I know this is going to appear to be something not intended, but I think these two articles get at something that I’ve been mulling over for years. Below are two articles, one from Sky News (Murdock’s European CNN), and the other article which references the Sky News report is from “Christian Worldview Weekend,” which is an ultra-rightest Christian organization extolling the virtues and need for a “Christian” worldview (while I agree with their idea of developing a “Christian Worldview”, the worldview they champion is more hard-right Americanism than Christian, IMHO).
Sky News: What Is Wrong With The Thirties?
Worldview Weekend: Stressed Out Moms: Feminism’s Dirty Little Secret
Both articles are about exhausted and overworked 30 and 40 something women. From the early days of the feminist movement, the idea that women can “have it all” has been realized by woman who are simply too exhausted to be, what??? Along with this, in the U.S. at least, comes the expectations of newlyweds – we have to have it all right away. One spouse works just to pay for daycare for the children because not to work in a is to not be actualized, and because, well, it isn’t modern, or liberated, or cool for a parent to be a “stay at home mom or dad.” (Well, perhaps it might be considered liberated for a dad to take care of the kids full-time, who knows.)
I am not at all complaining about the needed change in our society with regards to how women were generally perceived and welcomed into all parts of society – equally with men. What I will complain about is this notion that developed, and I am old enough to remember it well, that for a woman to be a full-time mom and raise her and her husband’s children is to deny her womanhood, her freedom, and to remain an ignorant subordinate under the domination of a patriarchal society.
My goodness, how in the world did nurturing, teaching, and the development of the next generation become such a negative thing? Even in the hay-day of the women’s liberation movement, we need to remember that there was still and is still a significant percentage of women that want to be and are full-time moms. The societal notion of full-time motherhood as a negative is changing, of course, but it is not yet an accepted position in society that to stay home and raise children and manage the household is a noble and worthwhile endeavor. Ironically enough, the change is germinating within younger women who are not bound to the early feminism, even if they benefit from it in their honest ability to choose what they want to do. Many are choosing full-time motherhood, to the chagrin of many of the original feminists. I’ve heard this refereed to as “the new feminism” or “post-feminism.” Whatever it may be called, it sure ain’t your grandma’s feminism.
Listen, my sister was a full-time mom and she is anything but subservient and submissive! She may be considered a traitor to the cause of women by some, but you let anyone try to lay that label on her and see what you get. Now, because of a decision to simplify their lives, for the time being she works in developing Web-applications and IT.
Anyway, the misplaced societal pressure for “super-woman” and the intended diminishment of the role of men in society, well, we are now reaping the harvest that was planted so many years ago.
Go back to the 1950’s? Go back to Stepford wives? Of course not, but there does need to be a change toward more balanced expectations by both society and men and women. If not, we are going to try to continue living this lie of prosperity and actualization while we are internally devoid of meaning and end up exhausted shells.