Friday, July 17, 2009

I'm not an angry type.

I am concerned for the feminists of today.
The general message that women and men have worked towards in understanding equality hasnt been lost, nor forgotten but manipulated by current standards. Standards that have been created by all classes throughout history.
The people who have made it possible for men and women to work together, to get paid similar if not equal wages (in some fields), and who have made it possible for women today to acquire jobs that in other years they couldn’t have dreamed of.
All these accomplishments aren’t what I am going on about.

There is more.

I for one am not one of the women who have made it possible for women like myself to be viewed as equal. If anything I am the exception.
I continue to do all the things that women 200 years ago used to do.
Women are women and men are men. But that would be a terrifically boring topic.

Sure i have a somewhat educated rhetoric, well read, multilingual and a good conversationalist, am proficient in drawing, music, and can hold my own in the kitchen. Some men would congratulate me on being an old-fashioned, “good” woman.

The paradox however is evident! I am not a woman of the 1800s! I have learned from history; the thought that women are mere caretakers is an absolute unrealistic understanding of where women stand today. We are well read in the works of enormously celebrated feminist authors, and it is ignorant to believe that women today haven’t taken the pains and work of these previously successful women into, what we believe a common standard - often taken for granted to say the least.
It is naïve to truly believe that a woman of that time still exists today; it is to undermine the work of historical women who have taken it upon themselves to be the exception to the role.

The rule.
In itself it is meant to be broken, and if a role has ever been anything but a rule posted strictly by the role women have chosen, than it is nothing but a misconception. Women today choose to ignore their obligation. Perhaps we have been given too much choice. Historically, (if given by choice or by nature), women have been the caretakers, not to say of course that men would be better at the “job” but merely to say that women don’t have to be. It is not an obligation, and today it is a choice.

I do not mean to sound "over western" in all this going on about feminist this and feminists that.
But it is my reality.

Again this paradox!
Diderot wrote of the paradox of the comedian; today perhaps we can adopt his phrasing- it is the Paradox of the role of Women. I am not the first to speak of the contrived understanding that women are faced with the difficult task of choosing their passion over their family or vice versa. I’m not saying either that it is an easy decision to make; rather, I am exploiting the idea that there are men who desire a woman with ridiculous historically forced priorities that for some women are by no means natural. To the point, of course, that a woman is faced with enormous guilt and even scrutinized at the mention of not wanting children, a family, a "good" man, etc. etc. etc.

What a disillusionment to say that women are either here or there. That they are either whores or mothers! But we are still considered in such terms! What a ridiculous man he is to believe that these are our only two options when man has proven himself capable of both for centuries!

What woman is not tired of such comparisons? We must abolish these misconceptions! She is not a whore! But perhaps she is not a mother either! All women are caretakers in the same respect that all men are hard working! What about those lazy bastards?! Who choose not to work, who choose to take the money from his wife?

Today, the term is still used “ Equality of man”. Just yesterday a guy came over to me and asked "would you like to petition for the gay marriage movement? We are working towards a higher equality of man".

Please and no thank you, at least not on those terms.

How can a woman begin to respect a man when men don’t respect each other?

It is not to say that it is the end. Hell no. We are just beginning. There are no longer books for men, nor are there books strictly for women. There are merely the well and the poorly read. Women read books “for” men, when will men begin to read books “for” women? We read it all don’t we ladies? Much of our pre 1800s literature was written by men, or at least published by them, were they not? Surely Mary Shelley was not the first woman to write a novel that would interest all sexes.

I will not accept that a mans horizon ends so prematurely.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh camille what a turn of thoughts you took

Anonymous said...

darling camille hasn't written for awhile... does she have anything she wants to share?