The Price of Having it All

Lately I’ve been reading a feminist text from the 70’s and I’m not sure which is more frightening...how much has changed or how little. Being a woman today means so many things, too many things. Some people may believe that the feminist movement was something of the past that the bra burning all but a distant memory. It’s true that women no longer march the streets but does this mean that they have been heard, or is it a case that they have stopped trying?

I don’t believe it is any of these things.

I just had lunch with some of my favourite women, 2 intelligent, confident women that have successfully been shaped by the sweat and struggles of our past sisters. Each of us sat at the same table but stood a world apart on what aspect of womanhood we embody. And from this lunch table we talked about other women in our lives that represented other universes of what a woman is.

A man is simply man, unchanging against weather, unmoved by circumstance, driven by instinct. A woman must always change, be changed, move, make things move, endure circumstance and often pay the price for changing, moving, and their endurance. The world is constantly spinning yet it often seems that women are the only ones becoming dizzy.

Now this is not about men bashing, bra burning or even laying blame on the burly sex. As in most marginalised groups it is often their own kind that complicate, control and constrict themselves. It is women that demand more of themselves, it is women that take on the world’s problems, it is women that want a career, a family, a personal life, financial independence, freedom....it is women that want it all.

Because only everything will do women now face more ethical and financial hardships than their 1950’s counterparts which will only increase when paid maternity leave is introduced early next year. In small business circles women of the fertile age are seen at the best with suspicion and mothers of small children can forget it. It takes time to raise a family, more time that small business can afford, more time that women seem to be willing to give. It seems to many women that having a family is simply a checkbox waiting to be ticked.

Talking about fertility, being a driven woman also inevitably means you drive your eggs out of the picture too. But if you want to travel, live free, and then work your way up the career ladder and fatten up the bank account then children will simply have to wait...and waiting produces miscarriages, birth defects and even infertility.

If you are a woman that chooses not to have children then you are isolated, whispered about and little devil horns are drawn on your photos by your peers. You are broken, selfish and well unfeminine.

If you are a woman that chooses to have nothing but children you are isolated, whispered about and patronised. You are weak, draining the system and probably stupid.

If you a woman that somehow manages to have a career, a life and children you are isolated, whispered about and selfish. You are overtired, underappreciated, probably heading for an early grave and not giving enough...time to your career, time to your children, time to your partner. You are a jack of all trades and definitely a master of none.

But the bra burners told us that the world was at our feet. They said it was there for the taking so take it for god sake! But who will have children, who will look after the children, who will clean and iron your shirts, prop up your ego and endure your sexual needs????

Women of course

As a man is simply a man, unchanging against weather, unmoved by circumstance, driven by instinct.

There are no more marches, protests and revolutions but the women’s movement is alive and well in many women’s hearts but that’s the thing about having everything you want ...you simply don’t have the time or energy to ask for anything you need.