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I don't understand the wanting to be alone part. It would be nice to share the experience with another individual.
I don't think it's a "specifically insisting on being alone" thing for the vast majority of men (or women) interested in that lifestyle. It's more like (for me anyway), it doesn't matter that much. The pluses and minuses weight out to be about the same.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AK-Cathy
For the most part, modern society and it's technology has made life much easier for women.
Definitely the case for women in the "working" class of the past (most often meaning homemaker). For the aristocratic class (I'm talking generally of the Victorian era), not so much differential between male and female between times. In fact, in certain ways, those women had it easier (if we ignore the obvious technology improvement) than women of today. But, of course, that was the exception, not the rule. There was less wealth and upper class spreading--especially if we go back to colonial to early 19th century times.
Modern convenience has made life easier for everybody, so for anyone to turn their back on their cell phones, big screens, abundant fast foods and purposefully return to a harder way of life is a reach for anybody, man or woman.
The only reason to do it is because you believe it is better for you.
I agree that most women prefer instant hot water for showers and modern lavatories as well as automatic washing machines instead of a rock on a creek bank and a cold dip in the river in the winter, can't blame them on that one
But self sufficency is hard on men too with the physical labor and having to learn how to do so many things.
I don't think the ideal appeals more to men than women, my wife is really into most of self sufficency, but it is a leap to leave a life of ease for a life of hard endless labor with little relaxation time.
Most modern conveniences were originally designed to lighten the workload and make more leisure time available in the first place.
So it takes a special kind of person to turn their back on that anyway, whether man or woman.
It will always just be an individual choice, not necessarily related to the sex, you just decide what you want out of life, and do your own thing.
If you find someone with similar beliefs, good for you!
But it isn't any different than finding someone who shares your passion for cars, or dogshows, or handicrafts, or garage sales or whatever.
Some folks like it, some dont'. Pretty simple to me anyway.
I went to the Philipinnes to get the sort of woman that I wanted. I may well lose her after she gets in her 5 years here and becomes a citizen, but it will be 5 years that got spent MY way and if I do lose her, there's millions more just like her, where she came from. Repeat as desired/necessary.
If you are a man looking into above average self-sufficiency, it's a serious matter to consider, more likely than not, you'll be alone. There are just not that many women into that stuff. And it's not just USA, it's pretty much universal female preference to avoid this sort of life, including less than developed countries. ...........................................
Considering that I know hundreds of women who do the homesteading lifestyle, I just think either you are looking in the wrong places or you have unreasonable expectations.
What women are not interested in is being free slave labor for a man whose idea of homesteading is to have a woman who will do all the food preservation, grow the garden, tend all the animals, do all the house cleaning and laundry, make the soap, candles, and clothing from spinning all the way to a finished garment, chop split, and stack the fire wood, and perform, on demand, all the personal relations stuff.
What is in short supply is men who want to do the work. Not many are out there plowing with a horse team, putting up hay with a scythe, and building a comfortable house using nothing but an ax. Instead, there are plenty of men who think they are homesteading if they sit out in their shop building knives from car springs. In short, they are doing hobby stuff while their wife works very long hard hours.
There is no reason for a homesteading life to be uncomfortable. Solar hot water is hot water on demand. There is absolutely no reason to be doing laundry squatted down at the river beating the clothes on a rock. The food should be 1000% better than anything bought at the market or in a restaurant.
But you are right, it is going to be difficult to find a wife who wants to live under a blue tarp and live like a Neanderthal.
In just about every farm in the USA, no make that every farm in the entire world , there is a woman doing the homesteading work. So I can't see where the idea comes from that women won't do the lifestyle.
Hey? Don't the Amish all have wives? Aren't their women doing homesteading work?
The reverse was true for a friend... his girlfriend was the one living the life off-grid in the Santa Cruz mountains... born and raised there.
She had a hard time finding someone to live the life in a homemade cabin deep in the redwoods...
Never had a TV, newspapers... etc.
Could just be you are looking in the wrong places?
Part of what has been said remind me of people I know that live high in mountain villages of Austria/Switzerland where 4H is still very active and teaching the next generation how to live off the land...
