That’s What True Equality Means To Me!!

Posted on April 2, 2014

When I set out on my adventure of blogging it was just for me.  I needed a place to ramble and get some of my stupid idea’s off my chest. After about a million years of marriage the hubby is tired of hearing them all the time and the parasites have reached the ages where I’m now the dumbest woman alive and very little I say is ever worth listening.  The most confusing part though is they enjoy reading them?? I had the thought that maybe I should go mute and write everything on my tablet and pass it around, but I am convinced they would just learn to hit delete then too.  Maybe there eyes will absorb more than their ears until their brains come back or they at least think mine did. If it is based on my experience- maybe when they’re 25. 

I’ve learned one of the great things about writing this blog is that I am not alone in my insanity. There are more people out there like me or at least people who enjoy roaming around in my brain and seeing the strange humor for 15 minutes a day.  When I started to write my mama and one of my friends (whose brain is usually in more of overdrive than mine) were my main points of inspiration.  I would talk to them on the phone for 15 minutes a day.  Every time I hung up I had a new blog. My mama finally said one day as I started to laugh- “Crap- You’re gonna use that aren’t you?  I should just quit talking now” (crap is the worst word she can muster-good southern church women only say shit if a bomb went off next to them and then it can be questionable)  

Now something very cool (or scary depending on how you want to look at it) is starting to happen. People have now started to send me in idea’s to write. I’ve always had great friends, but how cool is that? They read an interesting article that could be considered controversial and BAM- I get a “hey- you might wanna write on this topic.  I think you could make it entertaining.” One- I love they think I could make it entertaining and two- yeah I don’t have to think as hard today.  It also helps me keep my brain roaming around with a million idea’s for days to come. FYI- thanks for the sleep deprivation when my brain is still writing at 2 am too. 

One such article was sent to me by a friend the other day that my brain just requires me to spout my brand of nonsense.  

This article was from New York Daily News on March 30th. It is about the grief that Susan Patton, one of the first female Princeton graduates in 1977, received after writing a letter to the editor in The Daily Princetonian.  This article outraged many women rights advocates because she basically gave women the advice to find their husband on campus before they graduate. Being me and a little crazy I immediately had to go find this article and read it in it’s entirety. I have a daughter growing up and wanted to see if any of this was good advice. 

Now the premise of her letter to the editor does have some merit for those of us who actually live in reality land. Granted most people want to live in Politically Correct land where we all can be anything, have it all, and always have rainbows and sunshine coming out of our asses. She never tells women not to chase their professional dreams nor does she tell them not to pursue their goals. The premise of her letter is this:

1) We bombard young women with professional career advice while ignoring advice of a personal nature and the personal part of your life will be explicitly tied to their overall happiness.

2) As women age the amount of men who are their intellectual equals goes down and a woman can’t be happy with anyone who is not

3) They will never have this large of a Olympic sized pool of eligible bachelors again that are your intellectual equals to chose. Men as they age look for younger women so their pool gets larger and ours turn into kiddie pools. 

Before the bounder sized rocks start whizzing by my head- she does have some valid points, but there’s a few flaws in her logic.

1)  We do have a tendency today to bombard our daughters and young women with career and life advice that doesn’t include marriage and family.  If they choose- marriage and family will be a huge part of their overall happiness and should be addressed. We spent the 70’s and 80’s singing that commercial jingle “I can bring home the bacon, Fry it up in a pan, and never ever let you forget you’re a man”  I remember my generation grew up thinking that we could actually pull that crap off. When I say crap- I mean crap.  We wanted it all and we thought we could pull it off.  She went to work, came home and looked like a super model cooking dinner and obviously still had a happy husband- I could do that!! Then the reality set it- the jingle was WRONG!! Once you throw in kids to that equation it should have sounded like this “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, change the diapers, drive to practice, do the homework, give baths, and never ever let you forget you’re a man” That is not a liberated woman- that’s a frazzled, overworked, sleep deprived, mess of a life!  Yes teaching our daughters about how to balance their professional and personal lives is important.  We should be teaching them they can have it all.  We should just change the definition of a liberated woman. A liberated woman is not one who can do it all- A truly liberated woman is one who doesn’t have to do it by themselves.

