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
Have fun. For at least one hour every day, do something that brings you pleasure."
Wow.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."
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.
4 comments:
This goes for everyone. If you don't like taking care of your parents, don't do it. There are plenty of homes for taking care of old people. If you don't like being a caregiver, don't have kids. If you don't want to dress up, don't do it. Only dicks are pretentious about clothes. If you don't want to wear makeup, don't do it. And if someone flames you for it, and you don't want to give them power by giving a shit, then don't give a shit. You don't have to do anything. Fuck all the pretentious twits who judge people on the basis of conformity. Even if it's a potential employer, screw that, there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Fuck em.
Terminate your pregnancy and put Mom in a home aren't helpful suggestions.
I feel for women who want to be liked and loved and really care about what others think. I have always been such an abysmal failure as a woman that I have developed pretty thick skin. I can't be perfect, so why try. All we can be is ourselves and no one is perfect.
Or maybe it's not that obvious what is going on. I'm dubious about these "findings" as related in the popular press as they seem to be more prescriptive rather than descriptive. Supposedly they tell us how things are, but it's really a form of social control and ultimately the article(s) on these topics gives women only one choice - accept the status quo and lower your sights to suit.
To use an example, men can "have it all" - the career, wife, 2.4 kids, car and house. Women get told "you can't have it all" and we see numerous iterations of the tale of the eternally stressed woman. It's all together depressing, any achievements women make are cancelled out. Women themselves, and our liberation is our enemy. We live in a patriarchal society, that enforces gender roles strictly, you can see that when the examples you've used come up like the choice not to conform with femininity by choosing not to breastfeed, there is an backlash. If you stick your head above the parapet, and complain about being all hell breaks loose. It's like, you've got the vote, what the hell are you complaining about.
The real answer is not for women to seek out "friends and family" (read other women) or try and approach it with humour or whatever else is helpfully suggested but change the roles we find ourselves in. For instance, it's women that do the overwhelming majority of caring work, but couldn't a man also carry the load just as well for his elderly parents? I've seen it at least once the idea that men need women just as much as women need men and while that can be a constraint, that can also be used to promote change. One thing that can be done is to continue to be yourself, and be assertive and questioning of norms and refuse to settle with the diversion caused by having to fight anti-feminists and anti-women sentiments whoever dishes it out. Too often if someone complains about mistreatment, it's cast as playing the victim, or moaning over nothing. But it isn't nothing. It needs to be talked about.
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