"Good Enough Woman"
Sounds like a book... gee... let's see... for which you would be the perfect author.
Anna Quindlen wrote a great article called "Playing God on No Sleep" that partially discussed the idea of the difficulty of mothers. I think it was reprinted in Loud and Clear.
We dont do anyone any favors by suggesting that every parent should be able to do it all.
I think that often the difference between beating your children and hugging them is respite care. Getting some time off..
I agree with Gburgkid...
There's this one: Too Good For Her Own Good
In addition to all you've written (dead on, of course), I'd add that even if the environment got a little more forgiving towards its demands on women, there would be a learning curve for women to figure out how to let themelves take time off to do "nothing." Those lessons, learned early, are so deeply ingrained that we find ourselves succumbing to them even when we know better. When we are taught to always be sensitive to others' needs and interests and that when things go wrong, there is something *we* should have done differently, it becomes incredibly difficult to learn how to tune those needs out and to stop worrying that one must be perfect in order to hold one's own, indeed hold THE world, together.
Atlas should have been mythologized as a woman.
I should have read that book. I have been riddled with guilt for 20 years (since my son was born)
Yesterday when I was visiting my pill pusher, I brought up a bunch of junk about my guilt and fear.. and he suggested that we do a bit of psycho therapy next time to see if I can sort out this stuff and make a move on to the next phase of my life, which I have been dying to do, but can't. What the hell.
I don't expect to drag up my childhood and all that junk because it's irrelevant at this point. I'm 50 years old, for gawd's sake. I just want to move on and learn how to get over my terror of moving out of this house and far away.
Sometimes I wonder if all these SSRIs are making me stagnant... but on the other hand, manic depression is no picnic either, not to mention menopause. Oh it just sucks being a female in a man's world.. but I plan on conquering it. I'm not dead yet.
Liz--
"Sometimes I wonder if all these SSRIs are making me stagnant . . ."
This is precisely one of the questions I think a lot about. Given all the frickin constraints, demands, socializing, taking SSRIs or any other meds sure is preferable to dedicating oneself to a childhood excavation of what went wrong. On the other hand, it seems that figuring out what went wrong in our childhood is less the "feminist" point. We should be figuring out, or reminding ourselves, that many of the constraints on us are the product of sexism and patriarchy. We need to fix them.
I get so damn pissed off at this coordinated effort to get women back into the homes full time raising kids. Conservatives don't want to pay for social services: day care, good health insurance, good prenatal/post natal care, etc. They simply don't want to help restructure our social world in a way that makes us less nutty. So, we find ways to cope. And, who can blame us?
The other hand, what if we just give in?
I don't know where I first heard or read this phrase, but it works wonders for me. Whenever I'm overwhelmed or feel I have to fix everything around me, I try to remember: "Your need creates no sense of obligation in me."
RT--I love that...it sounds like a paraphrase of a poem by Stephen Crane that I love (except it is less comforting):
A Man Said to the Universe:
A man said to the universe,
"Sir, I exist!"
However," replied the universe,
"That fact does not create in me a sense of obligation."
Yeh, the old idea that it's "selfish" to put oneself first is a huge bugaboo for women in this culture. You can be the head of a corporation, a strong community leader in your radical lesbian separatist group, or a pansexual postmodern sex guru, and not be immune.
"Eating too much twinkies or going too many sleepless nights or running for an hour changes our "chemistry."
Actually, it does. (Ayurveda and chinese medicine can help.)
That doesn't negate anything that's been said here, though, and I really appreciate the fact that SOMEONE is FINALLY calling attention to the correlation between women's increased impossible workload - and concomitant societal pressure to please, please, always please - and the stratospheric rise in antidepressant prescriptions for women.
(I live in NYC and used to rant about this occasionally; people would look at me as though I were insane and/or I would receive the dull-eyed stare of the artificially chemically calmed. The irony did not go to waste.)
Aspazia - you have a professorship - why don't YOU write the book? (Would it count toward fulfilling your university publishing commitments?)
I am going to be quite blunt here; I don't get feminism. I do not really understand why or if there is such a stress on women as opposed to men. My view of society has always been that it is like a big clock in which there are cogs that work together. The cogs don't have sex, race, or religion but they have a job to do and when everyone works together the clock works. I understand that there was a time when women did not have the same rights as men, but in today's world I really don't see it. I am interested, I do not want to be blind to this if it is happening - why don't I see it? The only difference that I see between men and women is the physiological differences. These may make me as a male better suited for a particular job or task, but I may also be less suited for a separate task... So aspazia (and why don't people use their real names in blogs?) can you write a little overview of feminism next time you get the chance?
And as for the book "Good Enough Woman", I think it would sell a ton of copies - my mom would probably buy it, but I wouldn't and I'll tell you why. I think focusing on a subject such as that is kind of depressing. Everyone is faced with more than they can possibly do in a lifetime and being good enough means different things to different people. My mom as a working mother, my dad as a working father, myself as a college student, and my sister as a high school student - we are all faced with more than we can handle, but as long as we do what we can, we are all good enough. I don't need a book to tell me that and I don't think anyone else should.
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