Is decluttering anti-feminine?

[terriko]

A friend posted this article entitled "red winkle picker regret and the dark side of decluttering" to twitter, and I've been mulling over it for a couple of days and I still don't know exactly what I want to say. Here's the core of the article:

When I started questioning, I noticed something - The Religion of Decluttering is the kissing cousin of The Religion of Thinness.

Both have at their core the original sin of too-much-ness. Both have congregations that are filled with a large majority of women (no surprise since the teachings are largely directed at women). Both have their morality tales (Hoarders, Clean Sweep, Biggest Loser). Both have had me as a devoted member.

And, I will audaciously claim, both of them have a well-hidden shadow side that is about pathologizing the feminine in favour of celebrating the masculine. Think about it - bodyfat is inherently feminine because of it's necessity for pregnancy and childbirth. Yet women with uber-low body fat percentages are admired (even though many of them stop menstruating). Gathering beauty, making a cozy home, aka nesting- no matter whether it's done by a man or a woman - is an activity flavoured with the feminine. Yet shelter porn makes us think that a lived in house is unattractive. Think of the energy of throwing out and discarding compared to the energy of taking in and welcoming.

I call this the attack on the breasts and nests - part of a subtle backlash against the re-balancing of the feminine and masculine.

So... is it anti-feminine? I don't think it has to be: my mother's going through a decluttering phase that largely seems to be about making sure no one else has to do it for her later if she's ever incapacitated. I think you could say that's almost the epitome of feminine in a way. And I suppose the same is true of losing weight: it doesn't have to be a pathological pursuit.

But I'm not sure I can deny that the parallels between losing weight and decluttering are particularly stark when it comes to the potential hit to one's self esteem: Not pretty enough, not a good enough housekeeper -- these are things that plague a lot of women. Both the pursuit of pretty and the pursuit of a clean home can be about erasing one's identity, be it smile lines or those cute knickknacks you found in a thrift shop.

And here's where the whole decluttering thing freaks me out again: isn't it, for many folk, mostly about throwing things out? Isn't that pretty much worshipping the other side of consumerism, the very thing decluttering advocates pretend to abhor? I grew up in a family of pack rats, but my parents could almost always produce the pieces necessary for any project we wanted or needed to do, be it ancient springs or a piece of fabric the right colour, or whatever. (I grew up in a type of hack culture, long before I learned the meaning of the word hacker.)

I guess really this article reminded me that I'm proud of some of my clutter, and I like being able to go to the basement and find something that I can use to solve a problem rather than having to buy something new. Sure, maybe I could ditch a few more broken things that I haven't gotten around to fixing, give away more of the clothes I don't need, but I don't want my house to look like shelter porn any more than I want my body to look like a super model's.

Comments

[heliumbreath]

I don't so much care how much stuff I have (the more the merrier, though) as much as being able to find stuff when I want it. There's nothing more frustrating than spending a long search for something you knew you had, eventually going out and buying another, then later having it turn up. Similarly with body issues, I'm mostly concerned with being able to do whatever physical activity presents itself as needful, and finding myself huffing a bit more than I did a decade ago is worrisome.

[candidia.livejournal.com]

what an interesting take on it..

i'm not sure i buy the feminine/masculine bit, but as you say there's a definite link between "perfection" of home and "perfection" of body. one should note, of course, that perfection is a moving target based on current popular thought.

i follow unclutterer, which has many useful tips on making life more efficient, but if i followed every recommendation i feel like life would be very sterile. i like it when people's homes show their personality.