Recent studies have shown that there is an increase in the number of stay-at-home moms in the U.S. And, in light of modern feminism, doesn’t this make sense? Isn’t this a return to gender norms?
Actually, no. There is a new type of feminism on the horizon: post-modern feminism. As the name suggests, it is the idea that modern feminism doesn’t capture the true human experience, and instead needs to be simplified and tastefully displayed in a nonfunctional way. For example, in the case of women receiving equal pay for equal work, post-modern feminists have adopted the viewpoint that unequal pay reflects the macrocosm of inequality that women face and is in fact, an art form. It serves as an honest testament to the human condition and creates solidarity among women, who will, hopefully, all be earning the same fraction of a dollar.
When it comes to how society expects women to dress, post-modern feminists are moving past the days when men would tell them how to dress, past dressing for comfort, and past dressing sexily as a form of female empowerment, to dressing in the same minimalist form expected of something deemed “post-modern”. Post-modern feminist theory states that clothing represents the ways in which society is constricting free expression of sexuality and that the fewer clothes the better. In fact, many post-modern feminists have adopted nudist tendencies because nothing is more empowering and sexy than being handcuffed for public indecency.
Finally, the most important point that post-modern feminism is trying to bring home, is home. Just as their predecessors strove to break down gender-roles and become the bread-winners in their own right, the rise in stay-at-home dads has threatened the existing hold women have on the household as well. Women should be able to have it all: work and motherhood, should they choose to. Because of this development, post-modern feminists have started an “Occupy the Kitchen” movement to take back the realm that was rightfully and historically theirs from their male counterparts who don’t even know the difference between Gladware and Tupperware, Huggies and Pampers, and baking powder and baking soda.
For this reason, the U.S. has witnessed an increase in the number of female home-bodies, and for good reason. After all, nothing good has ever come out of women’s’ rights anyways.
