lacking a sense of social responsibility. Sometimes the things we can do to live greener are not as outwardly obvious, but they still have an impact.
I felt that was the point that Astyk was making – more about the fact that sometimes it’s necessary to just get in there and do things even when they’re hard, even when we think we can’t, and even when we really don’t like it. And those things are relative to context.
Excellent question though about who’s doing the work (I know who it is in my house and let’s just say traditional divisions of labour are NOT being challenged).
Anyway, so sorry about the length of this post.
Even if you are privileged though, this whole lifestyle thing appears to be Astyk’s thing. So even though I get the fact she has found time to write 3 books on it, she is still pursuing her thing. Bad luck if her thing was something else – like playing in a rock band, oh sorry sorry sorry Astyk, not a rock band of course a fully acoustic one – or whatever.
There are two separate quotes from this article that really bother me when placed next to one another:
” Maybe she gets her bread from the local craftsman-baker and the pickles from the farmer’s market where there’s someone who lovingly grows and makes them – those people exist.”
“I’m sorry, but any idiot can grow a basil plant. Any idiot can make pickles. Any idiot can bake a loaf of bread. Any idiot can repair a seam.”
I also take issue with people who talk about battling the injustices against the working people in the world (and there are many; I’m not arguing there aren’t) by talking about those people as if they are one monolithic group.
Astyk argues that Holler goes through the trouble of caring to avoid the dirty work of doing something about it, but one could argue that Astyk goes through the trouble of sewing her own jeans to avoid the dirty work of getting out in the streets and working with the people she feels she’s saving one-on-one. There is always more that one can do, so it’s perhaps best to focus on what we’re each capable of without so much judgment.
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