My grandparents were very self-sufficient... didn't even own a can opener, baked their own bread, raised grain/dairy and packed their own meat...
It was not a life of being deprived... they had central heat from a wood fired boiler and everything was cooked on a Wedgewood wood stove...
Very glad I had to opportunity to experience summers with them.
I've long noted that a rugged off grid, chop wood, haul water type of life holds little appeal to many women because of the gender related roles. For the most part, modern society and it's technology has made life much easier for women. I think more so than men. Most of us do not want to spend our life cooking the hard way, cleaning with mops and brushes, doing wash by hand, any spare time hoeing weeds in the garden. Plus most women want readily available community. Living on a self sufficient parcel usually means rural and I'm sure gas to run to town to visit isn't part of the scenario. Preparedness, yes. Self sufficiency not as much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke
Considering that I know hundreds of women who do the homesteading lifestyle, I just think either you are looking in the wrong places or you have unreasonable expectations.
What women are not interested in is being free slave labor for a man whose idea of homesteading is to have a woman who will do all the food preservation, grow the garden, tend all the animals, do all the house cleaning and laundry, make the soap, candles, and clothing from spinning all the way to a finished garment, chop split, and stack the fire wood, and perform, on demand, all the personal relations stuff.
What is in short supply is men who want to do the work. Not many are out there plowing with a horse team, putting up hay with a scythe, and building a comfortable house using nothing but an ax. Instead, there are plenty of men who think they are homesteading if they sit out in their shop building knives from car springs. In short, they are doing hobby stuff while their wife works very long hard hours.
There is no reason for a homesteading life to be uncomfortable. Solar hot water is hot water on demand. There is absolutely no reason to be doing laundry squatted down at the river beating the clothes on a rock. The food should be 1000% better than anything bought at the market or in a restaurant.
But you are right, it is going to be difficult to find a wife who wants to live under a blue tarp and live like a Neanderthal.
In just about every farm in the USA, no make that every farm in the entire world , there is a woman doing the homesteading work. So I can't see where the idea comes from that women won't do the lifestyle.
Hey? Don't the Amish all have wives? Aren't their women doing homesteading work?
You need to add producing, tending, and educating the children to your list.
As for the Amish, they aren't really into "self sufficiency" at all. They are much more into the opposite, "community", which is largely off-grid and mostly self-sufficient. Amish don't go off and live by themselves in isolation, but cluster together on adjoining farms or small acreages. Not all Amishmen are farmers. Some are but others are wood workers, blacksmiths, metal workers, furniture makers, horse trainers, carpenters, roofers, etc. In larger Amish communities, some are factory workers. Amish farmers also specialize: some run dairies while others raise pigs or chickens or fruits and vegetables or others field crops. It depends upon the farmland and what the farmer is good at raising. Amish businesses run the gamut from cart and buggy shops to greenhouses to cheese factories to candy shops. Almost all Amish families raise gardens with it being a cooperative family chore, not solely the responsibility of the wife.
Women work in the home and tend children, and while they bake "from scratch" and make their own clothes, they buy their flour and other ingredients from the supermarket and their fabric from a fabric shop. They also buy shampoo, soap, and cleaning agents at stores. Amish children go to school, usually in private all Amish schools among the more conservative Old Order Amish but in more "liberal" communities they send their kids to the local public schools through 8th grade.
Furthermore, the Amish participate in their community. Sundays are reserved for worship and visiting. They often engage in communal activities like "bees" but also form communal work crews for heavy work like haying and threshing. Multigenerational families will share a farmstead. That's a very different kind of life-style than what most "Englischers" interested in "self sufficiency" envision.
You need to add producing, tending, and educating the children to your list.
As for the Amish, they aren't really into "self sufficiency" at all. They are much more into the opposite, "community", which is largely off-grid and mostly self-sufficient. Amish don't go off and live by themselves in isolation, but cluster together on adjoining farms or small acreages. Not all Amishmen are farmers. Some are but others are wood workers, blacksmiths, metal workers, furniture makers, horse trainers, carpenters, roofers, etc. In larger Amish communities, some are factory workers. Amish farmers also specialize: some run dairies while others raise pigs or chickens or fruits and vegetables or others field crops. It depends upon the farmland and what the farmer is good at raising. Amish businesses run the gamut from cart and buggy shops to greenhouses to cheese factories to candy shops. Almost all Amish families raise gardens with it being a cooperative family chore, not solely the responsibility of the wife.
