Desperate Housewives?

My husbands colleague saved the latest issue of The New York Times Magazine for me because there was an article on chickens. I tend to get this quite a bit! When The New Yorker ran Susan Orlean's piece on raising chickens, I received no less than five copies in my mailbox...from friends and neighbors alike! But today's article was of a decidedly different tone, titled "The Femivore's Dilemma: Can Chickens Save the Desperate Housewife?"

The title alone rubbed me the wrong way, and that was before I even got to the meat of the article. Without going into a long tirade, I will share the quotes that really seem to sum up Orenstein's argument "...The omnivore’s dilemma has provided an unexpected out from the feminist predicament, a way for women to embrace homemaking without becoming Betty Draper."

And furthermore "Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy."

So now, if we are stay-at-home mothers, or "desperate housewives," we are raising chickens to legitimize our existence? Please. I find that incredibly insulting. Could it be that we raise chickens, sew our own curtains and raise our own vegetables because it pleases us...because it is good for the environment...and because we love surrounding ourselves with handmade, homemade joy?