What’s Feminism? This question has been troubling me since my San Diego trip last weekend. I had 2 couples and their kids for company. Both couples have a few things in common – the husbands work for my company, are in US on an International Rotation and wives are managing the kid (one is 12 months and other is just about 6 months old). But the similarity ends here. This question has its origin in the comment made by one of the two non-working mothers. I was carrying the baby of other couple claiming that it will be good for my biceps…which obviously got me the response from this lady that women need curves, not muscles. I responded that I need to protect myself as now-a-days most husbands cant even run 100 meters without panting. She said…well husbands are not needed for protection, you can buy protection - husbands are needed for their ATM cards! And this coming from a well educated post graduate woman who has held a job in the past!
It made me wonder – whether our feminism has brought us back full circle where we realize that in order to be “equal” to men, we gave up lot of our comforts – designated seats in bus, doors held open, chairs pulled out for seating and so on. I couldn’t stop thinking – isn’t she so smart? She doesn’t have to fight battles at work to prove that she is as good as most men, she doesn’t have to bear the sneers of male drivers on road, doesn’t have to worry who will take care of the baby, can take an afternoon nap and above all be patted on the back for being such a sacrificing wife, mother and daughter-in-law!
You may argue that if its feminism then it must have existed a hundred years back as well because there isn’t enough difference between this lady’s and our greatgrandmothers’ lives. And that’s where I guess I tend to disagree, today’s wife has say in everything – brand of refrigerator, size of the TV screen, clothes he wears, solitaire that she wants, friends that he can have, time he can spend outside home, car that should be bought…the list is endless! Yes…this is the height of feminism – her own life at her own terms maintained by the poor unsuspecting “Man”. Kudos to the new age “housewives”!!!
1 comment:
Interesting point of view! However, financial dependence does bring in a big "dependence" factor in the relationship. Most of the husbands make it very clear in such relationships that they are the giver, and even if it is about giving the right to decide. But irresepctive of that, most of these women know that they are dependent and hence have that sense of inferiority in them. In whatever they may say to and about a career-woman acquaintence and justify themselves, they have a sense of "I have compromised" thought inside them, and that makes them weak.
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