Thoughts, Inspired

I was reading while eating my dinner, as I generally do, when I came across two non strictly related articles that made me think. I thought so hard, I nearly choked on my spaghetti!

If Betty Freidan’s "The Feminine Mystique” urged women to get out of their unfulfilled lives as wives and mothers and join the workforce to be able to have a sense of self that wasn’t completely governed by one’s reproductive status, and Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” makes a compelling argument for women’s historical insignificance (again, except as a brood mare), and we now live in an era where a woman can actually do anything she wants…why do we criticize, as a culture, women who opt to stay home with their children?

I’m guilty of this as well. I see the little Alpharetta Asses out in their designer tennis wear, with their peroxided hair and perfectly waxed brows, “lunching” with their other lady friends, and complaining about their husband’s jobs, or their children’s problems in their private day care/schools. I see these women, and I think “my god, what did generations upon generations of women strive for? So you could make a conscious decision to sit on your ass and let someone else support you, sticking your kids in daycare so you can run off and perfect your backswing?”

What you hear at lunch is interesting. Last year, I was lunching myself with a coworker and we were blatantly eavesdropping. It couldn’t have been any clearer that we were eavesdropping had we both just put big cones in our ears, put down our lunches, and leaned backwards until our heads were touching their table. Anyway, two of the three ladies were there to provide moral support to the third lady, who was in the midst of a nasty divorce. It seems that this woman, we’ll call her Suzy, was being left by her husband for a younger model. Suzy had, apparently, not worked a day in her married adult life. She had dedicated herself (so I heard, anyway) to making a good home for her husband and raising her two kids (see earlier paragraph about wife and mother). Since Mr. Hubby was leaving her for a younger model, she was being incredibly vindictive towards him, and was reading her lunch mates what looked to be a small novel that she was sending to his lawyer listing his multitudinous sins. Basically, she wanted the house, and the kids, and she wanted him to pay for it all, and give her alimony (so she didn’t have to work, I presume).

So to recap: Suzy lives off her husband’s earnings, and other than provide a nice relaxing home environment (does it come with a cocktail and a valium, I wonder?) and two lovely children, what does she have? Nothing. What is she entitled to? Well, the law says one thing, but I say another. Suzy herself is entitled to jack shit. Her children are entitled to support, and if the husband is nice he will give her the house free and clear. However, he should not have to pay for her lazy ass to sit around getting a twice weekly mani pedi.

So….Fuck Suzy. Suzy got what she deserved. I’m sorry, maybe this means I’m going to be the angry old woman with dogs, but….marriage is a promise, and a contract…and both of those things can be and are broken with great regularity. Suzy should have had a back up plan!

That’s really what I want to say to the A A’s I see every week – sure, this is great for you now, but what if your source of income dries up? What will you do then? What skills do you have that would enable you to get a job? How prepared are you to sacrifice your current lifestyle?

Other generations protested, and sacrificed and challenged the status quo so you could have choice – yes, I agree. Is the choice to live in gilded ignorance, and never have an exit strategy? Some may call that hope, but I call it willful blindness. The statistics should demonstrate to my fellow ovarians that the marriage contract can be broken, and isn’t necessarily going to be the cornerstone of the rest of your life.

Think smart, ladies. Staying home to raise your children is wonderful. I’m not knocking it. If I could (and had children) I would. But I would damn sure have a plan to have something of my own (thanks to Virginia Woolf) in the instance my partner left the relationship. I have to be able to survive on my own; it’s just part of my nature.

And conversely, speaking to the traditional male role as breadwinner, that’s a hell of a lot of pressure to put on anyone, isn’t it? Not only do you hustle to make a buck, you also have all these other responsibilities to take care of – car, house, wife, kids, parents, retirement funds (hah), yardwork….it sucks, doesn’t it? And you do that because it’s expected of you, not necessarily because you want to. You are, after all, the man. It’s your job, isn’t it?

Why can’t we both break out of our gender roles and live as equals? Why is that so hard? Why do women so easily allow themselves to be absorbed into a relationship, or into a man’s life, and retain nothing for themselves?

The thing is, we ARE all equal. We are all made up of the same atoms, the same chemicals, the same bits and parts that comprise a whole being. Why do some folk persist in thinking (think cross culturally here, folks) that one sex is superior to the other? Why do we struggle so in relationships? Because we perceive or because we are taught that there are real differences in abilities between the sexes? Like….men mow the grass because women are too weak to push the mower (or start the damn thing, in my case) or….men can’t do laundry because they always screw it up and shrink everything by washing all things in hot? Where did that come from? Why do we think that way? Why can’t we just enjoy an equal partnership?

Ok. I’m stopping. Maddy is fascinated with the letters appearing on the screen, and keeps trying to lick the monitor. That’s generally my cue to stop.

TTFN