On Presidents, Apron Strings, and Second Shifts.

I’m starting to wonder if this presidential election might hinge on apron strings. In the wake of the last debate, we’ve all been caught up in binders and trapper-keepers and funny Facebook memes – along with some hijinks on Amazon, where a bunch of smartypants hijacked several binder pages.  I think we’re missing the point. […]

Read Full Post »

A Fine Mess: Why We Need to Ditch the Clutter

Sometimes what we need to do is clean house. I’m not necessarily talking about making your bed or doing the laundry — although either one is a good start — but channeling your inner minimalist and ditching the clutter.  Both literally and figuratively. I’ve been thinking about this lately as I watched a friend make […]

Read Full Post »

Who Wants a Housewife?

I’ll bet you do.  That’s right: you, over there.  The one who just fished a shirt to wear to work out of the pile of dirty clothes on your bedroom floor.  Trust me, I do not judge, having worn the same running clothes for three days straight.  (Right.  Ew.) Seems to me, if we’re in […]

Read Full Post »

Let’s Talk About Sex

Everyone else seems to be. They’re talking about women and sex and “Girls” and sex and feminism and sex and HBO and sex and the sexual revolution as failure and the sexual revolution as success. It feels a little weird to be writing this, honestly, being that it’s 2012 and all. But with whom and […]

Read Full Post »

Housewives, Redux: Same Story, New Spin.

And so now the Mail Online tells us that the newest chick at the checkout line is the feminist housewife.  More precisely,  she’s a young, well-educated Britster who has decided to throw career to the wayside and instead stay home and bake cakes. Haven’t we heard this one before, at least on our side of […]

Read Full Post »

No Matriarchy Here: Par For the Course.

So this past Christmas, Santa left me a little day-planner, filled with retro images of 1950s housewives and their gray-flannel mates, captioned with suitably snarky one-liners.  Today by chance I happened to flip to a page showing two smiling businessmen, wearing suits, ties and hats, and looking quite pleased with themselves.  The caption? “Housework is […]

Read Full Post »

There Is No Balance. Only Work

At least, that’s how it must look to researchers at UCLA who have come up with a landmark video picture of what work-life balance really means to today’s frantic families. The picture? Not so pretty. On the surface, it’s more than a little bit creepy: Thirty-two families that allowed social scientists from UCLA to videotape […]

Read Full Post »

Sandra Tsing Loh Wants a Wife. Me, too.

So it’s about 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. I just stuffed some lemon, garlic, and fresh rosemary and thyme up into the nether regions of Rocky, a free range chicken, who is now doing serious time in a very hot oven. My husband, casting about for something to do during halftime of the second NFL playoff, […]

Read Full Post »

401K, Hold the Starch?

Had it to here with that old second shift? How about this for a solution: Workplace benefits packages that include housework — as well as healthcare? That’s what two Stanford professors proposed in an article published this week in the current issue of Academe. They argue that one way for universities to keep more women […]

Read Full Post »

www.liberation.com?

Quick: what do the washing machine, the birth control pill, and the Internet all have in common? Hint: It’s not the Maytag repair man. Or Al Gore. Give up? At one time or another, each has been credited with liberating women. Go with me, if you will, to a dark and scary place: a time […]

Read Full Post »