Feminism doesn't delete "womanly" responsibilities

Oh man. How many comments will be made before anybody reads anything other than that headline? How many people will accuse me of being a chauvinist? How many others will never notice their missue of the word? (For the record people look that fucking word up. Yes, the french one, right there. Go look it up)

Screw it you're too lazy and I know it. Here we go (courtesey of the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary):

chauvinist

Main Entry:
chau·vin·ism
Pronunciation:
\ˈshō-və-ˌni-zəm\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French chauvinisme, from Nicolas Chauvin, character noted for his excessive patriotism and devotion to Napoleon in Théodore and Hippolyte Cogniard's play La Cocarde tricolore (1831)
Date:
1851

1: excessive or blind patriotism — compare jingoism
2: undue partiality or attachment to a group or place to which one belongs or has belonged
3: an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex ; also : behavior expressive of such an attitude
— chau·vin·ist \-və-nist\ noun or adjective
— chau·vin·is·tic \ˌshō-və-ˈnis-tik\ adjective
— chau·vin·is·ti·cal·ly \-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

(Hrm, talk about a word our society has twisted about...)

But let's get back to the point. Feminism was originally, essentially, the idea that women should be free to pursue a life and a career outside the home as equals to their male counterparts. That's a great thing. God knows I wouldn't have been able to set foot in my field without this concept being firmly rooted in our society.

Trust me, the last thing I am asking for is for people to jam women unwillingly back in the kitchen so they can proceed to do nothing but pop out a few more babies and cook a few dinners. There was just one little problem with randomly deciding women could simply drop everything and go out and have a career, or a life, or whatever you want to call it.

Women were already doing something. They were raising kids.

Instead of seeking to redistribute "womanly responsibilities" we just abolished them. Now both Mom AND Dad can become nothing more than a paycheck and a pat on the head every evening. That's equality isn't it? That's the American dream?

So who raises your children? Their school teachers, their summer camp councilors, the endless parade of team sports coaches you systematically have them shipped between as after-school activities so they don't get home before you get off work. No? Maybe it is the television, or that bubble-gum chewing brainless high school girl you hire to babysit them. Maybe you both work enough to afford to hire a nanny or a maid.

There is one problem with this: none of those people have the kind of vested interest in your children that a person raising them probably ought to have. I'm pretty damn sure your television for one doesn't. Additionally, your children are unlikely to spend enough time with any one strong potentially parental figure to develop a significant bond. Hell, you think a soccer coach is likely to be able to tell when a kid is having a bad day? He probably only sees the kid twice a week for an hour and a half, the other days being filled with other activities. Even if he does, to have the time to take to try to make the kid feel better when there are 20 other kids on the field? Even if he can, is it appropriate? Does he know the kid well enough to know how?

Now I understand that sometimes life is hard, money is tight, and both parents must work to make ends meet. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a pair of married grown children who essentially treat their own children like accessories while both simultaneously vying for high-power fast-paced careers simply because they enjoy it or because they enjoy the lavish lifestyle that comes with it. That's not equality! That's both of you being immature assholes. Don't have kids if you can't work out time between the two of you to raise them.

It gets better though!

Now stay at home moms are opting for having their children be raised by coaches and teachers. They don't want their child to be left out of all the social fun their peers are having so they just buy in and ship their kids off too. Then they use their free time to enjoy themselves, free from motherly responsibilities. That's not feminism. That's you being lazy and self-absorbed. Never mind it is probably well outside the family's means to try to spend on their children for all these time-consuming activities at a rate which rivals the dual income families. Your kid obviously would rather rather go to years of summer camp, sports teams, private lessons on instruments they don't even like, and whatever else you fill their lives out with "for enrichment" than go to a good college. And that's pretending you don't spend a dime on yourself in your new-found freedom and spare time. Oh, what's that? You expect a generous scholarship for Junior and are not very worried about saving for college? Let me tell you something: if a college is begging your child to attend by throwing piles of money at his feet it had better be at his dream school. Otherwise it means he probably could have gotten in and attended someplace better or that he liked more if only he could pay for it. You sold Junior short for a daily latte and monthly manicure. Congrats.

The other horrible effect of this is that parents are getting upset that their cheap parental replacements are being bad parents. You shouldn't expect your child's summer camp counselor to teach your little brat to share. It is not your child's school's responsibility to teach your child sex-ed. Your child is not suppose to learn morals form a television set, nor that disputes can be settled non-violently from a video game. Your child is not suppose to learn how to care for himself from a maid. These are lessons you as a parent are suppose to teach your kid. Some things are important enough, and parents fail often enough that other groups have stepped up to the plate to try to do your child some good such as the sex ed talks, (agree with them or not you have to admit the presenters mean well.) That doesn't really let you off the hook though.

I don't care if the man raises the kids, the woman does, or if they both shave a few hours off their work day and they take turns. The grandparents could raise the kids for all I care. All my point is that somebody has to. All I want to say is that just because our society decided that these burdens were "keeping women down" does not mean they suddenly disappeared just because we determined them inconvenient.

