What’s Wrong with Etsy…?
doubleX has an article entitled, “Etsy.com Peddles a False Feminist Fantasy” in their “Work” section that gives Etsy (and the women who sell there) a thorough drubbing. Writer Sara Mosle takes Etsy to task for preying on stay-at-home-moms’ fantasies about making money by crafting, suggesting that their sharper male counterparts see Etsy for the “women’s ghetto” that it is: a pimp out whoring women’s crafts for its own gain.
Sadly, Mosle doesn’t give women (or Etsy sellers generally) much credit. She likens them to suckers taken in by the lottery, vainly hoping to achieve “financial success” by working at home. Mosle trots out demographics to support her argument:
The average age of an Etsy seller, according to the site’s 2008 survey, is 35—women’s prime childrearing years. Nearly 60 percent have college degrees, and 55 percent are married. The average household income is $62,000—well above the national mean. In other words, the Etsy.com seller is often a married woman with (or about to have) young children, with a higher-than-average household income, and a good education. These should, in sum, be highly employable women. So, what are they doing, often pursuing hobbies, or working only part-time, on Etsy?
It seems that the notion of motherhood as underemployment is alive and well. It never occurs to Mosle that some women consciously choose to stay home with small children (and perhaps craft as a hobby) and don’t consider themselves unemployed or “underemployed” (one of the most condescending terms I can think of). Rather unbelievably, Mosle conflates the “women’s work” of crafting with the “women’s work” of child-rearing, and undervalues both. It’s especially unpalatable coming from a magazine purporting to be “founded by women but not just for women” under the Slate parent brand.
Sara, time to smarten up. Many women are home because they’re bright enough to realize that sometimes traditional, full-time employment while parenting small children doesn’t pay off. The cost of child care and the stress of juggling financial and household responsibilities can be overwhelming. Many women also feel as if there’s a cost to their children, especially those under school age, by putting them into full-time day care situations. For many families with no at-home parent, they must find a way to take care of houseshold responsibilities by paying someone else to do them: housecleaning, gardening, after school care, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. For those without the luxury of paid help, working full-time and caring for a home and children can mean precious little time to do anything else, let alone pursue a hobby.
Finally, let’s just put it on the table once and for all: many women don’t find being traditionally employed to be all that fulfilling. Is it hard to blame them? Women still make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men in the United States (US Census Bureau, 2007). Ask any woman on a “career path” that turned into the “mommy track” about just how flexible and inviting a workplace can be for a new parent. Staring at that glass ceiling coming into your mid-30s is enough to make any woman reevaluate the economic, social and emotional realities of choosing to continue in the world of traditional work.
Honestly, the idea of a traditional career is so outmoded that I could write another post on that alone. Very few of us entered the workforce thinking that we’d remain in the same career (let alone same job) forever and retire at the end of it with a gold watch. For women who want to have children, the idea of a linear career path is even more specious.
I’m hard pressed to see Etsy as anything other than what it is: a poor cousin to eBay and PayPal. It’s simply a way to post goods for sale; anything beyond that is reading way too much into marketing and demographics. Etsy has many problems (again, another post), but peddling false hope to women isn’t one of them. I don’t see anything in the marketing of Etsy akin to that of Avon, Tupperware or a host of new “be your own boss” businesses that DO try to get women to sell to each other by “empowering” them. Mosle’s critique might find a better home at the next neighborhood lingerie or jewelry party where women are shills selling to each other for the benefit of an anonymous parent company which exploits their social networks. Then again, that sounds a lot like Facebook. 
Technorati Tags: etsy, feminism, doublex, sara mosle
June 24th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
This woman sounds like she got up on the wrong side of the bed! What nerve to devalue anyone because they choose to pursue an artistic “career” instead of a corporate boardroom! I say BRAVO to the women selling on Etsy! I don’t sell on there because I am employed as a teacher, and being single, have no choice! BUT, if I DID have a choice, I may make things for profit too. And WHAT is wrong with THAT? Sorry, but this woman is simply a moron!
June 29th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Thanks for the comment, Jana. I want to find something redeeming in the article, but it seems to be a cheap attempt to stir the pot. Too bad the writer couldn’t have found a more meaningful way to engage her readers.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Thank you for the post. My sentiments exactly.
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
[...] from other perspectives online, I’m not the only one that feels this way. Possibly related posts: (automatically [...]
July 26th, 2009 at 5:17 am
oh, this is so 80′s ! lol women need jobs to reassure themselves?
sahms sell on etsy because they are talented and productive.
work at home is work. i dind’t really choose to stay at home after giving birth, but i am happy it happened. whenever i see a friend considering to stay home w small kids i say, go for it. I have no regrets, and really, you’d have a hard time looking for a feminist more radical than me
hugs from Rio
September 11th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
I think you are reading too much into what she was saying. Did you not read the last 2 paragraphs of the article?
” As someone who’s handy with a paintbrush, I’ve admittedly harbored the fantasy of starting my own storefront on Etsy. I don’t expect to make a living, but I’m not immune to the siren call that brings many women to the site. After decades of being encouraged to forego the unpaid “women’s work” of our mothers and grandmothers, we are tired of being divorced from our hands and from the genuine pleasures such work can afford…. Women, too, hunger for concrete, manual labor that has an element of individual agency and pleasure beyond the abstract, purely cerebral work found in the cubicle or corner office. It’s become satisfying again to sew, cook, and garden. But unlike our mothers and grandmothers, who were content to knit booties for relatives, younger women want to be recognized and compensated for their talents.”
She goes onto say that Etsy is really taking away from your neighborhood artsy lady by making her kind of work cheaper in a sense b/c it’s now like an ebay. Crafting and selling full time for yourself, by yourself, even w/ your own website, is hard as hell on its own. Etsy isn’t the only place online that stay at home moms are bombarded with that promises full time pay for full time hours at home. I should know b/c i’m also a stay at home mom.
The paragraph you pulled to feature, to me, is her saying “why would these women who can make alot more money be doing such crafty homely things?” Etsy makes it out like you CAN do what you LOVE, stay at home and make full income off of it. Which, w/ a baby and even being the most talented crocheter , i doubt you’d ever be able to make over poverty level income AND actually have time to be a mom and take care of your house. That’s why it seems etsy is telling tall tales. I love etsy and sell some things off there as well. I buy things there too. And I loved this article.
September 11th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
@casey Thank you for your comment. I appreciate you taking the time to post such a thoughtful response, even if our opinions diverge. The main point of my post was that I don’t think Etsy is “telling tall tales.” Sure, there are some “quit your day job” features, but I see Etsy as a seller-positive marketplace that is gender-neutral. The conflation of Etsy (or handmade goods in general) with “women’s work” is what irks me. Furthermore, I think that articles like this are essentially mommy-baiting: a way to get women to resent each other when the American cultural landscape is filled with false choices for working people, (particularly those with children) whether self-employed or otherwise.