I’m also a feminist, but not an “industrial feminist” or a corporate feminist.

Sharon

I’ve been in the “informal economy” for my entire life. I was taught to sew, cook, knit, embroider, work with wood, garden, can, and pretty much everything I needed to know to take care of me and mine with limited involvement in the “formal economy”. I was told frequently throughout my childhood and teen years (usually by older gentlemen!) that I would “make someone a good wife someday”

We we poor, and as a child during the 80s, I scorned “women’s work” and found the comments about being a good wife insulting.

As I grew up I was encouraged to go to college so I could get a good job, so I could support myself and my family. Make much sense, after learning how to run a home?? But I did it, married a man who bought into the idea that work at home was value-less, and finally divorced him. Now I’m a single mom, who works outside the home and pays teenagers to raise my child while I perform “essential” work.

I LIVE in the dichotomy where what I KNOW to be right and what I can DO about it are in strict violation of each other. I belong home, taking care of my son and participating in the “informal” economy, where I have never been bereft of barter or trade (I once traded sewing a custom outfit for a man for that man to plumb my new bathroom). Instead I am out of the home, and run ragged trying to participate in both economies. And I’m caught in the middle, unable to leave the “formal” economy because of the difficulty in getting insurance when “unemployed” (the lovely name for working outside the “formal” economy – no matter how hard you really work, you’re UNemployed), but wanting and dreaming of separating from it.

I honestly think that households with more than one adult are at a distinct advantage in the transition, as one person cannot maintain involvement in both economies while parenting. If I lost my job, I would be gung-ho in the “informal” economy.

But how does one pay property taxes when one steps outside the “formal” economy??

http://littlebloginthebigwoods.blogspot.com/2009/05/problem-is-men.html

And Sue- it’ll make your choice more clear to your husband, too. I hope.

I’m particularly appreciative of this post, as my husband and I were just talking in circles over my wanting to take more significant steps towards self-sufficiency. He was stuck on us engaging more in the formal economy (meaning, my finding part-time work, on top of the homeschooling, suburban homesteading and other informal economy work I do). He felt we just needed to earn more money to prepare for tough times, whilst I was arguing for withdrawing soon-to-be-worthless, dollar-denominated retirement account monies to buy nearby land we could begin planting with food trees and expand our growing activities. Your article reframed our collective situation beautiful in ways I couldn’t manage in our at-times heated conversation, and neither of us has stopped thinking about it since.

With gratitude,

Sue