Well this seems obvious...
ABC posts an article titled: "Most Stressed Out" in U.S.? Middle-Aged Women". Women, as caregivers of their parents, children, partners and jobs are feeling the burden of these many roles more and more. It's my theory that as American women were "liberated" throughout the 20th century, the liberation itself was just another constraint society placed on women. Not being able to vote, to own property, to divorce, to make informed life decisions of course were necessary changes that had to be made and I am so thankful those fights were fought before me, BUT, and this is a big ol' booty of a but, women have become shackled to their independence along with all the other roles that women fought to free themselves of.

Women are not truly free, we are not independent of society's constraints. We still have to be mothers, daughters, sisters and partners. Women know these roles have to be fulfilled as well take on the expectations that we should be good at being all four of those things intuitively AND still take time to get educated, make a career, a home and somehow, amongst all that chaos that needs to be managed, still be thin, sexy, well dressed and wearing this season's correct color of lipstick? It's no wonder women are stressed!

There is no solution that I can see. Women are not going to be willing to sacrifice the opportunity to be successful in any of those roles unless there is a major paradigm shift in how women are seen by the world. Have you seen women on the internet? They're brutal to each other.

Women who willingly chose to fail in any regard are vilified by their peers, let's not even delve into what men may think. I have witnessed SO MANY FREAKING BATTLES about women on blogs and on the internet that I have little faith there will ever be an opportunity to change our expectations if we can't let up on them among each other. If a woman chooses not to breastfeed someone will shame her, if she swears to much she is flamed. If a girl is even thought to be selfish she will damned. What if she takes her baby to see a grown up movie at a Mom's Movie Time? Damned. What if she cuts up some of her own tablecloths or writes a book about enjoying being domestic? Someone will bitch. There is no way for a woman in our society to be deny a "traditional" female role and be accepted as deserving of the respect of her peers. And of course there's Elevator-gate whereby a woman does not enjoy an unwanted come-on (this is a mild description) and says so and harassed by intellectuals AND trolls on the internet.

You know it wasn't until Martha did some hard time that it became hip to like her.

There is no way to win.

And this article? You know what the cost of all this stress is? Cortisol levels leading to obesity and not living longer than those we care for. The message is, you have to fail at something. You will be fat and not successful at living long if you don't act selfishly. This may be true, but what about the simple fact that it's just not fair that society hasn't figured out a substitute to women taking on all the caregiver roles? Can the government provide more services to women? Can society itself become more helpful to each other so that a woman is not alone in her burdens? Can men take on more of these roles since lone bread winning is no longer their sole responsibility?

The two suggestions given are:

"Get a circle of care. Sheehy calls this "carpooling" the stress in
everyone's lives where relatives or friends pitch in to help each other

with child or parental obligations.

Have fun. For at least one hour every day, do something that brings you pleasure."

Wow.

Really helpful.

All this article did was make more stressed and angry. I do not have a working solution yet. But we need to figure something out.

Educating Myself

Just reading the Wikipedia entry on feminism shows me how broad the issue/discipline of feminism is. Feminism is a social movement and an area of study. I knew there were many problems women face: misogyny in media and the workplace, global oppression, patriarchy, race based...but I had never connected all the dots before.

I don't want to pick chose which elements of feminism are more important to me than others, I think all women deserve equality. Some women have a much harder, farther path than I do to get there but our lives are all tributaries of the same great river. I do want to figure ou what I most closely identify with and then examine the interconnectedness of the issues outside my personal sphere.

Much, much more to come.

Goals

Writing about feminism is a big endeavor for me. There are so many paths to explore and approaches to take that I need to understand my purpose as I begin. As I evolve as a writer I'll want to look back and see how far I've come. To that end I need a list of goals and purposes.
1. I want to learn more about the feminist movement
2. I want to understand how men and women intentionally and subconsciously participate in misogyny.
3. I want to learn about the history of feminism and what direction the movement is heading in
4. I want to be an active part of the feminist movement.
5. I want to promote atheism and humanism and explore the role of feminism in those movements
6. I want to define issues women face and think of and study viable solutions.

That should be enough to keep me busy for a while.

If education is the answer what do we teach?

Empathy. EMPATHY.

Men need to learn empathy to be able to begin to understand how pervasive and cruel misogyny really is. If a boy is taught empathy and follows a path in life where he steps outside himself and absorbs the emotions and circumstances of another then maybe he will be able to understand that treating women with equality is the honest aim of feminism. It must be understood via empathy that the notion that women should be treated the same as men is not the same as equality. This may very well be the root of why feminism is such a difficult concept to teach to those who have hardened their hearts and minds to the ideals of feminism. Or to those who live in a society where the concept of equality has never been broached and feminism isn't in the local lexicon.

Another method, if empathy can't apply, is to use reason and logic. But a woman is not a puzzle or a problem or an equation. To dismiss empathy for simple, cold reason may get the point across but the student is missing a valuable component of the lesson. Logically it's possible to accept that women who are educated and healthy are more valuable to society. But it's equally as valuable to society to have people who can engage in complex emotions and develop good relationships with others.

My journey through really understanding feminism and it's significance is in it's infancy. There are major concepts I want to wrestle with and explore. This is the beginning.


Inspired by: http://m.dooce.com/2011/07/19/all-my-sisters

Feminism

Defining feminism is a simple task, it's a simple word that defines the belief that women and men should be treated equally. Easy enough of an idea to grasp. Infinitely difficult, apparently, to put into practice or to teach to others. Feminism is an ideology behind a movement that I'm taking my first step to participate in.