My Philosophical Mini-Rant

While I didn’t plan for it, this is clearly my “Ode to the Letter R” post (you’ll see why shortly).  You know I love words, wordplay, and the whole lot (occupational and personality hazard), so once I saw the pattern emerge, I went out of my way to frame it all that way.  Yeah.  Sorry.  

I know I’m all about ‘speaking up and speaking out: I believe fundamentally that women will only change the world for themselves by advocating for themselves (and not relying on and waiting for men to do so). 

Further, we MUST imbue our younger women and girls with these traits and beliefs, because it needs to be a sea change that doesn’t just involve a couple of years of bra-burning (sorry - I LIKE my bra, and I CHOOSE to wear it).

This is a hard post to write and, perhaps, read.  The conversation needs to start somewhere.

The Conversation

I was talking to a friend the other day:  she’s an immigrant to Canada (many of my friends are immigrants, to both Canada and the US), a beautiful woman, a mother of young children, and a physician.  As an immigrant, she can’t work as a doctor here until she does some re-certification (I’ll keep my thoughts to myself on that bureaucracy).  As a result, she’s in a position where she’s dependent, financially.  

Our conversation turned to what she wants to do with her life.  Right now, she’s trying to study, parent, keep home, learn a new culture, practice a new language, and be a good wife.  It’s a lot.  The problem is that it’s a lot AND she needs help.

Don’t get me wrong:  she loves her kids, she’s happy they moved, she’s excited about the possibilities.  The problem is her husband.

And no, she’s not wanting to leave the marriage.  She just feels silenced in the marriage - her needs (never mind ‘wants’) are already determined for her...but not BY her.

He moved first, and he was qualified to practice first (he’s also a physician) - she “had to” take care of the children (they formerly made the same wage), which put her certification on hold.  Now they’re here and living on one (albeit respectable) wage. 

His expectation is that she will do all of the things listed AND start earning a wage as soon as possible.  They actually don’t need the money, but in her culture, when you emigrate, you need to show all the Western markers of wealth and success - the house, the cars, the prestigious job, the kids in the best private school getting the best marks so they can get into an Ivy League school (the ultimate marker of having “made it”).  These are not my words: they are hers, to me.

She can see her whole future raveling out in front of her.  It terrifies her.  And exhausts her.

You see, in her imagination, this move meant a possibility to live a different life - life in a place where her cultural, gender and religious constraints could be relaxed - even released.  She was moving to a place where women could have and do anything that a man could (albeit at 79 cents on the dollar).  

Except everything’s the same as it was... the only sort of worse.

He will now always have more seniority, move ahead further and faster, make more money. 

There is no version of reality in which she isn’t the mother, the wife, the doctor.  He’s the doctor, the father, the husband.

Notice the order there?

Totally intentional.

And she feels it.

She feels guilty because isn’t she ungrateful if she pushes back or tries to redefine or renegotiate the situation?  

What do YOU think?

Passing Judgement

It’s one thing, of course, to sit back and say, “Oh, she should do XYZ, and say ABC, and it isn’t right because of gender-equality” and so on.  Or such helpful tips as, “Well, I would say [insert profound wisdom here]”.

She can’t talk to the older females in her family, because she’s the first to stand in the world of motherhood, immigrant, and professional - they have no frame of reference through which to engage. 

To them - and they’ve made it abundantly clear - she is to do nothing that is not ‘proper’.  To bring ‘shame upon the family’ is tantamount to ex-communication.

The females her age are in the same boat, and none of them has any better strategies - they talk and talk, spinning around the same drain.

The younger females swear up and down that they’ll “never find themselves in THAT situation” (but my friend remembers well the days when she said - and believed - the EXACT same thing).

Few of her North American friends have any idea what she’s going through.  And to be honest, she doesn’t feel safe sharing - what if her husband found out?  And they judge her, too - how can any self-respecting woman ‘allow’ herself to be treated in this way?  Especially one who’s always imagined herself educated, cosmopolitan, forward-thinking.

‘Treated this way’ is an interesting statement.  What are they even referring to?

They’re passing judgment, she believes, on the notion that her husband controls the money (and allowance) and expects her to take care of the children and the house while he does man-things.  Plus she’s expected to look good, be successful, and not speak up or out. 

Sure, she entered into the marriage knowing many of these things, but those of us in committed relationships figure lots of things out only later.

The hypocrisy is very real here, isn’t it?  Because while others may stand back and hold forth on how things should be and what shouldn’t happen, blah blah blah, most of them are living almost the exact same life.

I know I am. 

The primary differences are that I’m not an immigrant or an ESL speaker or caught in all the cultural conundrums she’s in - and those are huge things that can never be dismissed.  But I have some sense of the contradictions, tensions, and choices.

We’re all immigrants (unless we’re First Nations) at some point in our ancestry, so these things were perhaps faced by our maternal predecessors (mine certainly went through much of it), but we’re not all that enlightened - or empowered - when it comes down to it.

 The Truth

Take me, for instance.  I gave up my career to stay at home with our sons: I compounded the situation by homeschooling them.  Further, I left my career in another city to join my future husband in a different city, because he “made more money” and this was the only place in the country that he could be gainfully employed in his current industry. 

There was never any consideration (on his part) that he might change anything on his end.  And I didn’t push it.

I’ve done all the home-y stuff: cooked, cleaned, organized, scheduled, coordinated, nursed, and otherwise ran the ship while he went to work and maybe pitched in a bit on evenings and weekends. 

At the same time, I was completing a Ph.D., suffering from both a spinal injury that was incredibly painful and severely diminished my mobility AND a genetic disease that put me in the hospital regularly.

Things are different-er now.  We’re still in the same city - tied to his industry.  I’m still homeschooling (but the boys are much older).  I’m running companies and writing.  But at the end of the day, I’m still the one organizing and coordinating, and problem-solving.

 Who’s fault is that?  Mine?  My culture’s?  My gender’s?  I don’t know.  

Join me next week when we finish unpacking this issue a little more, including some useful thoughts on reframing reality (which is NOT just ‘imagining everything’s better’, btw).  I encourage YOU to begin to have these conversations with yourself and those females you care about.  It starts somewhere.  Why not you?

xod

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xo d

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