Feminine Riles: Cartoons to Promote Thought
The family values crowd talks endlessly about our “precious” children and that they deserve loving care by their moms.
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What do moms deserve?
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Better than a dead-end, unpaid job with no pension, no benefits, and no recognition. Better than to be run to death by work. Better than to be trapped in poverty.
| Want women to stay at home? — ⚤ — Time to put our societal money where our fundamentalist family values mouth is. Make motherhood a real career. Provide mothers with decent pay, medical benefits, a pension, and educational opportunities. — ⚤ — No woman should ever be trapped in poverty because she chooses children. No mother should have to worry about her children because of losing her husband – whether due to abandonment, illness, or death. No mother should ever have to choose between an abusive husband and homelessness for herself and her kids. — ⚤ — If we can afford sports and war, we can afford kids and stay-at-home moms. |
| Important note to Family Values people: GNP IS NOT increased by volunteering, by child-care, by elder-care, by housework. GNP IS NOT increased by building a family, by assisting friends, or by leisure time spent recharging one’s batteries. — ⚢ — GNP IS increased by family break-down, by child-abuse, by divorce, by wife-battering, by crime, by imprisonment, by social disintegration, and by environmental destruction. — ⚢ — “The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” Senator Robert Kennedy |
| Family Values do not mean the family is valuable. — ⚤ — There would be no economy, no society, no community without the unmeasured, unrecorded, and unpaid work provided by the Invisible Woman. — ⚤ — What do we really mean by “Family Values” when we place no value on the work of creating, maintaining and caring for a family? |
Read more on this topic: Women’s unpaid work must be included in GDP calculations: lessons from history
| Patriarchy is built on the concept of women as free labour. Our bodies, minds, and abilities are appropriated without compensation. — ☿ — Like slaves, we are given room and board, and if we are lucky, a few shekels to clothe and amuse ourselves. But what we are given does not begin to equal what we contribute to society. — ☿ — Patriarchy is theft. |
| Those who extol motherhood the highest are those who expect you to sacrifice the most to achieve it. — ☿ — They unctuously ooze uxorious platitudes … ohhhh, we soooo value the important work of mothers at home caring for the family. — ☿ — But not enough to pay you. |