Choice.
I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she was afraid to talk to another friend of ours because of what she would think about the direction her life is heading. She's not doing anything wrong. She's not making any bad choices. She's not endangering anyone.
Her choice? She is going to stay home with her children after she gets married later this month.
See, our other friend is also divorced, and has a little girl. She is very independent and could be called a feminist. She believes strongly in a woman's right to make a life of her own, independent of any man. Friend #1 was afraid to talk to her about her decision not to work and to stay home with her children because she was afraid she was going to get the feminist lecture.
My first thought was this: Isn't the real mark of freedom the ability and the right to choose?
I think that being free - whether as a woman or an American or whatever - means being able to choose the life that's right for you. Feminism, really, is the polar opposite of anti-feminism (whatever that could be called) but is very much the same. Throughout history, women were told that they should stay home. They should take care of their families. They should not work, should not speak up, should not have a life of their own. To tell a woman, then, from a feminist perspective, that she should do any one particular thing seems no better than telling her she should stay home......barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
Freedom should mean that she does not have to do any specific thing.
Freedom should allow her to choose the life that's right for her. She should be able to plot out her own path. If that means she will stay at home with her children, great! If that means a woman may never marry but will instead focus on her career, fantastic! That's her choice, and whatever the choice may be, she should not have to feel bad about it or worry what anyone will think. I'd like to think that we've come far enough to allow her that.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
The Real Meaning of Freedom
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3 of your thoughts:
As I said, I love where I am now...but sometimes I envy you that your family is close enough for you to see them on a weekly basis. Oh, my dad has a job interview for a job that will extend his territory down to Maryland, Pa, and possibly Ohio which means that in the future, he could move nearer to me which he really wants to do. Pray about that, K? I'd LOVE for them to be closer to me!
Feminism isn't as much an issue over here as it was ten years ago -
housing costs mean women mostly have to work; few get to top management positions, tho'.
Must be tricky when it touches close to home. Good post..!
Wow! That makes me mad that another woman would DARE tell a fellow woman that she's making a bad choice. Who the heck does she think she is? My goodness! And it also makes me mad that she's saying the choice to stay home with your kids is a BAD choice when it fact it is the best choice if you are going to raise kids! I hope you told her that or something to that effect. I would have. But I'm very outspoken so yeah, I would have put her in her place and would have probably done so very loudly and passionately. If you are going to have kids, you need to raise them yourself...and well, you have the choice not to do that if you want to but I've seen the fruit of kids raised in daycare and while they're not completely impoverished, they're not nearly as well brought-up as kids who had a parent taking care of them. And that's all I have to say about that.
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