Probably the last thing you want to be reading, right? Another rant by a woman? It's worth it though, I promise. Please excuse some of my graphic examples though.
I learned something very important in Kindergarden.
Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.
What I didn’t learn is how those biological differences signified inherent gender roles.
No, it was simply ingrained in the society to which I was born. It wasn’t a matter up for debate. Women biologically birth babies, therefore women are the natural ones to raise them. Unless God forbid, a man find himself a widower, and then his status is immediately elevated to hero for working and raising children. A man receives no backlash for having a career, a spouse, and offspring. In fact, he is praised and encouraged. And there is virtually no public discrimination if he should fail in his role as a husband and father in any way, because he is so consumed by providing.
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| me at my last shoot |
Now women, on the other hand, are stereotypically incapable of being mothers, wives and employed all at the same time. If a woman is aspiring to have a career and a family, she is shamed. She is pitied. We feel bad for her. She can’t possibly be a good mother and have a successful career. The only way she will be truly happy, is if she gives up her career aspirations to raise her children. Why would she ever put her kids in daycare? That horrible awful place where she will miss nearly every milestone her kid will reach. Apparently daddy doesn't care to see those milestones either, because he is too busy at the office. And we will be sure to write blog posts, columns, and facebook rants that put a woman back into her rightful penis governed place: “the home”.
Tell me how in the world this makes sense? Why can a man come home at the end of the day from work and immediately sit down on the couch and not get his kids ready for bed and still be considered a good father? If mom ignores the kids even to put personal hygiene, sleep, or nutrition first, you bet she is going to get an earful about it. Why can a mom not take a shower by herself in the morning? Why does she have to put her career and education on hold if she should have children? Why if she comes home from work at the end of the day, she finds herself feeding, changing, bathing and putting the kids to bed? Why do we not expect this equally of men? And why is a woman failing and a man is not where household duties and child rearing are concernced? What the hell is wrong with our society?
Trying to work on some editing for my own business and keeping my kids from destroying one another, I realized it is virtually impossible to do both at the same time. It's like trying to cook dinner and wash the pan at the same time. The problem is, why is that not okay? And why am I automatically less of a mother if I forsake my kids a few hours a day to devote to me? Unlike my husband, I don't have a homemaker to clean up after me, to watch my kids, to make sure my dinner is cooked. I don't have a maid, a babysitter, or a chef. It's me. But just because life has put me in this position, doesn't mean I have to stay here. And it certainly doesn't mean that I'm a bad mother for having some time set aside to take care of myself, and work if I want to. If the kitchen is a mess at the end of the day, the world will not explode.
Nono, that is not at all what people are saying, you remind me. But it is what a lot of them are thinking. They just would never say it directly. Like I said, there will be passive aggressive blog posts about how “I’m happier now that I’ve chosen my kids over my career”. How many blog posts are there saying the same thing about men? How many men do we shame into leaving the work force to stay home with their kids? How many men do we encourage to not pursue education?
Times are changing you say? Not fast enough. We are still unfortunately the product of archaic gender stereotyping and male privilege.
This is why as a young and impressionable woman I let the advice of men 60 years my senior govern my entire life. I got married because my greatest achievement in life was to be a wife and mother. I got married young and fast because I needed to be prolific. I got a useless degree from a second rate university to get a quick job to make enough money to get married. I then eventually left my excellent job because I was supposed to stay home and raise my brand new baby.
For years I struggled with depression. Not the clinical kind. The regretful kind. Realizing that I had squandered my youth and my talents because a bunch of old men told me I should be having babies and making dinner for my husband. Now, I realize that is another matter entirely. The problem is that our society is still very much tied to this idea. That in order for a woman to be happy she needs to be in the home and raising her kids. That if she tries to have a career she will regret it. She will not be as happy. And we shame her back into the home. We do not do this for men! Men are not shamed when having a career and family. Why do we do this to women? The difference between a vagina and a penis does not warrant the way we treat females!
I’m sick of feeling like less of a person for wanting to have a career. I hate feeling hindered by my gender. I hate that I ruined my body for the reward of being a perpetual pooper scooper. That's not a dignified reward. Do I mind caring for my kids? No, but I want to do other things as well!
I don’t want other young girls to make the same mistakes that I did. Do I regret a lot of decisions I made in my youth? Yes. Do I regret my children? No, I wouldn’t change that for the world. Do I wish I had been older, more established, more prepared financially and mentally for them? Yes. Am I going to get that opportunity back? No. The time is past. I made too many quick decisions without thinking because my society, my culture told me I had one goal in life: to get married and have children.
It’s time we treated men and women the same. It’s time we had similar standards and expectations for both. It’s time we started treating women as equals. Women are not second-class citizens. Women are not the weaker sex. Women carry and bear children, let’s see a man go through that and survive! Give women the respect they deserve, praise them for their strengths, encourage them in their aspirations, and support them in their goals! Don’t pigeon hold them to archaic gender roles based on chauvinistic desires and attitudes. Praise the working mothers as you would the working fathers! Praise the homemaker fathers as you would the homemaker mothers! Gender has nothing to do with capability or mental capacity.
If there is one thing I would have you get out of this its that having children is not a handicap, being a woman is not a detriment, being a working mom is not a dishonorable vocation. It's okay to put yourself first once in a while, but it is not okay to let anyone shame you for doing it. Expect respect from your male counterparts. Expect the same parental efforts from fathers. Expect the same accountability from men in the domestic arena. Do not settle.
Last thing, breastfeed wherever you damn well want to! If there is another thing I can't stand, it's the double standard of modesty. A nipple is a nipple, and if you make it something sexual, is that my problem? Hell to the no!
