As to the title, it's easy to say, "Just be yourself!" when who you are isn't questioned or judged by society at large. Fargo Kidder*, from yesterday's guest post, wrote about how wanting to work from home and have a craft business is very tied to women who have children, and include that in their blogging. It's assumed that a woman with her own business is being supported by a husband, or is doing it while she's taking care of kids. There is nothing wrong with doing those things, and you don't need to hear it from me. It's the assumption that galls me.
How is it possible not to stumble under the weight of assumptions? What would happen if the weight was lifted?
I want to smash that assumption. I want to rend the connotations from the things I want to do that genders them female, that presupposes I can't do things on my own, that says they are less valuable than things a man does, that assumes working from home means you don't have a real job**. I want to stand as an example of being just as independent, industrious and fucking awesome as men are assumed to be by default. I want to live my live as a person, not a marked other.
Problem is, one can't live her live a monolith, especially if no one's looking. And all this shit I don't like isn't going to change in my lifetime, so I should probably do a little of what I wanna do and not care about what people think. When I first started reading about feminism, I was so angry (as well a person should be) but it took me a while to learn to temper my anger with the wrongs of the world with happiness of what's right, and that was a painful time. You can only fight against bad stuff for so long if you don't take time for some good stuff. You'll burn out.
I only have one life, and I need two. One to smash through the glass ceiling, and another to enjoy the fresh air above it.
*I'm still gagging at how bad that pseudonym is. Never let me make them up for you.
**Why is everything we do have to be tied with being mothers? Even if it has nothing to do with children?
Again, I am excited I found your blog. You are saying the things that are going through my mind and I am too scared to say. As someone who had a crafty blog, I TOTALLY see the whole mom-with-an-Etsy-store phenomenon annoying also...not that I think we shouldn't celebrate successful women, but why is the exception to the rule that mother's are able to be successful at doing something? They aren't successful because they are mothers (or, frankly, even because they are women, although it does have its perks!), they are success because they put balls (oops, bad analogy) to the wall, staying up all night to sew stuff, and they make good business decisions (or ballsy business risks.)
ReplyDeleteI also feel like I need two lives. I hope that I get "my turn" when my husband retires (military perk: retiring at 38) but I would like to not be an old suitcase that he has two drag around in the meantime...
So true. I hope I didn't come off as anti-mother, because I'm not at all. I'm against all the ways that the world tries to put women into their own ghetto, where the assumption is that they will have children first, and do other things as a side note.
ReplyDelete