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rmI am sick of news and magazine articles telling me what I want. Or explaining what women really want as if we were some strange animal on national geographic. I can't even bring myself to read the latest instance in the Times, the headline of which seems to indicate, "Well, all the _really_ smart women are totally going to give up their careers for babies."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html (having skimmed the article, I must say, in all fairness, it isn't that bad, -- as much as any article trying to ascertain if the choices women make make sense can be -- but it does make me crazy that women and their choices must always be examined as if we are "the other" whereas no such public analysis of men really exists outside humour columns).
I think I may be more offended by this than most. Afterall, I went to a school for ten years of my life where I got an astounding education, but knew every single day that it was such only for the sake of finding the best and most extraordinary match possible. I was given absolutely every intellectual challenge possible, so that I could serve men cleverly and then have enough babies to reclaim the feminity so obviously lost by blowing things up in a chemisry lab at age 13. By those standards, everything I do is a waste, and when you look at everything I do, how damnably ridiculous is that?
I am not, for the record, anti-children. I'm actually very fond of them and want them in my life, and very possibly in my home. I've just become self-protective of my body, defensive, strange about claims on me over the years, that I don't think I want to give birth to any (which, I realize I should figure out soon, being 33). I despise them as status symbols though. I despise the way we use them as signifiers for all sorts of attainments. I think it's unfair to so many people on so many subjects and makes parenting to much harder for absolutely everyone.
But is any women ever old enough to avoid being told how to be a good and clever girl? It doesn't seem so, even if we do eventually become old enough to ignore it.
It is worth noting that on the alumni application form for Stuyvesant, they have a blank merely for family, and you write in whatever. On the alumnae applicatoin for my prior school (which I am of course barred from not just symbolically, but in fact, not being a graduate), there is a detailed section for the husband, and then seven blanks to list the names of children. Seven. In New York City. In 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html (having skimmed the article, I must say, in all fairness, it isn't that bad, -- as much as any article trying to ascertain if the choices women make make sense can be -- but it does make me crazy that women and their choices must always be examined as if we are "the other" whereas no such public analysis of men really exists outside humour columns).
I think I may be more offended by this than most. Afterall, I went to a school for ten years of my life where I got an astounding education, but knew every single day that it was such only for the sake of finding the best and most extraordinary match possible. I was given absolutely every intellectual challenge possible, so that I could serve men cleverly and then have enough babies to reclaim the feminity so obviously lost by blowing things up in a chemisry lab at age 13. By those standards, everything I do is a waste, and when you look at everything I do, how damnably ridiculous is that?
I am not, for the record, anti-children. I'm actually very fond of them and want them in my life, and very possibly in my home. I've just become self-protective of my body, defensive, strange about claims on me over the years, that I don't think I want to give birth to any (which, I realize I should figure out soon, being 33). I despise them as status symbols though. I despise the way we use them as signifiers for all sorts of attainments. I think it's unfair to so many people on so many subjects and makes parenting to much harder for absolutely everyone.
But is any women ever old enough to avoid being told how to be a good and clever girl? It doesn't seem so, even if we do eventually become old enough to ignore it.
It is worth noting that on the alumni application form for Stuyvesant, they have a blank merely for family, and you write in whatever. On the alumnae applicatoin for my prior school (which I am of course barred from not just symbolically, but in fact, not being a graduate), there is a detailed section for the husband, and then seven blanks to list the names of children. Seven. In New York City. In 2005.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 05:36 pm (UTC)I don't debate the points you made or anything like that. But I will point out, with regards to the statement quoted above, that perhaps there's no such public analysis of men because by and large men don't really have a choice? We work, we grow old, we die - earlier than women. That's pretty much it.
We get to choose careers and work-life balance, we get to try to figure out ways to work from home or go into business for ourselves to spend more time with family. But for the most part, men don't really have a choice.
I'm not trying to make it a "woe is me" issue, just pointing out that there's no analysis because there'e not really a choice.
What you do see on occasion is a story about "Mr. Mom's", where the couple has decided that Mom will continue working while Dad takes care of the domestic duties.
-asa