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The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage by Cathi Hanauer
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The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work,…

by Cathi Hanauer

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396813,101 (3.54)6
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This felt more negative than the men's version. Interestingly, although these writers were also more angry than their husbands, they were also accepting more blame for their situations. Like Pamela Stone's [Opting Out?], this collection made me kinda glad I'm not a Type-A and thus have no grand ambitions to worry about giving up. Because they always have to give them up. At the same time, there seemed to be a thread of unrealistic expectations. Most of the writers grew up with mothers who did all the housework. So no wonder that they're frustrated at doing it now. They don't want to do any housework, shared or otherwise. As someone with a long list of childhood chores, that made me less than sympathetic. Living together didn't come out looking like a great option, surprisingly. There was one piece explaining why the author and her partner will never marry, which was interesting and entertaining but I never figured out her reason.

A few observations I particularly liked: Kate Christensen: "Like most of the girls I knew when I was growing up, I'd always assumed I'd marry the perfect man. But for me, the man himself wasn't an important element in my fantasies of the future; he existed in my imagination as a flawless but shadowy alter ego, a male version of myself who would read my mind, meet all my needs, and have none of his own."

Cynthia Kling (on relationship advice from well-meaning friends): "Women complain that men boss them around and tell them what to do, but what about all that female coercion? The oppressive solidarity of the smart-girl set?"

Ellen Gilchrist: "I think older women probably make better mothers in many ways. But young women are more selfish and you have to be selfish to demand time for yourself when you have children. Young women are closer to the time when they were manipulative and childish and they don't let their babies manipulate them as much as older mothers do. These are only my conclusions from watching children in grocery stores." ( )
  kristenn | Oct 8, 2009 |
Personal essays by women in a variety of situations about love, family, and children. Some of the essays were very thought provoking, some were self-indulgent nonsense. It was really a mixed bag and it didn't have the teeth promised by the title. ( )
  apartmentcarpet | Feb 25, 2009 |
Well known, uneven set of essays. Ellen Gilchrist needs no introduction and offers quite a different take on the toll (not) that motherhood exerts on work and writing. But this book did turn me on to a couple of insightful writers I now look out for: Helen Schulman, Elissa Schappell, Kate Christensen, Jill Bialosky. I think that covers it. Of course, all the people writing down for Glamour and Self and um Glamour are smarter than their supposed readers but some of them are a lot sharper than I would have guessed. Very much a New York book, though. There are a few token reps from Oregon, wherever, but they all belong to the same New York (dumb girl) magazine network. ( )
  Periodista | Aug 11, 2007 |
This is a book of short stories. I liked alot of the stories, and could very much see myself in alot of them. Though it was hard going from one writers style to another's at times. ( )
  cindyloumn | Mar 5, 2007 |
post-feminist rants on "surviving" being female;
26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage

3.03
  aletheia21 | Feb 9, 2007 |
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Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0060936460, Paperback)

"This book was born out of anger," begins Cathi Hanauer, which seems appropriate considering the book's title: The Bitch in the House. What could have been a collective gripe about the day-to-day routine of holding a family or relationship together is instead a witty, and sometimes bitchy, read. These postfeminist mothers, lovers, wives, and independent women candidly put forward their anger in the taffy-pull world of household responsibility. Jill Bialosky puts it most succinctly, "I had wanted to get married, but I realized now that I had never wanted to be a 'wife'." There are essays written by those who willfully, and often playfully, seek a life independent from domesticated routine, and others who have aged past the concerns of being a self-fulfilled and responsible mother. Author and poet Ellen Gilchrist, who is also a mother and a grandmother, sets this lasting tone of contentment, "Family and work. Family and work. I can let them be at war, with guilt as their nuclear weapon and mutually assured destruction as their aim, or I can let them nourish each other."

Not entirely angry, it is ultimately a satisfying read. There are no intended messages on how women can improve their relationships with their husbands, partners, and children. That is the beauty of the book. They have instead revealed modern motherhood, and solitude, as it is, and may have been all along. --Karin Rosman

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400)

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