A Slice of Sky

Came across this homeschooling blog written by someone who calls herself a feminist. I was pleasantly surprised by what I read in her intro:

“What is feminist homeschooling?

Feminist homeschooling is educating your children with the understanding that feminism is as much a lifestyle as it is a movement. It teaches that women and men are of equal value, neither being better or more worthy than the other.

Feminist homeschooling recognizes that history isn’t just about which great men fought which great wars. It is also about family life throughout the centuries. It is about women and their agency and how they have changed and what women today have earned from that change. It knows that history is written by the winners and that we have to dig a little deeper to get the full picture, a picture which shows us that women were always present and always contributing to change.

Feminist homeschooling recognizes that women have always been scientists and inventors and writers. Patriarchal law often prevented women from publishing or patenting or recieving any recognition for their work. We will recognize it here.

Our feminist homeschool will be heavily woman-centric. Not because men are not worth studying! Rather, it acts as a counterbalance to our male-centered culture. This is fair.

The history of economics and home economics are of equal value. Women’s contributions to dietetics aren’t very different from men’s contributions to biochemistry. We value both.

Welcome.”

You can read this at:
www.feministhomeschool.wordpress.com

It shows that there are many streams of feminism.

I don’t feel the need to embrace an “-ism”. But I do think some aspects of the women’s rights movement have brought positive changes e.g. women being freed to vote, girls being liberated to read and write, women being allowed to patent their inventions, women being encouraged to speak up against issues like domestic abuse, female circumcision, honour killings.

I draw my compass from the gospels, from the way Jesus treated women. He gave room for women disciples among his band, validated Mary’s offering in front of the Jewish teachers (perfume on his feet episode), broke barriers by speaking to the Samaritan woman, expressed his love for his mother while dying on the cross by committing her into John’s care, opened up spaces for mothers and children to him, etc. How wonderful our saviour!

I thought the blog was interesting , at least the introduction.I have not read the rest of it, but I think there will be some stuff that I will object to, as well as agree with.

I also came across this report about feminism and homeschooling. Here’s part of the article for rumination:

“One of the few feminist critiques of homeschooling available is titled “Is Homeschooling Sexist?” by Laurae Lyster-Mensh, a self-declared feminist. The author is clearly sympathetic to the basic concept of homeschooling as demonstrated by her being a mother-educator herself. But her article revolves around what she calls “an elephant in the room”: namely, the question that constitutes its title.3

Lyster-Mensh asks other homeschooling moms what messages about gender are being sent to their children. When she assures her daughter that she can achieve anything in life, Lyster-Mensh wonders, “Am I telling her she can strive toward being a homeschooling mother? Am I telling her not to?” And what of sons? “They cannot fail to notice that the ones doing the homeschooling are the mothers. We have to ask ourselves what expectations this will leave them with for themselves and for their future spouses. In the workplace, will they be able to treat female co-workers as seriously as the men?”

Lyster-Mensh raises some valid questions about gender and homeschooling families. For example, what impact does the “man as sole breadwinner” have on the decision-making process in the family? She freely admits that such issues may not pose a problem for many homeschooling families. But she raises an intriguing possibility. She speculates that, because homeschoolers feel under attack from “liberals” and pro-public-school organizations such as the National Education Association, they tend to band together and present “a united front to the world.” Divisive issues, such as the role of women in the home and society, are not discussed as openly as they might otherwise be. Of course, it is impossible to test this theory until the political opposition to homeschooling ceases to be a threat.

One main complaint of mother-educators is that feminists (outsiders) often display a dismissive or insulting attitude toward their lifestyle. In short, feminists look down on them as less liberated than working women. They see stay-at-home moms as part of the patriarchal structure (the nuclear family with traditional values) that is the wellspring of gender oppression.

The Feminine Mystique described the suburban household with its traditional domestic arrangements as a “concentration camp.” Friedan claimed decades later that the wholesale rejection of domesticity that her book inspired in young women was a misinterpretation of its meaning. Nevertheless, it was a reading that caught on: liberated women are the ones who pursue careers and who are financially independent and guided by their own needs. According to this interpretation, not all choices a woman can make are politically or culturally equal. Women who choose to become housewives, to be financially dependent on a man, and to give priority to the needs of their families are unliberated.

In her article “Motherhood Gets a Face-Lift,” the homeschooling Isabel Lyman asks herself a question that must have occurred to many mother-educators, especially those who willingly gave up careers and financial independence. She wonders whether a woman who “commits herself so wholeheartedly to her children and their education” represents a “giant step backward” for women? Or is she a pioneer who defies categorization?

In response to her question, Lyman presents the answers of some other homeschooling moms.

For example, Pam Kelly of California: She was a computer/systems analyst for 18 years before becoming a mother-educator—a job she considers her most challenging and fulfilling one. She calls herself “the epitome” of what feminists say they are for: a woman having and exercising choice. But when she hears the word “feminist,” Pam thinks “dictator, hostile, anti-male and anti-female.”

Cindi Grelen of Oklahoma has a teaching degree, which she uses to homeschool her two daughters. She defines “a feminist” as “an angry person who is self-absorbed and on a desperate search for peace”—the peace that she has found in the politically incorrect process of “losing herself in her children.” Nevertheless, she adds, “I miss out . . . on being recognized as someone who is contributing something worthwhile to society.”

Christine Field of Illinois was a criminal prosecutor who once considered herself to be a “blatant feminist.” No more. Today, she is the author of a book titled Coming Home to Raise Your Children.

The personal stories go on and on. And common themes run through many of them: the parent-educators are intelligent, educated women; they have made a conscious and considered choice to leave the work force; and they view feminism as a rebuke.
The New Women’s Movement

Homeschooling constitutes a revolution in education. But it is also one of the most significant trends to affect women and families in decades, especially since it is led by mother-educators. Homeschooling is part of a social shift by which women are moving back toward traditional family values, not because they have to but because they want to do so.

Analysis of homeschooling has focused on the children—and properly so—but the relationship of mother-educators to feminism deserves investigation in its own right. Homeschooling is a trend that mainstream feminism is resisting because the teaching at-home mom threatens many of the values it espouses, including financial independence.

The tension between homeschooling and feminism arises not from feminism per se, but from the politically correct version that has dominated the movement for over a decade. PC feminism regards the traditional family as a training ground for patriarchy—that is, for the white male culture that oppresses women.

Fortunately, other schools of feminism view staying at home as simply one more choice that a self-respecting, intelligent woman can make or reject, depending on her goals in life. Individualist feminism is one example. For this school of feminism, freedom means having every peaceful choice possible and taking personal responsibility for all your actions. In this framework, one woman’s decision to stay at home is not politically better or worse than another woman’s choice to become a CEO. Both are personal matters. Both express the core of true feminism: choice. ”

You can read the rest of it here:
www.fee.org/Publications/the-Freeman/article.asp?aid=3970