"I want a wife"
I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.
Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is obviously looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?
I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and, if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife to keep track of the children’s doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children’s clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. It may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.
I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying. I want a wife who will care for me when I am sick and sympathize with my pain and loss of time from school. I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that someone can continue to care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scene.
I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife’s duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them.
I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life.
When my wife and I are invited out by my friends, I want a wife who will take care of the babysitting arrangements. When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I talk about things that interest me and my friends. I want a wife who will have arranged that the children are fed and ready for bed before my guests arrive so that the children do not bother us.
And I want a wife who knows that sometimes I need a night out by myself.
I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied. And, of course, I want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it. I want a wife who assumes the complete responsibility for birth control, because I do not want more children. I want a wife who will remain sexually faithful to me so that I do not have to clutter up my intellectual life with jealousies. And I want a wife who understands that my sexual needs may entail more than strict adherence to monogamy. I must, after all, be able to relate to people as fully as possible.
If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free.
When I am through with school and have a job, I want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties.
My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?
A 70s feminist manifesto
The above essay was published in Μs. magazine co-founded by Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes in 1971.
Judy Brady Syfers has brilliantly outlined in this short piece the labor performed at home in addition to the paid work. A labor that mostly burdens women until this very day…
Fasfem watches : Alexandria on beauty
Women in politics is something that really interests a fasfemer; we care for reinventing our realities remember?
Alexandria Ocasio - Cortez is the female politician who has embedd in her personal ways all things fasfem stands for. She claims her feminine power and stands against the culture of diminishing women while putting on her make up, as you can watch in the video below :
We care for our style and beauty because we feel like it, it makes us strong and better at dealing with our every day challenges, not frivolous as some wants us to believe…
So put on your red lip and smile…it is your right to do so after all!
Credits : picture captured by Mark Peterson for New Yorker magazine.
Eyes in chains
So I feel the sun kissing my cheeks and think : is this the last kiss? Is the sky going to get dressed in grey? But I forget…I live in Athens. The sun loves her so much he keeps coming back, even at colder months of the year! I smile and put on my sunglasses; bling bling, the sparkle from their silver chain at the corner of my eye. It is going to be a wonderful fall….
Sunglasses chain by Prigipo
Laila and the edible
So much information don’t you think? We live in the era of constant and unstoppable receiving without even having the chance to filter…Our minds being inflated with fake news, true news - does that term even exist? - alarming details about the pandemic, the climate change, the upcoming economical depression, the conspiracy theories, the fascists on the rise, the refugee crisis and few good news for the required antithesis.
But our minds still need to be able to perform and keep us on track. In that case, a break from all of the above is a matter of life and death right now. I started to try and find ways to distract. Quit overthinking and analysing for a few moments. One of the things that allow me to do that is cooking. And watching other people to cook as well. Following the stories they build alongside their dishes..
Laila is one of those story tellers. She is a true artist who creates marvelous little universes using the edible. Yes. You can eat everything. But everything looks so well established you might hesitate smashing it with your teeth, just for a few moments at least! Cause everything looks wildly delicious as well…
Laila was born to Egyptian father and Turkish mother and grew up in Cairo. Influenced by her father who was experimenting with food, she started cooking by using a spiral - bound thick cookbook that her family owned. She and her sous chef sister started to give those recipes a try, they even evolved into having “phases”, something that characterises her work until now. Phases are about a six months to one year period where she is fixated to find the perfect version of one ingridient or recipe.
So she bacame a food expert who relocated in New York 11 years ago after her studies in university of Miami. She hosts catering events that enhance creative communication while…eating. Her works of art are being consumed and, you know, pooped! That is actually what attracts her the most; the ephemerality of the matter. Her interest in history and materials infuse into working with textural ceramics, interactive foods and participation rituals. People are invited to play with and dig out the food and, while doing so, they become part of telling stories and creating memories…
Hosting appeals to me as well…I truly enjoy preparation, searching for menu ideas and visiting the market to find the best ingredients. Music and decorations play a key role…and the drinks of course! I need to go easy on the stress thing though, I ‘ve been fighting with perfectionism all my life. But now in the Covit-19 era home entertaining might be all we have…so we should be able to enjoy it as much as we can, shoudn’t we?
Here are some hosting tips from Laila’s cool perspective I intend to bring more of in my life:
Tips for home entertaining:
- shop abroad
- let obsessions take over
- prep in advance so you can enjoy your own dinner
- play with proportions
- for dessert, small can be big
I enjoyed researching for Laila so much. She is a bright young woman who walks in parallel ways with her also creative partner Omar Sosa, co-founder of Apartamento magazine. As a constantly evolving and caring human being, didn’t hesitate to have fostered a baby lamp in her aparment for six weeks or declare she daydreams about becoming a neurosurgeon (!). And what a great sense of personal style - like all the creative and brilliand women of this world. Take a look at this marvelous new collaboration of hers and you will know what I mean…
“Always go bigger” she claims.
And I couldn’t agree more…
Fasfem watches : My Brilliand Friend
Female friendship.