2) There is more to a marriage than just intellectual compatibility. I’m not saying it’s not important because I wouldn’t want to particularly live with someone who was dumb as mud, but some might.  Many people marry for many reasons and none aren’t valid. There are also many types of intelligence. In the South we separate them into “book smarts” and “common sense”  I have a cousin who is absolutely book smart brilliant, but has zero common sense.  He can put together a multi-million dollar deal, but forgets where he parks his car and reports it stolen. I can’t put together a multi-million dollar deal, but I can usually find my car.  Who is to say which form of intelligence is more valid or useful? As a matter of fact we are usually jealous of which ever we don’t have. If a successful marriage is about complimenting each other shouldn’t the extremely book smart person marry someone who has common sense. Wouldn’t it be wiser for the book smart partner to close his deals while the common sense partner finds the car?  If not wiser- definitely easier.  Humor is also a huge portion of long term compatibility. Raising your little parasites will be more challenging than anything you will ever do in your life unless you become President of the United States. That seems to be the only career path that ages people faster than raising children. If you can’t both learn to laugh together at the ridiculousness of what has become of your everyday life you will start to go mad. For several years those bouts of laughter you have together will be the more intimate than the quickies you have in the bathroom while the kids are watching cartoons. Pick the partner with traits that work for you and don’t be ashamed if it takes a few.

3) I understand what she’s saying about men wanting younger women, but I don’t think she’s giving near enough men near enough credit. She actually says in the article that men as they age are only looking for women who are pretty and we’ll settle for a little dumber than they are to accomplish the looks.  Now I have had more men friends than women friends most of my life and for the record- THAT’S JUST NOT TRUE!!  The only women who believe that are women who have very few men friends. Those are the scary women my friends used to date that only had female friends. Their idea’s on how men think are a convoluted mess of too many nights of wine sitting around with women complaining. There are no more superficial men that are only looking for that in a partner than there are superficial women only looking for money.  Guess what- those people usually end up together and get what they deserve. Would you really want that man anyway?  Let the superficial be superficial together.  Most men truly want just a few things in a partner. They want a partner who is confident and secure in themselves. They want a partner they can relate too. After a certain age men don’t even change their clothing style since they were in high school so they certainly don’t want to learn a whole new generation. They want a woman to need their strength even if it is something as simple as to take out the trash. They want to not think too much. The best wedding advice I was ever given was simple and clear and still rings true to 90% of the men I have met in my life. Men are simple creatures and if you want to keep them happy do three simple things . Be a kind mama in the kitchen, a funny sister on the couch and slut in the bedroom and don’t confuse the three.  If you can pull those few simple things off and weren’t hit by every branch of the ugly tree on the way down they don’t care if you’re 20 or 60 and will do their best to keep you happy too.  If they can’t appreciate and respect those skills- let em go find the gold digger.  You just keep on saying NEXT cause I promise eventually one will!

I applaud Susan Patton saying the absolutely non politically correct because I think her heart was in the right place. She wants women to bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan and never forget he’s a man. She wants them to have it all, but she’s a generation behind is why everyone went nuts. I want my daughter to have it ALL!  I want her to be liberated in the truest sense of the word.  I want her to do what makes her happy!  If she wants to have a career then be liberated enough to choose to stay single or to choose a partner who will assist her in life and respect her for her strengths and compliment her weaknesses. I want her to be liberated and confident in herself to know that partner will come along and her believe she’s a hell of a catch when he does and be liberated in her decision to raise a family if she chooses

Isn’t that what all women have been fighting for all these generations?  It’s not just equal pay, equal job opportunities, or even equal benefits.  True liberation means true equality to make our own decisions and be respected for them all. Now that I’m done bringing home the bacon- I’m gonna do what generations of women before me have done and go pull off my bra through my sleeves, put on comfy cloths, fry up the bacon, and remind my husband he never ever should let me forget I’m a woman.  That’s what true equality means to me!!