So who would agree with Gabrielle Reece?

[DrinkFeckArseGirls]

I know what responses I'd get on the feminist board (the same what I'm thinking) but does anyone actually agree with her?

"Cogito, does feminist thinking say there is something wrong with women baking and sewing?"

Of course not. But, if you look at a lot of the media output these days which is aimed primarily at a female audience, it's either 1950's knitting and baking ... straight out of the pages of my mother's old 'Woman's Weekly'... or it's voyeuristic 'reality' TV preoccupied with empty-headed types. Used to be we enjoyed regular doses of Germaine Greer and Joan Bakewell blazing a challenging trail or even Esther Rantzen's campaigning zeal. Think we're being subtly re-domesticated...

I like the idea - think it would just mean giving in to my natural character really.

I do love all the 50's homemaker stuff - I have a collection of books and magazines from that era that are fascinating. So wonderfully domestic!

Or maybe broadcasters are producing shows that the majority of women want to watch? Most things are afterall lead by demand.

I think Ms Reece is barking, but I don't understand why its ok to preach the opposite view point if its not ok for her to express hers.

Cogito, I think the popularity of tv shows about baking and sewing is down to the economic situation and that people are more inclined to do things themselves at home, or at least want to learn how to. Rather than an attempt to re-domesticate women. My OH loves that baking show and has bought all sorts of baking apparatus, all of it still in its packaging, she's a career woman and say she doesn't have the time to bake. I do most of the cooking, no need for feminists to panic just yet!

I'm not panicking. Hell I've baked a few cakes in my time... just rolling my eyes slightly every time yet another Woman's Own prog hits the screens and everyone's encouraged to don pinnies and weave baskets or whatever. I'd like some balance, that's all.

... and, bringing it back to the original point about this Reece person, I think that twenty or thirty years ago an idea like hers wouldn't have had even a hint of credibility among British women. The fact that it even gets air-time now is worrying. Big step backwards.

I don't understand why its ok to preach the opposite view point if its not ok for her to express hers.

I don't think anyone's said it's not okay for her to express her opinion. Just that her opinion is a bag of arses. Which is our right of reply

My mum was a SAHM and a feminist during the era when the two things truly were not considered compatible - the 1970s. The surrendered wife bullshit concept can be practised by working and non-working spouses (I say 'spouses' as presumably you can nominate one to be the boss in any relationship) but none of the SAHMs I know would consider it for a second.

The flip-side, of course, is what kind of person would want to be partnered up with anyone 'surrendered'? Aside from the obvious answer i.e. an abusive, selfish person... wouldn't life be unutterably dull living with some wimpy sycophant who had no opinion of their own but slavishly went along with 'whatever you say, dear'? Brrr.......