Okay, so I'm all for women's lib and equal pay, for equal work and 99.9% of all other modern feminist movements. This is because I believe everyone (man or woman) should have the choice to fulfill their dreams anyway they see fit.
If you want to stay at home and be a house wife, good for you! If you want to be a CEO of a giant company, good for you too! Basically, I like women's lib because it let's women be who they want to be and is supposed to take away societal pressures to conform to some Stepford Wife norm.
Well in theory this is all great and I do think the woman's movement over the past 100 years has done amazing things for women...BUT....let's be real, societal pressures are still there for women. The "norm" has in some ways has just gotten worse.
Now this will be controversial to many people, but I think women had it easier (easier, not necessarily better) when men were supposed to be the breadwinners and the women ran the home. I mean, if your husband sucked, life sucked, but assuming you had a half way decent spouse, the pressures would have likely been more manageable. It was probably boring to intelligent women and I'm sure it was frustrating to not go fulfill life's passions, so there's the bad part (granted that's a pretty BIG bad part.)
Today, this whole "do it all" thing is semi out-of-hand. So, now we have the ability to make any choice and we ruin it for our damn selves by stressing out about having to have it all, do it all, be it all. We want careers where we make crazy money and achieve great things, we want to be stellar moms, run beautiful homes, and keep our bodies beautiful as well, because we not only do it all, but we are sex kittens to boot.
WHYYYYY do we put so much pressure on ourselves?
I have friends that work HARD (because they have to feed their children - single motherhood is tough) and LOVE their children fiercely and always feel bad because the stay-at-home mom's can go on the field trips or volunteer in the classroom. I have other friends that feel like they have to choose between their future family and their career because they make so much more than their male counterpart and don't feel comfortable bringing kids into the world quite yet. I have other friends who really don't want to work anymore, and whose husbands are fine with them staying home, but some part of them just isn't ready for the potential judgment of "oh you don't work? aren't you spoiled!" from some family member or another.
I'm certainly no better at any of these things than any of my friends. I am the queen of having the mini crisis where I question the meaning of life, and if I'm doing enough, saving enough, working out enough, saving enough orphans from burning buildings etc etc. I question how I will both find meaningful work and be the mother who makes every soccer practice, ballet recital and science fair. I don't even have children and I already worry about this. (Yes, you're right, that's crazy.)
I think we need to give ourselves a break, try to be happy and just.do.our.best. Make the decisions that are right for you, no matter what someone else might think! I am well aware that that is easier said than done but I'm working on it. I adopted the phrase "Give yourself grace" for 2013 and try to say it out loud whenever I catch myself being crazy hard on myself. All the pressure is a waste of time and energy and us sex kittens have better things to do with our time. ;)
If you want to stay at home and be a house wife, good for you! If you want to be a CEO of a giant company, good for you too! Basically, I like women's lib because it let's women be who they want to be and is supposed to take away societal pressures to conform to some Stepford Wife norm.
Well in theory this is all great and I do think the woman's movement over the past 100 years has done amazing things for women...BUT....let's be real, societal pressures are still there for women. The "norm" has in some ways has just gotten worse.
Now this will be controversial to many people, but I think women had it easier (easier, not necessarily better) when men were supposed to be the breadwinners and the women ran the home. I mean, if your husband sucked, life sucked, but assuming you had a half way decent spouse, the pressures would have likely been more manageable. It was probably boring to intelligent women and I'm sure it was frustrating to not go fulfill life's passions, so there's the bad part (granted that's a pretty BIG bad part.)
Today, this whole "do it all" thing is semi out-of-hand. So, now we have the ability to make any choice and we ruin it for our damn selves by stressing out about having to have it all, do it all, be it all. We want careers where we make crazy money and achieve great things, we want to be stellar moms, run beautiful homes, and keep our bodies beautiful as well, because we not only do it all, but we are sex kittens to boot.
WHYYYYY do we put so much pressure on ourselves?
I have friends that work HARD (because they have to feed their children - single motherhood is tough) and LOVE their children fiercely and always feel bad because the stay-at-home mom's can go on the field trips or volunteer in the classroom. I have other friends that feel like they have to choose between their future family and their career because they make so much more than their male counterpart and don't feel comfortable bringing kids into the world quite yet. I have other friends who really don't want to work anymore, and whose husbands are fine with them staying home, but some part of them just isn't ready for the potential judgment of "oh you don't work? aren't you spoiled!" from some family member or another.
I'm certainly no better at any of these things than any of my friends. I am the queen of having the mini crisis where I question the meaning of life, and if I'm doing enough, saving enough, working out enough, saving enough orphans from burning buildings etc etc. I question how I will both find meaningful work and be the mother who makes every soccer practice, ballet recital and science fair. I don't even have children and I already worry about this. (Yes, you're right, that's crazy.)
I think we need to give ourselves a break, try to be happy and just.do.our.best. Make the decisions that are right for you, no matter what someone else might think! I am well aware that that is easier said than done but I'm working on it. I adopted the phrase "Give yourself grace" for 2013 and try to say it out loud whenever I catch myself being crazy hard on myself. All the pressure is a waste of time and energy and us sex kittens have better things to do with our time. ;)
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