In the movie about 1953 Wellesly College girls, Mona Lisa Smiles, the malicious Betty Warren (Kirsten Dunst) attacks Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) for encouraging her friend to go to Yale Law School with this statement in the school newspaper: "Ms. Katherine Watson, instructor in the art history department, has decided to declare war on the holy sacrament of marriage. Her subversive and political teachings encourage our Wellesley girls to reject the roles they were born to fill."
Katherine Watson's response is to show a slideshow in class of ridiculous housewife advertisements, asking the girls if this is how they want to be remembered, how they want to use there education:
"What will future scholars see when they study us, a portrait of women today? There you are ladies: the perfect likeness of a Wellesley graduate, Magna Cum Laude, doing exactly what she was trained to do. Slide - a Rhodes Scholar, I wonder if she recites Chaucer while she presses her husband's shirts. Slide - hehe, now you physics majors can calculate the mass and volume of every meatloaf you make. Slide - A girdle to set you free. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does it mean? I give up, you win."
When I decided this Spring to quit my part-time preschool job to focus on my health and on helping Pete with his ministry, one of my greatest fears was "Will people think that I am just a dumb housewife?" This fear was compounded to "Will I become a dumb housewife?" when I was first home and went through a phase of doing nothing but cooking and cleaning all day - I felt like my brain cells were leaking, and I hadn't even watched a single episode of Oprah! But I decided to snap out of this intellectual lethargy and use my mind for God's glory and my free time intelligently - to help Pete grade Greek for his intensive two-year in one-summer class. He had no answer key for the textbook he is using, so I made one - an answer key for a first year Greek Grammer - in seven weeks (which explains the 7 week blogging lull!). I literally have been reviewing, not Chaucer, but Greek paradigms, while ironing Pete's shirts! And reciting Greek vocabulary while hanging laundry on the line. And diagramming Greek sentences in my head while cooking dinner. Actually, I've been much more intellectually stimulated since staying home because I've been purposeful to be so, and have had more energy to put into study.
I think of my mother who is a stay at home mom who reads Church History in her free time. Or my mother-in-law, a homemaker who reads Shakespeare. Or my sister Erica, a stay at home mom who is reading the letters of Clemantine and Winston Churchill.
I am not a Betty Warren type of housewife, by the way. I think that the 1950's had some good things, but also much fakeness and hypocrisy. I am thankful that women have more options than marriage, or being a nurse, teacher, or secretary. And I think that every woman should choose to do what is best for herself and her family, whether that be Yale Law School or being home. My point is - don't assume a woman is dumb, or is wasting her education, because she is a housewife.
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Katherine Watson's response is to show a slideshow in class of ridiculous housewife advertisements, asking the girls if this is how they want to be remembered, how they want to use there education:
"What will future scholars see when they study us, a portrait of women today? There you are ladies: the perfect likeness of a Wellesley graduate, Magna Cum Laude, doing exactly what she was trained to do. Slide - a Rhodes Scholar, I wonder if she recites Chaucer while she presses her husband's shirts. Slide - hehe, now you physics majors can calculate the mass and volume of every meatloaf you make. Slide - A girdle to set you free. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does it mean? I give up, you win."
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| Couldn't find the advertisement from the movie! |
When I decided this Spring to quit my part-time preschool job to focus on my health and on helping Pete with his ministry, one of my greatest fears was "Will people think that I am just a dumb housewife?" This fear was compounded to "Will I become a dumb housewife?" when I was first home and went through a phase of doing nothing but cooking and cleaning all day - I felt like my brain cells were leaking, and I hadn't even watched a single episode of Oprah! But I decided to snap out of this intellectual lethargy and use my mind for God's glory and my free time intelligently - to help Pete grade Greek for his intensive two-year in one-summer class. He had no answer key for the textbook he is using, so I made one - an answer key for a first year Greek Grammer - in seven weeks (which explains the 7 week blogging lull!). I literally have been reviewing, not Chaucer, but Greek paradigms, while ironing Pete's shirts! And reciting Greek vocabulary while hanging laundry on the line. And diagramming Greek sentences in my head while cooking dinner. Actually, I've been much more intellectually stimulated since staying home because I've been purposeful to be so, and have had more energy to put into study.
I think of my mother who is a stay at home mom who reads Church History in her free time. Or my mother-in-law, a homemaker who reads Shakespeare. Or my sister Erica, a stay at home mom who is reading the letters of Clemantine and Winston Churchill.
I am not a Betty Warren type of housewife, by the way. I think that the 1950's had some good things, but also much fakeness and hypocrisy. I am thankful that women have more options than marriage, or being a nurse, teacher, or secretary. And I think that every woman should choose to do what is best for herself and her family, whether that be Yale Law School or being home. My point is - don't assume a woman is dumb, or is wasting her education, because she is a housewife.
