The Woman Predicament

Men, Mormon Men at least, definitely have it easy. Their lives are totally planned out. They graduate from high school, maybe go to some college, go on a mission for 2 years where they don’t even have to think about their future career, come home and decide on a career, finish college, get married, and work to support their families for the rest of their lives. Now women, our lives are scary. We graduate from high school and immediately have to decide, “What am I going to do for the rest of my life?!” We go to school and we have to pick a major that we love, but also one that will support a family if need be, but probably not one that takes too long or is too difficult, because what if we get married soon and have children and don’t have time to finish and won’t even need to use our degree and blah blah blah.
Then comes the other situation… to work or not to work. It seems so terrible not being able to do what we’ve studied and what we really love to do. But what about raising a family? I know that taking care of your kids should be the top priority. I’ve seen too many rotten mothers to not think that. Mothers who work all the time and just send their kids to school and daycare and hardly ever see them is just ridiculous, especially when they don’t need all the extra money (or they’re probably using all the money to pay for daycare). I’ve never heard a kid say, “I love being in daycare all the time!” No! They want to be home, they want to be with their mom, they need to learn from their own parents. I realize that in some situations this is not possible, but in many, IT COULD BE!
Anyway, many women know that their first place is with their kids, but they still want to work and do something fulfilling for society. How is this possible?
On the one hand, Mormon women get so much pressure from the church to stay home with their kids. If they’re working at all, it seems like they’re getting bad looks from the relief society president and the bishop’s wife wondering why they’re not being a good little wife and staying home all the time. On the other hand, women also get so much pressure from the world. The world tells them that if they’re not working and using their degrees then they are worthless. I also realize that being a mother can get a bit tedious, monotonous, boring, whatever. Staying in a house all day and changing endless diapers isn’t exactly my idea of stimulating my brain or making society a better place. It’s hard to realize that with each child being raised in a positive way (this usually happens with a mother who is not working 24/7) a woman is contributing the best way possible to produce a person or people who are a positive contribution to the world.
But it has got to kill a woman not being able to fully use what they have studied! I mean, how do you find that balance?
It’s difficult for women to have this pressure pulling on them from both sides. On one side, we have the crazy liberal women. I read an essay by a woman who shall be unnamed, okay, it was Adrienne Rich, this ridiculous feminist intellectual. She was talking about how she felt so confined being a mother, that leaving her family and her children and becoming a lesbian was the only way she could really free herself from her restraints and really explore what being a woman is (take that however you want to). I was completely sickened by that. I mean, becoming a lesbian is the only way you can really find yourself, your true feminine nature or whatever? Give me a break.
The other side would be a book I did a presentation on once, Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin. This book also made me sick. It talks about how women must act as an inferior housewife to gain the favor of their husbands. Women must be completely sweet, nurturing, babyish, and even act stupid so that their husbands can appreciate their proper place as the “dominant partner”. The book even suggests being underhanded and tricky about it, such as screwing up a lightbulb and pretending you don’t know how to fix it so your husband can feel manly as he helps you. Does your relationship with your husband really need to be that manipulative? I’m hoping that the man I marry can be my best friend, someone I can share everything with and be totally honest with and definitely always be myself, not assume this subservient personality in order to please him.
Anyway, women get a bad wrap in this society and it’s hurting us. We’re stuck between the crazy liberal women’s rights activist and the subservient housewife. Any where we go we feel pressure to go to the other side…or both ways. I really don’t know what the proper middle ground is. Even being a mother, yet working a little on the side, is a difficult task to pull off. I just hope I can figure out how to make the balance.