For the last few weeks, I’ve been following a new housework regime, as outlined by the Flylady. She sends out lots of notes, reminders, and essays through the day, and one of today’s essays got me to thinking.
Apparently, the Flylady is incensed because a reviewer didn’t like her book or her attitude. There was a Stepford Wives reference in the quote she included, and she talks about being accused of being “anti-feminist.” (I can only assume that’s in another part of the review, or possibly from some other source.)
There are a lot of things I’d call this woman (self-aggrandizing, sappy, pushy, and lacking in understanding for people in situations unlike hers, among other things) but I’m not sure that “anti-feminist” is one of them. Sure, she seems to think that having a clean house is the way to finally love yourself, and her site is targeted almost exclusively to the Mommy Brigade, but she seems to be trying to empower women. And isn’t empowering women the core of feminism?
I can’t say that I care for a lot of the stuff this woman writes, and I do find her insistance that if you just do things her way, your entire life will come together in an unending circle of bliss rather grating. And I’m frankly appalled by her lack of sympathy for some folks who appear to be really struggling. (She dismisses any dissention among the ranks as whining, and whining isn’t allowed.)
Still, though she insists that the road to fulfillment and self-acceptance starts at the kitchen sink, I don’t know that I’d exactly use the word “anti-feminist.”
Empowerment is great. Measuring your self-worth by the cleanliness of your house (or how well you follow the teachings of some self-annointed expert) is not.
I thought the mantra of feminism was self-empowerment through that avenue which each woman is most given to (IE “do what you’re good at”). Requiring that women stay to one thing that is rather consistent with a period of time when women were not empowered doesn’t strike me as being especially pro-feminist.
Does she suggest/support the notion that women be subservient to men?
Well looking at the site I can’t see how she’s antifeminist but I can see how she’s surpreme overloard of the anal retentive dorks. She’s pretty patronizing towards stay at home moms. Put on your shoes first thing in the morning so you won’t take too many naps? Holy crikey.
More than a few bloggers I read have mentioned at one time or another that they knew it was time to stop with the Flylady jazz when they’d get one of her condescending little e-mails midday that read “Where are your shoes?” and their mental response was “On my f*****g feet, dammit!”
This is why Flylady offends me – it infantilizes women. “Where are your shoes?” “It’s time to shine the sink, did you forget?” “Don’t forget today’s the nine fling boogie day!!” (or whatever the hell it’s called) and so on, is the way that you communicate responsibilities to children. (“Did you wash your hands?” “Did you remember to walk the dog?” “Don’t forget today is soccer, take your uniform and shoes with you to school!”) It’s not a way to respectfully communicate ideas to adults. There’s also a strong suggestion that the women who turn to Flylady to help them better organize their homes are all suffering from inertia and innate laziness – otherwise, why the crap about getting dressed down to the shoes to avoid procrastinating on out of the house errands and taking “time-wasting” midday naps? There’s no consideration that these women are looking for help because they have work, school, children and husbands and they’re busy. Their time isn’t respected – if it was, there’d be no expectation that they’re all free to get up to a dozen e-mails every bloody day.
Meanwhile, in the guise of “empowerment” there’s still a very limited and narrow sphere of things which women are being empowered to do and take pride in. Yes, Flylady has a narrow focus, but I have a big problem with the concept of strong, intellectual, progressive people being told that they should derive significant amounts of personal satisfaction and emotional pleasure from the shininess of their kitchen sinks. It’s all extraordinarily superficial.
In addition, it seems predicated on a presumption that the woman shall and will continue to carry the majority of the housework burden, no matter what other responsibilities she carries from day to day. And it holds to a notion that a neat, well-organized house-as-showplace is one of the highest sources of pride a woman can aspire to attain as is an end unto itself instead of a means to becoming more productive and being more free to pursue interests not related to being a “Flybaby.”
As I’ve been peeking at the FlyLady’s stuff along with CCL, I’ve often wondered (as has she) if a good number of these people whose houses are unmanageable and who find themselves sleeping all day are not, in fact, depressed. The last thing someone suffering from depression needs is a lot of self-righteous blathering about how they’d feel so much better if they would just put on their shoes and shine the sink.
