As I took my morning walk today (up to the top of rather large hill, I might add) I thought about all the things I've been "trying" to do for the last year. This line of thought made me reflect on this blog and its original intent. As of today, I am not longer "trying" to do the things that I was working so hard on less than a year ago.
I am pregnant.
I am actually finishing my thesis, as opposed to just trying to finish it. (I dropped off my second chapter last night.)
I have abandoned the concept of community service for a year because my husband and I realized that we are just not in a position for me to devote so much time and effort outside the home, which would take away from my contributions to our household, for free. For now, my unpaid service will go toward my family.
I have also, just recently (so recently that I even hesitate to type it now) abandoned the idea of continuing on into a PhD program. There. I did it. I typed it.
This last one is primarily because I am having so much trouble imagining handing my infant over to a stranger that I have given up even trying. (More on this later)
So, what now? Do I end this blog entitled Life Can Be Trying?
I thought a lot about this, and then, moments before I sat down in front of my computer, it hit me.
I hope that I will always be trying. Something.
Life is about change, and when one challenge has been overcome, one goal reached, I hope to always look for another. A very close friend of mine told me once that when we stop learning we die, perhaps not physically, but certainly mentally, perhaps spiritually as well.
I realize that I am still "trying." I'm just trying to get through different things.
I'm trying to be a responsible pregnant lady. Yes, that involves huffing and puffing up hills.
I'm trying to stick to my writing deadlines.
I'm trying to be a blessing and not a burden on my household while I am not bringing in an income.
And on and on it goes, and soon, it will change again.
Carlos and I were talking in the car last night, coming back from dropping off my thesis chapter in San Francisco, about how much we've been through, how far we've come from violent and tragic childhoods and irresponsible, self-defeating young adulthoods, always feeling like we were climbing up a muddy hill, always sliding back down into the muck, never getting anywhere. And we wondered if perhaps we are able to now move so steadily through our lives not in spite of, but because of the horrors we survived in the past. It is an amazing thing to realize that you are no longer simply "surviving" but actually "living". You take nothing for granted.
Now, we are overjoyed to be moving forward through life, climbing steps, sometimes small, sometimes big, through this amazing thing called life, always trying, always able to look back at where we've come from and be proud to have made progress.
Yep. Life can be trying. Thank goodness.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
My Problem With Feminism and Women's Rights in General
The short version: women cannot do it all. Neither can men. Difference: Men don't kill themselves trying.
"Men are not the enemy, they are fellow victims. The true enemy is women's denigration of themselves." ~ Betty Friedan
The long version:
Since I began writing my thesis on what it means to be woman to my particular authors in my particular texts, the issue of feminism and women's rights has been one I have thought about more than I previously had. Now that I am pregnant, this issue has taken a primary role in my thinking. Of all the big world issues I think about, this one is now at the top of my list.
The biggest problem with women seeking equality as I see it is this: what we have been so long seeking is not equality in its truest form but superhero status.
The latest blockbuster movie dealing with this point only proves my statement. Sarah Jessica Parker is on billboards and talk shows lauding the superwoman for her new movie "I Don't Know How She Does It." The bottom line? She doesn't.
The women represented in and by this movie are exhausted, cranky, stressed, filled with guilt, and overall unsatisfied. All the while trying to prove that we can do it all. This is not me passing judgment on working mothers, these are words straight from their own mouths in any magazine or journal article or book on the subject, and just this morning on my Babycenter forum.
But to whom are we trying to prove it? Men?
Men, in general, go to work, come home, and "help out" around the house. Some men even go so far as to refer to it as "babysitting" when they stay home with their kids while their wives are out.
Then women are so grateful because their husbands say "thanks honey, I don't know how you do it, I never could, but I really appreciate what you do."
This, to me, is an outrage.
I'm not saying that women shouldn't work, or have families, or both, but we're not even trying to find balance! And we're not insisting that men even acknowledge a need for it.
Countless women have told me they worry about how they will be thought of in the workplace for getting pregnant, waiting until the last possible moment to break the news. A university professor recently spoke of her maverick status in the department for having a second child, while all other professors only had one.
A recent study in britain showed that the average full time working parent spends just 19 minutes a day with his/her child. The same study also reported that only 6 percent of those women actually wanted to work full time, with the majority wanting to work part time and about twenty five percent wishing to be stay at home moms.
And this is the problem, as it stands today. We fought for the right to work outside the home, and we got it. We insisted we could do everything outside the home that men do. And we were taken at our word.
But that is not equality.
