What is New Domesticity? This blog is a look at the social movement I call ‘New Domesticity’ – the fascination with reviving “lost” domestic arts like canning, bread-baking, knitting, chicken-raising, etc. Why are women of my generation, the daughters of post-Betty Friedan feminists, embracing the domestic tasks that our mothers and grandmothers so eagerly shrugged off? Why has the image of the blissfully domestic supermom overtaken the Sex & the City-style single urban careerist as the media’s feminine ideal? Where does this movement come from? What does it mean for women? For families? For society?
My book, Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity, which explores New Domesticity in greater depth, will be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2013.
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The reality of crafty, home-based businesses
 image by camy west/flickr, via theatlantic.com My latest piece at The Atlantic looks at how the idea of crafty, home-based businesses (Etsy shops, artisan cupcake businesses, etc) is increasingly being sold as a solution for women’s work-life balance woes. Spoiler: it doesn’t work (at least not for the vast majority). The problem, IMHO, is that mainstream businesses do such a crap job of family friendliness that women are driven to find other solutions, and that the media is happy to sell women on Horatio Alger story of work-at-home businesses (“Learn how these moms are living the work-at-home dream by starting an organic baby food businesses!”).
The piece is also generating a really interesting thread at Etsy, which has often been accused of selling women a “false feminist fantasy” of work-at-home riches.
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[...] She’s making jewelry now! This is like a year old and you’ve probably all seen it, but I’m late to the Portlandia train and this clip just seems too perfect, especially in light of recent discussion about Etsy-as-solution-for-work-life-balance and the reality of crafty, home-based businesses. [...]
That is very true. I know how to make a lot of stuff, stuff so popular (from bread to clothes) that people constantly suggest I make it a business. It does not work without rock-hard commitment and I don’t have such. The reality of running a business is grim and dull compared with the joy of making a batch of this or that. In the end it is not worth the time. What is worth it however is stuff I do with my brain – blogging and I used to translate a bunch. That made a financial difference and the bookkeeping is minimal.