Let's face it, women have made substantial gains in the field of law, business, medicine, behavioral sciences, engineering and other areas of professionalism that were traditionally thought to be man's domain. This is a direct result of the feminist movement which has brought a variety of social and cultural changes, impacting and affecting family relations, religion, the place of women in society, gendered language (the she/he factor) and relationships between women and men.
There was a time when women were called "housewives." Then came the time when housewives were called to work in industry to bear the burden of breadwinner and keep the home front operating while men were fighting or dying for country. Upon the return of men and "normalcy" of life, women became fed up with the gender inequality and took enormous steps to change that image. During the early '70's, some men, whether envious of a woman's option to choose to be employed or through unfortunate challenges, stayed home and became "househusbands." Meanwhile, women moved forward with their plight for equality through education and employment. The gender language changed, and "housewives" and "househusbands" became "homemakers," especially since wife and husband were becoming less of a necessary factor in creating a family. The idea of working for extra comfort and material things, and deriving pleasure from owning a house (or bigger house), a car (or luxury car) became not just status symbols of 'old fashioned' men, but the measure of a modern woman's hard earned success. Women became self reliant and career oriented, moving the gage on the "equal-meter" closer to the center. Meanwhile, educated women who chose to put career aside to raise a family moved from the warmer, more homey description of their title of homemaker to the colder, rigid, linear approach of today's "domestic engineer." Even Roseanne Barr of the Roseanne show said in one of her episodes, "I hate the word housewife; I don't like the word homemaker either. I want to be called Domestic Goddess."
Today, the educated young generation of women are reaching new peaks. According to a recent CNN research report, 22% of women are now better educated than their husbands or make more money. While it is wonderful to be part of a generation that has evolved from a society that traditionally assigned women the role of money handling to that of money-making, I fear we are in the middle of a culture in which instead of moving toward the center, we are switching sides. At the risk of being gender-incorrect, I see current culture defeminizing our women and feminizing our men, or as some might prefer, masculinizing our women and demasculinizing our men. Currently, more working men than women are unemployed,* and with the rise of women determined to crack the "glass ceiling" or raise the bar further to excel at all cost even if it entails becoming romance resistant, men are filling in the shoes of domestic engineers and adapting to the reversal of gender roles with ease. There are men out there who choose to become more of a family man than more of a business man. Yet, with all the liberated idealism, this is a choice that, unfortunately, is often frowned upon by the career woman. Women,(whether because of need or desire)once again are bearing the burden--or the opportunity--of being breadwinners. Whether woman wants to be a career woman who runs the rat race and cracks the glass ceiling, or she wants to be a domestic engineer who focuses on raising a family and molding children by her values and ideals, is a rightful choice she makes. I support her choice. By the same token, if a man chooses or wishes to become the domestic engineer while the woman earns the keep, he should be able to do so without demeaning commentary from existing culture. I support the man. And perhaps in a few short years, a well educated, high salaried, well established career woman might come his way and ask for his hand as the perfect domestic engineer to form a family partnership!
Maybe it's time to reconsider the Feminist title and change it to the Equalist.
What say you?
This I humbly speak...
*Current Population Survey and Employment Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics published in The New York Times, Business Section, Feb.6,2009
I know I am a hard worker and am educated. I have no problem if my future wife has gone to school longer than me or makes more money than me...I have a problem if she thinks she is better than me because of that fact.
ReplyDeleteAnd rightfully so! In any healthy relationship, neither woman nor man is superior one to the other. Sadly, today, the measure of one's value is often attributed to who earns the most instead of how well each appreciates the best of one another.
ReplyDeleteI think our society SHOULD become more gender neutral with "masculine" and "feminine" being traits we ascribe equally to both sexes--and not reserved for one sex over the other. Gender is a socially constructed phenomenon and is on a spectrum--unlike sex, a clearly defined label of male or female. I would like to raise my kids in a world where it was not acting "like a girl" to stay at home with their kids or acting "like a boy" to go to work. And on that note, I agree that every person should choose the path that moves them most. The biggest mistake I've seen women of my generation make (although more so women of the generation before me) is choosing the domestic life when they were dying on the inside. Taking care of your kids 24/7 is not for every woman just as working 8-5 is not for every man. Children know when their parents are unhappy and so fulfilling the role of "soccer mom" for the sake of checking your "role of a mother" duties off serves no one. A key to a healthy society is one in which its members are motivated by their passions and not by persuasion.
ReplyDeleteAs a professional working woman and a mother I find myself constantly attempting the delicate balance of my dual identities. Regardless of the gender advances in society that women have made however, most professions including mine are fraught with inequity in financial and professional standing for identical roles had between men and women in the workplace. An outspoken female doctor to her counterparts may be known as "a bitch" when her male equal is simply appreciated as "advocating for his patient." Add to that that most women, regardless of perceived equal partnerships at home, are still the PRIMARY caretaker of children regardless of their roles at the office. All this to say that there is MUCH more that needs to be done to get us on an equal footing, and it has less to do with how women or society perceive the men in their lives. INCEPTION of equality into the societal mind will take much longer than any of us anticipated when observing the women's equality movement. I will feel more hopeful the day my patient assumes I am his doctor instead of greeting me as "Nurse," or "Sweetheart" when I enter the room!
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