"I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and career." ~ Gloria Steinem
We forgot to fight for the right to have a true 50/50 partnership at home with our spouses. We forgot to fight for things like telecommuting and jobshare or for working full time while men stay home more hours a week. We forgot, and we continue to forget, to value ourselves as human beings who have a vested interest in our family lives and the raising of little human beings, as well as in our own personal growth as doctors, accountants, teachers, corporate executives, and so on.
I am not advocating that all women stay at home, or even work part time. Perhaps some women should be focused on their careers, working 60-80 hours a week because they are the 6 percent that are truly happiest doing so, but then they should choose spouses who would like to stay home, or work part time, or simply not have children. Not everyone should have children!
My point is that we should think about what we want when we fight for it, and if we push to break boundaries and break glass ceilings, we should make sure the boundaries and ceilings are fully broken and not dangling pieces of glass for us to cut ourselves on while we brag about having broken them.
I cannot say definitively what it means to be a "woman" (a question I'm working on for my thesis with no hope of actually answering), but I can say what it means to be equal, and we "women," simply put, have still not reached that status. And it is never going to just be handed to us. The women's movement is not over. Feminism must be redefined yet again. We were supposed to be fighting for choice. I see little choice in women's lives today.
"Power can be taken, but not given. The process of empowerment is in the taking itself."
~Gloria Steinem
"Men are not the enemy, they are fellow victims. The true enemy is women's denigration of themselves." ~ Betty Friedan
The long version:
Since I began writing my thesis on what it means to be woman to my particular authors in my particular texts, the issue of feminism and women's rights has been one I have thought about more than I previously had. Now that I am pregnant, this issue has taken a primary role in my thinking. Of all the big world issues I think about, this one is now at the top of my list.
The biggest problem with women seeking equality as I see it is this: what we have been so long seeking is not equality in its truest form but superhero status.
The latest blockbuster movie dealing with this point only proves my statement. Sarah Jessica Parker is on billboards and talk shows lauding the superwoman for her new movie "I Don't Know How She Does It." The bottom line? She doesn't.
The women represented in and by this movie are exhausted, cranky, stressed, filled with guilt, and overall unsatisfied. All the while trying to prove that we can do it all. This is not me passing judgment on working mothers, these are words straight from their own mouths in any magazine or journal article or book on the subject, and just this morning on my Babycenter forum.
But to whom are we trying to prove it? Men?
Men, in general, go to work, come home, and "help out" around the house. Some men even go so far as to refer to it as "babysitting" when they stay home with their kids while their wives are out.
Then women are so grateful because their husbands say "thanks honey, I don't know how you do it, I never could, but I really appreciate what you do."
This, to me, is an outrage.
I'm not saying that women shouldn't work, or have families, or both, but we're not even trying to find balance! And we're not insisting that men even acknowledge a need for it.
Countless women have told me they worry about how they will be thought of in the workplace for getting pregnant, waiting until the last possible moment to break the news. A university professor recently spoke of her maverick status in the department for having a second child, while all other professors only had one.
A recent study in britain showed that the average full time working parent spends just 19 minutes a day with his/her child. The same study also reported that only 6 percent of those women actually wanted to work full time, with the majority wanting to work part time and about twenty five percent wishing to be stay at home moms.
And this is the problem, as it stands today. We fought for the right to work outside the home, and we got it. We insisted we could do everything outside the home that men do. And we were taken at our word.
But that is not equality.
"I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and career." ~ Gloria Steinem
We forgot to fight for the right to have a true 50/50 partnership at home with our spouses. We forgot to fight for things like telecommuting and jobshare or for working full time while men stay home more hours a week. We forgot, and we continue to forget, to value ourselves as human beings who have a vested interest in our family lives and the raising of little human beings, as well as in our own personal growth as doctors, accountants, teachers, corporate executives, and so on.
I am not advocating that all women stay at home, or even work part time. Perhaps some women should be focused on their careers, working 60-80 hours a week because they are the 6 percent that are truly happiest doing so, but then they should choose spouses who would like to stay home, or work part time, or simply not have children. Not everyone should have children!
My point is that we should think about what we want when we fight for it, and if we push to break boundaries and break glass ceilings, we should make sure the boundaries and ceilings are fully broken and not dangling pieces of glass for us to cut ourselves on while we brag about having broken them.
I cannot say definitively what it means to be a "woman" (a question I'm working on for my thesis with no hope of actually answering), but I can say what it means to be equal, and we "women," simply put, have still not reached that status. And it is never going to just be handed to us. The women's movement is not over. Feminism must be redefined yet again. We were supposed to be fighting for choice. I see little choice in women's lives today.
"Power can be taken, but not given. The process of empowerment is in the taking itself."
~Gloria Steinem
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