That aside, I can see the benefit of the sink-as-metaphor-for-achievement in the right situation. It can be helpful to have a place to start, and to have an easily-identifiable reminder that you are accomplishing something around the house. However, while it does feel good to have a clean house, the idea that all your problems can be solved through carefully-planned housework is a little disturbing.
My major objection is the way husbands are viewed in the FlyLady philosophy–or, rather, the way they aren’t. You never see her suggest that a FlyBaby’s “DH” should get off his ass and maybe do a load of laundry now and then. I feel guilty when CCL is doing the lion’s share of the housework, which she frequently is. FlyLady seems to base her philosophy on the fact that it’s all her responsibility.
However, the site seems to be geared straight to stay at home moms, in which case it’s perfectly sensible. If you can handle it, that is. Not into Hallmark and Precious Moments? Ok, stay away…
Notable, though, is the fact that flylady herself is obviously working too, so take that as you may.
Feminist SAHM and Flylady makes me want to puke. But then anyone telling me what to do and when to do it annoys the crap out of me. I polished my sink and felt no more excited about housework than I did before I polished the damned thing. I was marginally more excited when Mr P (unasked!) polished the sink. Well, half the sink, the other half was full of stuff he didn’t feel moved to put away.
I don’t think she’s exactly a feminist icon or role model. Her emails don’t exactly treat women as equals and it’s hard to imagine a SAHD finding her emails congenial.
I’ve never signed up for Flylady’s emails, as I can barely stand her “tone” on her website. What grates at me the most is that she assumes that I WANT to do this housework. I don’t want to do housework, it’s just that doing housework is marginally less repulsive than living in a pigsty. I’ll clean house, but don’t expect me to be CHIPPER about it.
I’m not sure that the site and/or Flylady herself are antifeminist, but both are an insult to my intelligence. I’ll take Peg Bracken any day.
Any female can claim to be a “feminist” and gesture vaguely at “the things I am doing to empower womankind”. Hell, Camille Paglia claims to be a feminist! If her, why not Phyllis Schlafly?
Feminism is not merely a theory that posits women’s equality and empowerment as good things. It also starts off with a structural analysis of society from which it concludes that women have not been and still are not equal players in a game the rules of which appear to have been written with other folks’ agenda in mind.
Perhaps this “Flylady” would care to explain how polishing the sink is going to challenge or modify patriarchal organizational and legal structures?
Sounds like the resurrection of Marabel Morgan of “Total Woman” fame, except minus the saran wrap.
It’s geared to a SPECIFIC SUBSET of stay-at-home mothers. It is certainly not geared to women like my stay-at-home wife, who made comedy retching noises when shown the site.
Don’t fall into prejudice and decide that all stay-at-home mothers fall into the “precious moments, I love my lobotomy” category of humanity.
I think the term feminist has a lot in common with the word Christian.
Both are used by a small subset to narrowly self define (“Oh, you are pro-life, you can’t be a feminist.” or “Oh, you tolerate homosexuality, you can’t be a Christian”) when the definitions of both are much broader. And both are used to insult - this site is anti-feminist or anti-Christian (or this person is anti-feminist or anti-Christian). Huh?
My exposure to FlyLady has been the two minutes I looked at her stuff. Hey, if it doesn’t appeal to you, don’t use it. But I think that some people probably find her approach helpful. I know I have a lot of friends (including myself) who never really mastered the basics of keeping a house clean and that it is easy to let it get away from you. Her system isn’t that different from the one I used to use. Now, someone telling me to put on my shoes every morning would drive me bonkers.
I always get the feeling that she’s specifically geared towards certain women, especially those who would really like a clean house but are kind of sad-sacky and have no clue how to get there. I am not exactly one of them. I can’t stand her website, much less the emails, which I’ve certainly never signed up for. But I can’t call her anti-feminist–in her own weird way, she’s trying to help women control their lives more.
That said, I read the book and got some useful stuff out of it. I have actually been on a self-improvement campaign to become more organized, and have been reading several different books on it. (Partly because I just like reading books on being organized.) I took the suggestions I though would work for me, and tried them out. And the fact is that I like what I’ve done, my housework takes less time and is more like what I want it to be, and I am more organized. And when I’ve done my housework for the day, I do feel that much more competent and cheerful; mess is like a weight upon my shoulders that I don’t notice until it’s taken care of and I feel lighter.