Misogyny has imposed its allure on it from the beginning of human history. Yet it exists as the purest form of allyship…
Based on Ellena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels tetralogy, the HBO series is majestically filmed in Naples giving us the chance to visit those turbulent times of 1950’s and explore the unexpectedly powerful role of women in that society. Men? They are violent and tyrannical all right! But nothing can get in the way of those fierce female figures…
Cesta de Verano
Summer was here but we hadn’t met. Strange times, different ways, another point of view about vacation. Doom scrolling for hours….
And then I saw this basket. Lying there among the cacti flowers. Raffia and orange leather details. Small, yet big enough. Easy. Breezy. Summery. I got up, grabbed whatever basket I had in hand, decided to carry my summer in it and …splash!!!
Raffia and leather bag, Paula’s Ibiza.
Paula’s Ibiza is a brand within the Loewe brand with a different aproach towards social sustainability as, for every product sold, 40€ will be donated to ensure a better future for children affected by COVID-19. Would love to hear your opininion about such actions from high profile corporations…
About allyship and the Black Lives Matter Movement; weeding our way to the path of solidarity.
I have been watching Angela Davis in The Black Power Mixtape 1967-75 documentary on repeat the past few days. Tears block my sight as I understand; I, too, am white like those who have been oppressing human beings for centuries.
I have been trying to decode the ‘white privilege’ meaning and actually see how I have benefited from it so far. According to Critical Race Theory - here you can find a wonderful intoduction on the field by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic - there have been social, economic and legal differences that white people create between ‘races’ to maintain elite white interests in labour markets and politics. Even small acts of racism, consciously or unconsciously performed, are rooted to assumptions about racial matters we have absorbed from cultural heritage we have been growing up in. These systemic beliefs have been informing both civic institutions and our personal lives. Do you recognize their results?
Of course you do. You have heard your uncle making racist declarations during the family gathering. You have watched this black girl at school being made fun of. You have been promoted at work much earlier than your black colleague, even though he has been working harder. You have heard these seemingly kind ladies at church discourage their grandson from playing with the black kid. You have seen poor black people selling staff on the streets hiding from police officers. You have come across black women prostituting at the historical centre of Athens, women victims of trafficking at most.
the pic is of @nikishariley while marching, wearing a shirt from @blackfemalefuture
Being a woman myself, I can’t even begin to imagine what it must feel to be a black woman. To have to deal with racial and gender oppression and still be able to evolve beyond such stereotyping. Black feminism’s approach has given me some awareness on theoritical level about understanding oppression as a whole, concerning class, race and gender as a whole. But still there is no lived experience on the matter. Of course my gender’s oppression can give me some analogy. Urging a white person to aknowledge her inherent racism is like urging a man acknowledge his maleness and the pain that is associated with the impact of it on women and non - gender people…
I am white. So I have been a racist I guess. Because I have watched all of the above happen and didn’t actually act against it. I have condemned it. In words. But words - even written ones - are not enough. For the first time ever we have no realistic vision of the future. All we have is a chance to make foundational changes. Educate ourselves, protest, defend our core beliefs, vote for the leaders who are empathic and work towards solidarity. What Barbara Ellen Smith has described as ‘a politics of solidarity which recognizes the multiplicity of oppressions and supports struggles not directly indicated by one’s own lived experience’ could enable allyship in true terms.
So what will it take for us ,white people, to become actual allies that perpetuate foundational change and escape the trap of slactivism? I realize the conversation I am about to begin is difficult and uncomfortable. George Floyd’s death has been the top of the iceberg. There are dozens of people across the planet who have and are and will be sufferring due to the colour of their skin. Yes. They WILL be suffering. So, how much are we - white people - determined to suffer WITH them? Because that’s what it will take…
There are plenty of lists around the web right now for those who wish to educate themselves, donate their money, protest or volunteer to the Black Lives Matter movement every way they can. I have gathered here a small bunch of those I have been trying to check out myself, in case you find it useful. By no means do I imply they are the only way to enlightment and action. It is the time for all of us to decide for ourselves how to act. And the time to actually listen. Listen to those who know better. Pay some respect and stop sharing our opinionated egos to gain some online recognition…So here at fasfem we decided to keep up the work in our community silently yet effectively and support black female voices even more through our content. Help us be the change we wish to happen….
Paraphernalia
Our home. Our possesions. Our self defining atmosphere. Houses have acquired a different meaning in our lives. We don’t just bathe and sleep in them. Due to the pandemic prohibitions we are forced to work, socialize, educate, be educated, actually live among our house’s walls.
Some of us are more comfotable with this condition than others. But we all have this in common; the tremendous need to make our space as much delectable as possible. Feeling supported and hugged and creative while social distanced is huge right now.
There this magical little place in the heart of Athens down town called Paraphernalia. Its role is to help feel our place owned and cherished. Furnishing of high quality and design, plants, books, apothecary items, tableware - everything you can imagine that can help you with the scenography of your envisioned every day life stage….
Care for a fasfem home scenery ?
Sunday morning coffee read for ideas - time to transform this little corner..
..and after that maybe bake those chocolate chip cookies for the week ahead..
… in the afternoon light up some colourful candles and take a long hot bath…
The shop is temporary closed of course but you can attend their online store and be amazed! You can also follow here for more inspiration and updates.
