'Femivores' For the Birds

Now, as ever, the moneyed class gets the most press, their proclivities and habits making headlines while the rest of humanity surges ever-onward hungrily and anonymously. This rule is particularly true with women, in whose ranks the voices of the poor drown particularly silently. Rich women, on the other hand, have always seemed to be of particular interest to almost everybody.

In this instance, the press is working itself into a lather over the news, reported by Peggy Orenstein in the New York Times Magazine, that a few stay-at-home moms in Berkeley are raising chickens in their back yards. "Femivores," she calls them, as if women growing food for their families is a phenomenon that needs a new name. (I won't even mention my misgiving about the grammar.)

The blogosphere, in response to this prompt, busies itself with reading the scratches in the dirt: What does it all mean?

Are any men raising chickens? When women do it, is it a feminist step forward or a reversion to a prison of home-bound good intentions? Are these women reacting to the guilt induced by staying home or setting themselves up for the guilt of not being able to harvest their family's entire diet? (Of course, we know from other articles in this vein that guilt about her choices is central to any woman's decisions.)

Perhaps the chicken wire will "coop her up as surely as any gilded cage," Orenstein opines, referring to the secure but soul-crushing life of the housewife.

Why can't we just conclude that some women — Orenstein's article is based on four of her friends and a dozen or so examples offered by Shannon Hayes in her new book Radical Homemakers — who have the time and inclination are choosing to provide home-grown food for their families? Hooray! Home-grown food to make kids healthy!

Must the choice be a product of guilt, yearning and nostalgia? Must we see it as a likely avenue toward some problematic and confusing new stage in women's history? Can't some people just raise a few chickens in peace?

Or better yet, how about we stop fretting and start celebrating those women who have the time and ability and are helping reinvigorate our general enchantment with fresh food and the processes that produce it? After all, we need women engaged in every part of this larger food conversation, and the more of them who know a thing or two about how to grow the food that feeds us, the better.

Photo: hagwall via Flickr