The Scarlett Letter: 'D'

Sarah Jones

As I strain tomatoes once again, beginning the marinara sauce whose contents I've patch-worked together by borrowing from the recipes of grandmothers, friends, and even a movie star, I wonder if I am committing a crime against my fore-sisters who painstakingly endeavored to free all women from the confines of the apron. Am I a creative person who is drawn to culinary arts, among many others, or am I a masochist who longs to sweat over a hot stove? There are those women, feminists and others, who would probably choose neither but write me off as an unenlightened soul whom they might pity if they could surpass their own disdain.

The truth is, I often find myself an outcast in such circles, not for any lack of concern for women's issues on my part, but because my shape doesn't seem to fit the mold. You see I have "domestic tendencies", a seemingly shameful condition. The fact that this unpopular choice begets me condemnation among my very own kind is a perplexing irony with a basic clarity that somehow seems to elude the loudest defenders of women. As women in America, we've traveled a great distance to arrive at this day, where the brush whose stroke will color our lives rests in our own hands. It seems, however, that some of those sisters who have paved the way for the generations of women who are now considered younger adults have lost sight of a key component of the crusade: the freedom of choice.

Shouldn't they find joy simply in the fact that as a thirty-year-old woman, I have never known a time when I could not choose my own way? Why then, is that great fact overlooked when I make choices that they, personally, would not? Why is it that when my choices are of no particular value to them, I find myself swimming upstream, alone, or at the very least, silently discounted? Am I not simply exercising the freedom that they fought so diligently to afford me?

An indirect illustration of my point recently presented itself as I listened to an educator, (she is no doubt an accomplished woman who has my respect) share her low opinions of "shelter" magazines, specifically, Martha Stewart Living. Her discourse contained a mockery of the apparent absurdity of efforts and activities promoted by the magazine and a definite statement of respect for the business success of Ms. Stewart coupled with contempt for the promotion of domesticity.

I wondered why, when so many other mainstream publications contain material that glamorizes such self-damaging activities as promiscuity and (indirectly) drug use, would baking cookies and decorating be so offensive? Also, how can Martha Stewart possibly impose domesticity in a day when we women choose? When I am bombarded by media at the newsstand, am I not faced with one hundred choices from multitudes of subjects? Is Martha Stewart managing to reach off the shelf and somehow drag modern women back into the dungeons of forced domesticity? I contend that she is simply capitalizing on an existing and lively market and that she barely has time to nod at her driver in the morning, much less plant a bulb. One of her 400+ employees surely would handle that task.

I realize that the generations of women who have struggled for the right to define themselves as beings other than providers of food, cleanliness, and comfort, may be alarmed at the idea that domesticity could seep back into women's lives just when it seemed all but extinct. However, domesticity in the year 2002 has one imperative distinction: it is a choice.

Why in heaven or earth would any woman make such a choice? It's simple. As with those women whose life journeys compelled the flight from the domestic realm, the life journeys of women drawn toward it contain the answer. Those who direct their distaste for domestic activities at Martha Stewart are displacing their contempt. Her success is a mere byproduct of demand. To understand this drift toward domesticity one has to look toward the hungry consumers of the product called domesticity.

I do not imply that chosen domesticity is solely a result of modern culture. There are women who associate domestic activities with cherished family traditions and warm memories of loved ones. The varied reasons for which many women in early adulthood through middle age are voracious consumers of the domestic product deserve recognition if not acceptance. We are not a brainless herd fulfilling a gender-based destiny but a diverse group whose experiences have given us an inclination toward domestic activities. We are doctors, housewives, educators, professionals, laborers, writers, artists, lawyers, and every other category in which women exist.

The freedom to define ourselves may be our common cause as women, but our journeys are different. Those women whose battles have given my generation the freedom of choice may not understand the choices we make, but should realize that placing a value judgment on those choices is contradictory to what they fought for in the first place. I close with a thank you to those women, for their courage and sacrifice that has afforded all women the freedom to define ourselves.

Sarah Jones is a student at Santa Monica College.