Monday, March 22, 2010

Ain't nuthin 'new' about it.




I wasn't raised to be independent- but it turned out that way. Actually my Mother(bless her little heart) was little more than a spoiled child herself when I came along. She was eighteen and not actually equipped to be a mother. But her generation felt that it was fine to marry out of high school, have a couple of kids and take care of a husband. After all- they taught you how to do that in high school with Home Ec. didn't they?
So as the world revolved, a couple of things were taking place- Civil rights, The Summer of Love,Ecology, The Black Panther movement, and the New Women's Movement.
It was called the NEW Women's movement to differentiate from the Women's Sufferage Movement.


We 'WOMEN' of the 60's and 70's could vote and did. We ( and I use that term in the broadest way possible) wanted the same rights as men- more working hours, equal pay for equal work,promotion in the workplace on the same basis as men. We didn't want men opening our doors, paying our bills, protecting us, or objectifying our bodies! No way!
WE could do it ALL! We could work all day in the boardroom, come home to fix a gourmet dinner from scraps, and then be a sexual dynamo in bed all night, with us on top.
We would only have children if it pleased us, and if we could find adequate day care- cuz we didn't want to give up our careers to stay at home to raise kids! How old fashioned!

Can you all see the web we built for ourselves?
A lot of us didn't.
I didn't.

I wanted equal pay for equal work- and I got it. I was one of the first women UPS hired to deliver packages and it was rough. But I was independent,boy!
My children went to day care, and that was rough too, for them and for me. But I was making my own money. Other women, unenlightened women, were raising my kids.
But I was equal.
I still had to make those fine dining experiences with scraps...
I still had to clean my own house...
And sex...
well ....something had to suffer!

Then I got hurt at work, and in the process I got smart.
I stayed home with my kids....what a concept! And I liked it.
I made dinner, it might have been hamburger, but we all ate together.
My house... well... something had to suffer....

But FINALLY I realized that even though I could have it all- I didn't want it! The price was , and is too high! And the end result for our women turned out to be a reversal it seems . Now there are vapid airheads out there that our young girls are emulating. Jess and Pamela and Aquila and Hanna and so many more. Women that are just looks and no substance.
The pendulum has swung, and it's on the way back- but when will it stop, and how will the women of this century be remembered?
If it is like Jess and the other- I fear for the world at large! I worry about the men that want that for themselves and their futures children's mothers!

Maybe there should be a men's movement!