liyahreadit > Recent Status Updates

it's 1984 and the author reflects on the failings of the women's movement in the 1970s to 'liberate' housewives while distancing themselves from the very women they were trying to liberate.

are leftist women today repeating the same missteps with tradwives? do tradwives even want to be 'liberated'? did housewives?

I don’t know what I was expecting when I started this book, but I didn’t expect to get so… angry. I almost can’t believe these first few essays were written in 1975 because they sound so current.

“And we also delude ourselves that we can escape housework. But how many of us, in spite of working outside the home, have escaped it?” 🙃

Harriet Taylor and John Mill, you have destroyed me. Rose putting this beautiful union before the Dickens marriage is actually demonic.

“The man who had been trained to think for himself from the age of five informed Mrs Taylor that he would change any opinion if she asked him to,” and they weren’t even married here??

it’s over. many thoughts but the most embarrassing one is I only realized why Adam’s name is Adam, 50 chapters in. saving it at 99 because I’m not ready to end it. Timshel!

In the age of heterofatalism (or the age where stuff like this are given names), reading about the past really puts into perspective how far women have come, but at the same time, it makes you wonder what future women will find shocking about heterosexual relations today, in ~200 years.

This really feels like I’m watching an unsettling reality show where it works out terribly for everyone at the end. Cal, I’m rooting for you.

wanted to cry when Cal was praying to be liked, poor baby. what’s in a name?

The marriage of Effie Gray & John Ruskin… I don’t even know what to say. From him realizing he’s disgusted by the female anatomy on their wedding night to their annulment due to lack of consummation after 6 years. And apparently the worst is yet to come…

Rose on the politics of Mr Ruskin:
“A woman’s desire for independence and autonomy – like that of a colonial state – is childish, petty, petulantly rebellious.”

“Thou mayest, or thou mayest not.”
‘To be or not to be, that IS the question.’

The imagery of some old Chinese men unraveling the etymology of Hebrew is gonna stay in my mind for some time.

the story of cain and abel coming up in the last chapter of Part 2 felt like seeing the title card of a movie an hour in.

I wonder what the ladies behind “Wages for Housework” would think about tradwives making money through domestic labor while preaching from the opposite side of the political spectrum.

this book feels like the fog in your brain clearing out and it’s so satisfying

Thomas going from telling Jane marriage is so beneath her because he didn’t think she would marry HIM just to tell her how important being HIS housewife will be when she finally comes around. That ending had me in a whirlwind I’m not gonna lie.

favorite quote from chapter 1:
“Too much reading, too much research, too much intaking with no creative reconstruction was, he told her wisely, not a good thing.”

never been so scared reading a book