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October 13, 2007
"An Authentic Life" and Women's Power
I picked up the latest issue of Newsweek this afternoon while taking a break from studying and ran across a nice essay by Maria Shriver entitled "An Authentic Life," part of their cover theme focusing on "Women and Power."
She writes, "So many women my age thought that success meant being like a man: wanting the same job a man would have and getting paid the same money-- basically copying the male resume. But I think a lot of us who went that route now feel ambivalent about the sacrifcies we made. ...Did we have to fllow the male role model?"
Shriver brings up a point I entirely agree with. Why shouldn't we question the personal satisfaction we individually get from the two options we theoretically have? One half of the female population is always getting squeezed-- sometimes it's been those those who weren't particularly interested in motherhood and preferred to pursue a career at times when motherhood was the femininity de jour. During other periods, it's been women questioning the worth of trying to juggle kids and a job when they would really like to have the acknowledgment of effort that comes from a career directed at their mothering. Despite the reality of a broad spectrum of interests, feeling on the matter, and actual possibilities as determined by economics, personal or familial values, etc, it seems there is always a tug of war between these two camps.
What neither camp seems to particularly address, however is why women are choosing between either the "male model" or the "feminine model" but men never seem to have much of a choice to make-- there position hasn't changed a whole lot throughout all of the debate, paychecks going down from family sized to a single and expectations on a date aside. I see some men beginning to test the waters of adopting feminine power for a change-- the growing movement of stay-at-home dads, for example, and the occasional news-worthy fit thrown when parenting articles online and in print continue to promote "mom" as the caregiver, rather than including the new "dad" culture.
Still, a perplexing double standard exists, one that results in women's power being marginalized no matter which side of the fence you sit on. As long as we have to choose between the feminine camp associated with Feminist rhetorics of oppression by patriarchy or stifling religious edicts and "family values" (for better or worse, true or untrue, it's an impression that's stuck) and a camp associated with "liberation of women" but only by shrugging off traditional femininity for power-suits, putting off kids, and wondering where our groove went, we are only turning on one another. Real equality and liberation for women AND men will only come when there is no stigma for either gender pursuing the paths once laid out for one or the other.
| By Spike | 02:48 PM
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