In the World We Know Today

As women, we take on the role of mother, nurturer, house-keeper, career woman, confidant, lover, and countless other roles. We engage in the career world just as men, and still are expected to keep up with our work as mother at home at the end of the day. The role of women has changed very much throughout history, we have progressed and evolved but still, though it is said that we are, we are not equal to our men. It still amazes me every time I think about the studies that prove that women take on 2/3 of the responsibilities in the household. About the fact that a man entering my career field will earn much more than I, simply because he is a man.

I think that the reason behind all of this revolves around the nature that society has constructed for men. Men, who are not naturally nurturing beings with maternal instincts. Who are taught since childhood that it is not acceptable to show their emotions as women do. Who are viewed as our strong leaders. Who in the beginning of it all had the role of protector and financial providers in the home, leaving the housekeeping and raising of the children to their women. I think that it has been hard for men to accept that their roles are changing along with ours. That because we are career people just as they are and it is now difficult for only one person alone to provide for their family, that they have to share the role of parent, and housekeeper as well. That these beings that they were taught had to be more fragile and less aggressive than they are supposed to be, are accomplishing just as much as they are. That instead of moving up, they are downgrading and having to do tasks not worthy of men. WOW this sounds dramatic...

Anyway, what other explanation could there be for the countless cases of men that think that providing for the family is enough to keep a marriage and a family happy and healthy? What other explanation could there be for the amount of times men take their wives for granted, who care for their children and keep up their house, and work to help pay bills, and try to take care of them? How else could you explain the mentality that simply providing for the family can satisfy a woman's need for love and companionship? That she is not entitled to her part in the making of decisions because he supposedly provides for all that the family needs?

I wish that just once, those ignorant men could feel the pressure that these women go through. Like living a year in her shoes, and feeling exhausted after work, to then come home and instead of watching TV, feeding, bathing, sharing with, playing with, and making sure everything is well with the babies, and doing the laundry, and the dishes, and sweeping and mopping, and paying him attention and everything that comes with the job of mother and wife.

I'm not saying that men don't have great, and tiresome responsibilities, I'm just wondering why the lack of respect and consideration for a job that is so demanding?

Some of it is our own fault. We have to stop raising our boys to only have the role of taking out the garbage and mowing the lawn. We have to teach them that doing the dishes, and the laundry and other chores is OK. We have to make it clear to our husbands that they will not teach our boys that they should go through women in their youth as if they were cuts of meat, and that women are not here to be maids for them, but that men and women exist to TAKE CARE OF AND HELP EACH OTHER IN EVERYTHING. And we need to stop accepting the attitudes of those men who think we are their slaves and that we have to kiss the ground they walk on just because they make money. We can't allow ourselves to be taken for granted. We let them do these things to us... Maybe if they started being forced to share the responsibilities women take on, they would respect and value those responsibilities more and not think of them as jobs unworthy of their efforts.