Sometimes its embarassing to be female

I was sitting in the lab today working when I overheard the following conversation:

Girl in lab: but our robot looks UGLY
Her project partner: it just has to work
Girl in lab: but more than half of things is how they look! If they don't look good...

On behalf of my sex: I apologize. I don't even have an excuse.

I'm sure she has a good side. In her defense she was a lot more moronic when she was in high school. She's much less rabidly feminist than she use to be, although the irony of seeing her lean over a guy's desk in a low-cut blouse and smiling to get what she wants does amuse me. "Working to break her own path in a man's field" my ass. Put a shirt on and cry me a river.

Its not that I don't enjoy the context myself where showing a little skin is ok, its just unprofessional to use it as an academic advantage. It begs the question "could you make it if you were a guy?"

And its not that I have a problem with the core ideas of what I believe were the original concepts of feminism. I just think somewhere something got revamped and went terribly terribly wrong...for example... I was talking to an old friend of mine who I had fallen out of touch with...guess we can call her "Bit" for this story. She had invited me to join a book club she was running. I like books...the book she was reading sounded somewhat interesting when she explained the premise. I was planning to attend.

Later on I was comatosely sipping my hot chocolate. I don't like coffee but as a resident of New England I'm somehow obligated to buy Dunkin Donuts products, so I guess this is what happens. It does wake me up a little...blood sugar I guess. Maybe its just a good placebo. I don't care: it works.

Anyway, so drinking my hot chocolate catching up with another old friend...we can call her Purple when Bit comes up and the two of them start about the book club...which is apparently the entitled "Feminist Science Fiction Book Club."

Pika: Oh man, no, you didn't tell me about that part
Bit: Its not like that! Its just a book with a female main character!
Pika: Then...why is a feminst book club reading it if it isn't a feminst book?

My friend who was the victim of the Vex parts on his senior project was sitting at the table too and laughing kinda quietly by this point. Purple and Bit look at him briefly and then the topic was dropped.

I mean, seriously? How does having a female main character make a book feminist? Does that make 12th Night a feminist book? Is the Iliad a feminist book? Its about the Trojan War...and the Trojan war is about Helen...right? Hey...Lolita is about a girl right?

And while I'm on a good rant about this: fuck affirmative action for women.

All of my negative sexist verbal sparring experiences in my career and educational experience have at some point included the following insult: "You never would have ___ if you were a guy." Fill it in with anything you want, I wouldn't have had the internship I had, I wouldn't have gotten into this university, I wouldn't have recieved the scholarship I did, I wouldn't have gotten (insert award name here), I wouldn't have the job offers I had, I wouldn't have this I wouldn't have that.

Here is the worst part: there isn't a lot you can say to that because, well, thanks to affirmative action, it could technically be true. Congradulations: you have sucessfully coined a loophole which will continue to call into question the merit of any sign of recognition any female recieves for her good work.

Many universities really want to boast x% women, and some are letting standards slide to do it. Some schools publically admit to it.

This problem is so bad that I don't even blame my interviewers or professors for being a little extra skeptical of me because I'm female. How can they tell at first glance that I'm not just one of the girls who has been handed from outreach program to outreach program up through middle school and then admitted because I was pretty close to good enough and rounded out some quota nicely? One of those girls with no real desire for engineering at all? The discipline has been dressed up in these outreach programs, they try to make it look fun, easy, and even glamorous. When it comes down to the real work... well...its work. It isn't always fun. That's just reality. A lot of women were herded in not really realizing that...not given any real exposure to the field...and nobody cares. The outreach program can brag how many female engineers it put into college, the school can boast a high quota of women enrolled. Nobody seems to notice the girls who might not graduate on time because they wound up changing majors...two...three times when they found out that none of it was quite as advertized.

Don't get me wrong: I volunteer in many engineering outreach programs myself. Many of them are good, but you have to judge program to program.

Then there are the spoiled brats who believe that doing something with two X chromosomes instead of one is a landmark of itself. These are the women who will tell you the names and dates of things such as the first spacewalk done by a female, the first female congressperson...

Are you saying women can not compete as equals to men in intellectual and political pursuits? That women need their own special set of firsts and records because they can't cut it competing with the men? The only parallel to that I can think of are the Special Olympics.

...And people say I'm sexist.

Additionally, while most of the women who really don't belong in engineering do get a different major by the time they are upperclassmen the sterotypes set by the underclassmen still permeiate the environment. Now you have the worst of both worlds: the graduating percentage of females in my major at my university hovering at a scrawny 5% with the lurking full dose of skepticism inspired by all the girls who flooded the lower classes out then left.

Why do "feminists" and politicians feel a need to hand sexist persons more ammunition to continue to make things worse? Why do they continue to push a system which make people who wouldn't normally be sexist skeptical of the professional skills of women candidates due to a flooding of underqualified candidates admitted to make some quota? The policy shows a total disconnect from reality and lack of research into the realities of the workplace and academic life. I don't know if the same thing is true of minorities who also have affirmative action programs: but I sure hope it isn't. Its a pretty rotten situation to be in.

Really talented women will find their own path. You can show women some of the opportunities available, but you can't just create excellent female engineers by declaring that a certain percentage of the accepted students should be female.