Women work in the home and tend children, and while they bake "from scratch" and make their own clothes, they buy their flour and other ingredients from the supermarket and their fabric from a fabric shop. They also buy shampoo, soap, and cleaning agents at stores. Amish children go to school, usually in private all Amish schools among the more conservative Old Order Amish but in more "liberal" communities they send their kids to the local public schools through 8th grade.
Furthermore, the Amish participate in their community. Sundays are reserved for worship and visiting. They often engage in communal activities like "bees" but also form communal work crews for heavy work like haying and threshing. Multigenerational families will share a farmstead. That's a very different kind of life-style than what most "Englischers" interested in "self sufficiency" envision.
Not really, Most folks into self sufficency aren't opposed to trading skills or products, they just want to be able to live on their terms without being told by uncle obama what they can or cannot do.
I can use my family as an example, I am a blacksmith, can do carpentry or electrical work. I also raise livestock and do a lot of the smoking/salting/preserving as well as I am a good trapper and Hunter.
My father is a logger with his own mill and he also farms and raises grains, hay and other supplies
while he also has livestock and working animals he trains.
My brother is a mechanic, his wife raises all kinds of poultry for eggs and meat.
My brother in law is a plumber, a good mechanic, and raises hogs like nobodys business.
We all can work with concrete or stone, weld, fabricate parts, make furniture or roof a house, whatever needs done we can probably do it.
We all work together toward a common goal and share resources and skills amongst the family. We trade beef for pork, or wiring a building for eggs, or labor on large projects is shared with the principal returning the favor when one of the others has a large job. Our extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins etc. all have other skills and we trade with them as well.
We don't live in a commune, we don't shun modern conveniences such as soap, but we can and do make our own.
Just because someone doesn't want to live exactly like someone else shouldn't mean they are sick in the head, it just means they want to have the freedom to make their own choices.
[quote=oregonwoodsmoke;31252209]Considering that I know hundreds of women who do the homesteading lifestyle, I just think either you are looking in the wrong places or you have unreasonable expectations.
What women are not interested in is being free slave labor for a man whose idea of homesteading is to have a woman who will do all the food preservation, grow the garden, tend all the animals, do all the house cleaning and laundry, make the soap, candles, and clothing from spinning all the way to a finished garment, chop split, and stack the fire wood, and perform, on demand, all the personal relations stuff.
What is in short supply is men who want to do the work. Not many are out there plowing with a horse team, putting up hay with a scythe, and building a comfortable house using nothing but an ax. Instead, there are plenty of men who think they are homesteading if they sit out in their shop building knives from car springs. In short, they are doing hobby stuff while their wife works very long hard hours.
There is no reason for a homesteading life to be uncomfortable. Solar hot water is hot water on demand. There is absolutely no reason to be doing laundry squatted down at the river beating the clothes on a rock. The food should be 1000% better than anything bought at the market or in a restaurant.
But you are right, it is going to be difficult to find a wife who wants to live under a blue tarp and live like a Neanderthal.
In just about every farm in the USA, no make that every farm in the entire world , there is a woman doing the homesteading work. So I can't see where the idea comes from that women won't do the lifestyle.
Hey? Don't the Amish all have wives? Aren't their women doing homesteading work?[/quote]
Oregonwoodsmoke said it very well. Anyone on this list that's been here long enough knows that I spent time on a "back to the earth" farm in the late 70s. I was 19 and wanted to see how it all worked and being an avid Mother Earth News reader it was something I needed to see first hand. It was an interesting experience but Oregon and I are dead on about the realities of the fate of women in both self sufficient communities and the "lone" homesteader. By women I mean women, girls from about age 12 and up and occasionally boys prior to puberty especially with garden and animal chores.
