how to be human

we drove down to vancouver today to exchange my espadrilles for a different size, Adam sat patiently in Zara as I waited in an endless line to try on linen shirt dresses, billowy skirts.

we ate at a restaraunt above a busy intersection and watched people as they passed. marvelled at the way you could tell what brand each person was wearing, how people dressed themselves and how many choices they were.

we wandered around chapters, he looked at marketing books and I tried in vain to find the cultural studies section. When I did, I immediately saw and picked up "The Bitch in the House". I'd seen it before, the cover bears a striking image of a snarly pink lip-sticked mouth, but feminism, the outright vitrioloc and angry kind, scares me and I had avoided the book thus far. The title suggested a book filled with rage about womens work, the inability of men in helping out with household tasks, a reiteration of the rights of women, the demand for complete 50/50 equality.

What it was, was a collection of 26 essays by women, divided into different segments. Essays on living with a man, on being married to one, having a child with one, marrying late, and not marrying at all. Twenty six essays full of some of the most brutally honest writing I've ever read.

Basically the common thread was anger, the inexplicable rage that women feel when in their homes, the resentment at having to do things that men could - and should- instinctively know how to do. The way this anger transforms our relationships until the slightest thing, the most minute of daily tasks or forgotten errands can spark a grand fight, the feeling of being out of control, of being the bitch in the house.

But there weren't any answers. There were twenty six women and twenty six essays and each expressed this rage and were eloquent and beautiful and honest, but most ended the essay with platitudes, with lifeless sentiments expressing contentment with their current situation, a sort of "I don't know where my life is headed, but what I do know is blank blank blank" where each blank was filled in according to what conflict the story confronted.

No answers. This is my problem with feminism. There are so many things identified as wrong, but nothing but rage is offered up as a response. I don't want to be angry all the time. I don't want to look at my man as the enemy, I don't want to view my government and the society I live in as trying to oppress me, insidiously deny my equality and rights as a person.

I don't believe that it's a step backward fifty years if I give up my career to raise any children I might have. I am ashamed to admit that I don't have lofty career goals and I have never admitted to anyone, not even Adam, that if I had my choice I wouldn't even have a career.

I don't need to prove that I can do it all, I know I could. I am intelligent, I have the degree and the vocabulary and the wit to prove it. I know that I am organized, can multitask, am capable of juggling the demands of family, work and household tasks. I already feel that I have contributed to the world by being a good human being and I look at raising capable, kind and responsible children as a mammoth task, not to be undertaken lightly or as something to squeeze in on the side.

I don't want paid professionals rasing my kids. I don't want to have thirty minutes with them between when I get home and when I put them in their beds, that won't make me happy. But to admit this, to admit that I would be satisfied with a life within the home, makes me feel simple, dull. So I don't.

I don't believe that men and women are the same. It's okay to admit that we're different, to admit that we are better in some ways and worse in others. I don't feel the push to prove that anything a man can do, I can do better and in half the time. I don't want to join other women in berating their husbands behind their backs. I don't want to be battling, living a polarized life, keeping a scorecard of who's winning, who does laundry more, who vacuumed last.

I don't want to feel guilty about living a life I'm happy with. I am eternally grateful for the feminists who brought us women to this point. I am grateful that I have a voice, that I can vote. I am grateful that I am regarded as an autonomous person in the eyes of the law and the men in my life. I am grateful for the years and years of hard work that have given me the ability to choose.

My gratitude is what makes me behave honourably, what stopped me from sleeping around when I was younger, what made me learn what it means to be a woman. My gratitude is what makes me demand so much from my little sisters, what makes me hope ferverently that I have a daughter someday, to pass all this on to.

But I don't want to pass on anger, a sense of indignation and repressed rage. I don't want them to see their care as a chore, their company inferior or our home a prison in my eyes. I don't want my children to look at life as a battleground, when so many dirty wars are being waged already. I offer feminism my respect and the promise to earn the rights we've so bravely won, but I'm not going to offer my anger, you get my gratitude instead.

Posted by Six at Monday, April 17, 2006 |