Ehrenreich's Complaint "Sounds" Disingenuous Barbara Ehrenreich states that women complaining at the turn of the 20th century about being "robbed of their creative work" were behaving "pointlessly reactionary" (66): she uses the word "sounds" in her argument, as in their complaint "sounds pointlessly reactionary." This use of the word "sounds" is problematic for the following reason: the term "sounds" is used by her instead of the linking verb "is" to avoid making an absolute (though her argument stands by it). The claim of this paper is that this verb usage is disingenuous because it allows her to make an invalid assumption without actually being held responsible for it. Why is the assumption in valid? She is making an assumption that no woman could legitimately issue such a complaint -- but she provides no evidence that this assumption is based on fact.

In fact, Ehrenreich is hardly comfortable with her own thesis, which is that the domestic sphere has been given up to rent-a-maids -- and that may or may not be good. Ehrenreich is more comfortable reporting on the situation than she is making claims or arguments about it, evidenced from her usage of "sounds" rather than "is": she does not want to say for sure whether xyz is the case or not. Indeed, in the context of the essay as a whole, Ehrenreich actually pushes for some form of authentication of the woman's complaint at the turn of the 20th century when she notes in her conclusion that sooner or later the work will need to be restored and someone will have to get back to it. Even though Ehrenreich, in 2000, sees no imminent crashing of the economy, she admits that the argument about who should be overseeing the domestic duties is far from settled. Nonetheless, so long as Ehrenreich makes arguments such as the one identified in this essay, she undermines her own work: instead of being straightforward and having a point, Ehrenreich makes suggestions but never backs them up with facts or evidence. As far as women preferring their creative work in the home to (perhaps) uncreative work outside the home, Ehrenreich has no basis. This only serves to cause her to have no real answer to the question about who should be in charge of domestic duties at the end of the essay.

Barbara Ehrenreich's statement that "complaints of some women at the turn of the twentieth century that they had been 'robbed by the removal of creative work' from the home sound pointlessly reactionary today" is based on her Feminist premise that all women seek to have jobs outside the home and that these women who complained of being robbed were just protesting for no reason (66). Underlying this statement is an assumption that all true women are Feminists -- but why should she make this assumption? There are many women who are not Feminists are no doubt still feel the same way about "creative work" in the home as did these women at the turn of the 20th century. Ehrenreich is making an unfair assessment and generalization. Her Feminist perspective takes a generalization about women based in Feminist theory and applies it to women in the universal sense, when to do so is actually narrow-minded. The reader might well ask whether Ehrenreich ever stops to see if modern women would like their "creative work" back as opposed to their "job" in the workforce?

Ehrenreich's entire essay is implicitly about this "creative work" in the home -- because the issue in 2000 when she is writing is that there is no real work to be done in the home, as everything can be purchased at the local grocer -- soap, clothes, meals. The cleaning is all that is left and Molly Maids can do that. The "creative work" that women did in the home in the 19th century was meaningful because it supported the family, just like the man's income did from his work outside the home. Both contributed to the support of the household just in different ways. Maybe Ehrenreich might benefit from considering that perhaps not all women preferred to give up this "creative work" and find different work outside the home. Then she could drop the word "sounds" in her claim and make a decisive statement -- as in it "is" or "is not" reactionary.

By posing the argument in the terms she uses, she appears to agree with the sentiment, even though she does not necessarily affirm it (because she uses the ambiguous term "sounds," which excuses her from any positive affirmation)....

Nonetheless, she "appears" convinced that progress has been made, that women actually want to have jobs like men that require them to leave the home and whatever creative work they might still be able to apply themselves to there, that they want to be able to "outsource" the domestic work to Merry Maids and the like, and that "absent a major souring of the economy" this preference will grow and grow until a clean, thoroughly systematic, polished and efficient new domestic world order has been established in which every man and woman promotes Feminist ideals and the issue of who maintains and controls the domestic sphere is settled between the two sexes (66).
The idea of settlement occurring, however, is patently absurd and shows that Ehrenreich's historical sense of economic, political and social factors and determinants in the evolution of gender equality and domestic alterations could use some reinforcing. By allowing the reader to dismiss the complaining women of the 20th century as "pointlessly reactionary" she is displaying callousness towards any preference that is not in accordance with her own theoretical perspective. Using her own terminological tendencies, one could say that she "seems" to scoff at the thought that a woman would actually enjoy making clothes for her family, making soap, keeping house, and maintaining some domestic order.

This paper's claim is that Ehrenreich's claim (about the complaint about losing "creative work") is disingenuous and that she is too submersed in the Feminist viewpoint to consider any other view as being possible. Her vision is narrow but she believes it is "progressive" without offering any evidence as to why it is so and why women would rather "work" for a slave labor corporation than tend to the "creative work" of the home that they were obviously upset about losing when the corporations took over in the 20th century. Even the evidence that Ehrenreich points out is against her: the economy, she says, was robust in 2000 (it wasn't -- and it has since gone into recession-mode) and the problem of who has what duties in the home still exists and even Ehrenreich admits it must be solved. She does not allow for the argument, however, that the "creative work" of the home is good for women because she is too antagonized by the image of woman in the home being submissive to a husband or patriarchal figure. Ehrenreich does not judge whether some work is creative and other work uncreative -- and that is not the point. All work can be creative on some level. The point is that she does not allow women at the turn of the 20th century the right to feel "robbed" by the corporate takeover of their "creative work" in the home, because at the root of her argument is the feeling that women should not be contained in the home. She does not want to see women in the home -- yet she admits, that someone will have to take up that "creative work" at some point in the future -- if the economy goes down hill and brings back a state of necessity where families have to make things themselves rather than purchase them from the grocer.

Ehrenreich's essay is filled with such generalizations about men and women as though her perspective were the only logical, common sense take to which society should be progressing -- as though any movement away from her ideal were regression. She does not consider an alternative point-of-view and this is the main reason her argument is based on two logical fallacies. The logical fallacies allow her to proceed with such an argument without having to actually confront the argument and its terms on its face. Fallacies are avoidance mechanisms in arguments.

The most conspicuous part of Ehrenreich's argument, however, is her choice of terms, which sets off alarm bells. Her use of the term "sounds," for example, allows her to suggest an interpretation without being responsible for any affirmation. This is an ingenuous type of argumentation that allows the writer to plant ideas without having to claim responsibility for them later on. Perhaps it is that Ehrenreich herself is not even convinced of the suggestion she poses, because she does admit in her conclusion that the issue of women's work in the home is not a dead one and does need to discussed more.

The term "sounds" according to the OED is one that conveys a specific impression when heard and this is the way…