At the farm women grew, handled, cooked and preserved the food, tended their gardens, were responsible for small livestock, (goats and smaller) did the milking, collected eggs and slaughtered chickens, cleaned the houses, stoked the wood stove, kept heated water on the stove, did the laundry in old washtubs, mended clothing, cut hair, tended, bathed and schooled children, burned trash, often hauled a large share of the water and did a fair share of cabin repairs. If flowers were planted, women did that. If someone needed nursing, women did that too. Outhouse cleaning? Women. Keeping camp order? Women. Planning social and holiday events? Women. Keeping track of supplies? Women. Doing the monthly shopping? Women, but normally a man drove them to town.
I observed that the men at the farm had much more free time than women. Yes they cut wood (chainsaws not axes) but the big wood gathering for winter everyone did something, hauled, stacked, gathered even kids of nominal working age. Same with trail clearing. Any able bodied person not allergic to poison ivy (me for one) was pressed into "road service" gangs. Men mended fences, built and fixed things (with power tools) tended the one horse, turned a few wrenches on machinery and hauled about half of the water, but otherwise they spent lots of time in groups chatting holding coffee cups while women labored on with three irons in the fire from dawn to way past dusk. If women were sitting and chatting they were also shelling peas, shucking corn, snapping beans, mending clothes, rocking babies or some other hand done chore.
Though I had a very interesting time, I knew that this was not a life that I wanted. Over the following years I did my time in a career while picking and choosing the "homesteading" activities that we engaged in. Gardening, composting, growing fruit, preserving food. Building things, manufacturing and repairing anything practically. I'm not averse to hard work, we don't own a big screen TV, (that was my DH when I met him, never was produced a tech item that he didn't have) my needs for shopping are mainly met by thrift stores, warehouse grocery and the occasional farmer's market. I want to be an equal partner. I don't like living like I'm in poverty. Though I do many things the "old school" method I don't want to do everything that way.
For example: At that farm I took special care with my laundry because I saw how dingy everyone's clothing looked when we went to town for supplies. I was willing to haul extra water, bought a good laundry soap, heated water super hot, kept lights and darks separate, changed wash water often, rinsed several times, used the hand wringer between stages and still after a while my clothes got dingy. We used more water, soap, women-power hours and perhaps fuel than one community front loading washer with inferior results. Would the guys consider a clothes washer? No. It interfered with their notion of "off the land" living and yet chainsaws blasting away were "practical". There was money for gas for "man" things but none for spices or seasonings. I spent my own money on onions, garlic and spices to make my food palatable. It's always the women's "tools" that are the first to be jettisoned.
I wanted no part of that. That was not the last homestead type of community that I've visited, AK being full of them. It's the same old s**t, different locales, different philosophies for being there in the first place but it all ends up working out roughly the same for women. I stand by my comments. Been there and have the first hand knowledge and the dingy tee shirt.
I think most women that might be faintly interested in a more independent lifestyle might be like me. They catch on pretty quick as to where the large part of the burden of the reality of "self sufficiency" will lay and unless they are driving the bus and have at least equal say in how the thing plays out, they aren't going along for the ride. FWIW.
Just because someone doesn't want to live exactly like someone else shouldn't mean they are sick in the head, it just means they want to have the freedom to make their own choices.
Amen to that!
In a society that supposedly embraces diversity, it sure doesn't seem diversity is tolerated much.
Because, whether we stack food and supplies to the moon, you KNOW it affects them in no way at all. It's just that they cannot resist picking on those who differ (in a way they don't like) from them--or in a woman's case, actually liking a lifestyle they see as unpalatable. They cannot understand a woman (or man, for that matter) who would rather do the off-grid thing or back-to-the-land deal, or even a more simple/frugal lifestyle, than becoming a cog in modern corporate America. Personally, I see nothing desirable about that corporate America thing. It's meaningless. It's a waste of life--at least for me; for others, I encourage you to live your dream, regardless of whether it resembles my dream or not.
All those things you mention in your post that you and your family do, I see as great accomplishments. All the things I see others bragging about around me in everyday life (the raise, the promotion, the car, the wonderful new indentured servitude, the phone that has a tushy-wiping app, the blah blah blah), I see as wholly meaningless. And as far as gender, I can guarantee you I'd feel the same were I female. It's simply a preference, regardless of gender.
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