Yes, her stuff is geared to women. Most books on housecleaning are, because until a few years ago (and we’re not there yet), most women still did the bulk of the housework, especially the SAHMs who read the books. They usually have a chapter on ‘how to get your husband and kids to help out, or at least support you in your efforts.’ They emphasize that men are as responsible as women to keep the house orderly. But they still figure that their main audience is women. FlyLady is just more ‘girly’ than usual.
No way am I wearing shoes. Not going to polish the sink, or clean things that are still clean from last time. But as much as her tone grates on me, a lot of people seem to find her helpful.
But (from what I read a while ago - I don’t think she’s changed) she’s chosen a path that makes her happy, and the same path seems to make her followers happy. Good for them. There are women who like that kind of stuff, and who want to live and work and communicate that way. Who really do want to do housework like that (I don’t get the mindset, but I support their right to feel that way)
“Anti-feminist” is if she comes to my home and insists that my (and every other woman’s, because that’s how all women naturally are) happiness is at the bottom of a clean sink - which is something I’ve never seen her do.
I think she’s pretty annoying, but to call her antifeminist is a joke. Her site is geared toward stay-at-home moms, but nowhere does it say that it’s against the rules or stupid to try to get other members of your family involved in doing the chores she recommends.
And I think what she hopes will happen is that people (primarily women) who are slobs and hate being that way will find a sense of pride and accomplishment in making an improvement in the appearance of their homes. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t remember reading that she thought having a clean home should be the end all and be all of every SAHM’s existence.
For awhile there, I was living in an absolute pigsty, and as a last-ditch effort, I signed up for her emails. And, at the time, I was an unmarried female law student who was living alone.
It turned out I was just severely depressed, and Flylady didn’t help me at all (though Lexapro and Wellbutrin did). So it’s a good point that maybe, somewhere on her website, it would be advisable for her to have some kind of “are you depressed?” questionnaire.
That said, while I don’t get her emails anymore, I do use some of her philosophies. Unfortunately, I’m a sloppy person who is also a perfectionist, and it’s really helpful for me to remind myself that I don’t have to get everything cleaned up in one day, and the house never has to look perfect–just orderly enough that it’s not stressful for me to come home at the end of the day. And yes, I do find it helpful and soothing to have a neat house.
It’s not like she’s invading homes and insisting upon allegiance to her cause. She runs a service on the Net that people voluntarily sign up for. It’s a choice, and feminism is supposed to be about women choosing to be anything they want to be. If it’s being an uber-neatnik SAHM, well, great.
Some people are discouraged perfectionists. They’re really hard on themselves, talk about what they “should” do all the time, etc. When they do something right, they can always find an imperfection: “yes, I folded the laundry but the bath towels are too wrinkled.” They look at what they “should” do and “should” be and look at what they are (or what they think they are) and get discouraged and give up.
They’re still perfectionists, just bummed out ones.
SnoopyFan, I think that’s really the group Flylady is directed at. And judging by the testimonials she forwards to the group, discouraged perfectionists (or rather, recovering discouraged perfectionists) comprise a huge part of her following. And I think her site has a lot to offer the discouraged perfectionist, mostly the idea that imperfection is often good enough.
Unfortunately, she assumes that everyone who feels overwhelmed by their house is a perfectionist, and that their perfectionism is what keeps them from getting things accomplished. She is shamefully lacking in sympathy and understanding for those who are paralyzed by depression or indecision, or who are just worn out and discouraged from turning around to find eveything they’ve just worked so hard on destroyed by Hubby and the Precious Babies.
Personally, I feel like cherry-picking the good bits from Flylady has helped me a lot. I’m forming habits that I’ve needed to form for years, habits that I’ve tried (and tried and tried) to form for years. Why does it seem to be sticking better this time? I have no idea. Maybe it’s the constancy of having someone say, “Hey, get off your ass and go do the laundry” every day. Maybe it’s the knowledge that my house isn’t as bad off as some of the other people who get the emails. Maybe it’s the zone cleaning as opposed to doing everything every week. I don’t know.
All I know is that I enjoy the peace and free time that come with having a clean house, and that the zone thing works well with my schedule. And the house hasn’t looked this nice on a consistent basis since we moved in. It’s nice not kicking a path through the dog hair to go to bed at night, and knowing that if DrJ’s mom (or even his grandmother) showed up unannounced, we wouldn’t be fending off offers to hire us a cleaning woman.