Four Bay Area women — none of whom actually know one another — are building chicken coops in their backyards. They all raise organic produce. Berkeley, California is the capital of locavorism, the church of Alice Waters. Kitchen gardens are as ubiquitous in Berkeley as indoor plumbing. But chickens? Well this means business.
All of these chicks with chicks are stay-at-home moms, highly educated women who left the work force to dedicate their time to kith and kin. The omnivore’s dilemma has provided an unpredicted out from the feminist predicament, a way for women to embrace homemaking without becoming “Betty Draper”. A smart gift for the family is a true gift for her…good for her.
On the unnamed and unhappy rigmarole of so many working moms, the “problem that had no name” was as much spiritual as it was economic: a dissatisfaction which overtook middle-class housewives trapped in a pickle of schlepping and shopping and shopping and schlepping.
That’s where the chicken coop comes in.
Femivorism is grounded in the same principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment which drove women into the work place in the first place. Given how conscious everyone has become about the source of their food, it also confers instant legitimacy. Femivores expand the limits of their forte: feeding their families clean and flavorful food, reducing their carbon footprints and producing sustainably instead of consuming pigishly.
There is also an economic argument for choosing the literal nest egg over the figurative one. Femivores claim that knowing how to feed and clothe yourself regardless of circumstance, to turn less into more is an equal safety net. At the end of the day, who is really better equipped to weather this economy, the high-earning woman who loses her job or the prudent homemaker who can count her chickens?
In the past, we reported on 
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