The phenomenon of the SAHG or stay-at-home girlfriend was recently written about by Quiana Stokes for the blog, www.brokelyn.com. She discusses her first hand experience of being a SAHG, while unemployed and actively looking for work. Because one can't really spend each hour of everyday sending resumes, Ms. Stokes decides to whittle the day away with chores around the house. Essentially, she has taken up the role of a typical 1950's housewife, placing her own needs aside in order to please the sole breadwinner of the house, her boyfriend.
When my boyfriend goes off to work, I spend my days cooking, cleaning our two-bedroom Greenpoint apartment and trying to look good for him when he comes home.... I have eight to nine hours everyday to send out my resumés and clean and make dinner, by the time he comes home from work I am well rested. Frankly, there’s no real reason (time of the month aside) why I shouldn’t be ready and willing when he is. I try very hard to keep my boyfriend happy and this is a key part of doing so.
What Ms. Stokes lacks in monetary means, she makes up for by utilizing an old fashioned perspective: keep the house lookin' clean and the hubby satisfied. You can access the rest of her article and formulate your own opinion on the matter here: http://www.brokelyn.com/how-to-survive-as-a-sahg-stay-at-home-girlfriend/
I personally feel qualified to respond to this article, I am unemployed and do from time to time engage in household chores in part because I like my habitat to be clean but there is a small portion in which I feel guilty for not working and thus worthless. I am an artist so that makes me a deadbeat in most people's eyes. But I guess it is due to my circumstances as an unemployed, house frau that I've been thinking more and more about Western perceptions of housewives-- I think many people look upon housewives with scorn, belittling their work because if you're not paid for it then it doesn't matter. Others, perhaps the housewives (househusbands) themselves, may regard the work they do with pride. Have you ever ironed before? Let me tell you, it can be very fulfilling.
I think this notion of "busying" oneself, the action of doing and undoing, is fascinating. This is a characteristic I've witnessed in my mother and also something my friends have said about their own mothers. All of our mothers worked full-time AND were housewives, coming home from work to tidy up the house, cook dinner, iron clothes. My entire life, I thought my mother worked because she had to financially but she continued to work well past retiring age because she wanted to, she always wanted to work. She is in many ways a woman of the 70's, one of those women who choose to work and scorned the life of a (solely) housewife. Working outside of the home was important to these women because it made them feel independent.
The need for independence carries with us to this day and to go back to my beginning discussion of the SAHG, I find myself at odds not with just myself but with how society is turning. Is being a stay-at-home anything the virtue, the goal women in my generation must strive to? Or are we begrudgingly becoming housewives to assuage our guilt while losing an important part of ourselves- our independence? I don't have an answer, but I do have a film coming out soon on this topic, stay tuned for it.
When my boyfriend goes off to work, I spend my days cooking, cleaning our two-bedroom Greenpoint apartment and trying to look good for him when he comes home.... I have eight to nine hours everyday to send out my resumés and clean and make dinner, by the time he comes home from work I am well rested. Frankly, there’s no real reason (time of the month aside) why I shouldn’t be ready and willing when he is. I try very hard to keep my boyfriend happy and this is a key part of doing so.
What Ms. Stokes lacks in monetary means, she makes up for by utilizing an old fashioned perspective: keep the house lookin' clean and the hubby satisfied. You can access the rest of her article and formulate your own opinion on the matter here: http://www.brokelyn.com/how-to-survive-as-a-sahg-stay-at-home-girlfriend/
I personally feel qualified to respond to this article, I am unemployed and do from time to time engage in household chores in part because I like my habitat to be clean but there is a small portion in which I feel guilty for not working and thus worthless. I am an artist so that makes me a deadbeat in most people's eyes. But I guess it is due to my circumstances as an unemployed, house frau that I've been thinking more and more about Western perceptions of housewives-- I think many people look upon housewives with scorn, belittling their work because if you're not paid for it then it doesn't matter. Others, perhaps the housewives (househusbands) themselves, may regard the work they do with pride. Have you ever ironed before? Let me tell you, it can be very fulfilling.
In 1975, Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman released the film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which is about a single mother who performs a routine of house chores over the span of 3 days and in between meets with "clients" (she is a prostitute). Check out a scene:
I recall reading in one article, Akerman stating that she intended to celebrate the Housewife. The film is long, about 3 hours total and all shot with a static camera. I think the joy in watching the film is noticing the small details of Jeanne flubbing as she slowly cracks and goes mad-- burning potatoes, forgetting to polish a shoe, although small mistakes are devastating to Jeanne and this is all portrayed magnificently through Delphine Seyrig's performanance. In a New York Times review of the film, Akerman describes the main protagonist, Jeanne:
[she] has to organize her life, to not have any space, any time, so she won’t be depressed or anxious. She didn’t want to have one free hour because she didn’t know how to fill that hour.
I think this notion of "busying" oneself, the action of doing and undoing, is fascinating. This is a characteristic I've witnessed in my mother and also something my friends have said about their own mothers. All of our mothers worked full-time AND were housewives, coming home from work to tidy up the house, cook dinner, iron clothes. My entire life, I thought my mother worked because she had to financially but she continued to work well past retiring age because she wanted to, she always wanted to work. She is in many ways a woman of the 70's, one of those women who choose to work and scorned the life of a (solely) housewife. Working outside of the home was important to these women because it made them feel independent.
The need for independence carries with us to this day and to go back to my beginning discussion of the SAHG, I find myself at odds not with just myself but with how society is turning. Is being a stay-at-home anything the virtue, the goal women in my generation must strive to? Or are we begrudgingly becoming housewives to assuage our guilt while losing an important part of ourselves- our independence? I don't have an answer, but I do have a film coming out soon on this topic, stay tuned for it.
