Unintended Consequences

I was looking at the feminist movement which got me to thinking about a couple other well-intended movements.

Many movements start with the best of motives: unions, affirmative action, etc. What happens that makes them get so messed up???

Look at the auto industry, Michigan in particular. Everywhere else, the economy is up except Michigan. Michigan is a highly unionized state...Everything that goes into the making of a car is unionized (except the white collar guys who get most of the union benefits too). Well, car companies have to pay for the union employees somehow, therefore the price of cars goes up. The unions want more and more and the car companies have to charge more and more. Guys working of the line at GM make way more than someone working with a Master's Degree in a library...way, way, way more. My brother the architect was absolutely incredulus when he found out how much more money his buddies could make at Ford on the line than he could after struggling through hours and hours of college calculus. Granted, neither my brother or myself would never want to work on the assembly line, but now we can't even buy the cars they build! And you wonder why they want to outsource jobs??? Even building a car in Tennessee is much less expensive than Michigan and it is because the honorable idea of the union got carried away.

I am not even going to get into affirmative action. All I know is that if I were a black woman who worked very hard to get into a high level position, the last thing I would want is someone to think that I was there only because I was black and a woman. And I wouldn't want my collegues to resent and disrespect me for it.

Refining My Views

As I've stated before, I am in a process of growth and am refining my values. Norma of "Collecting My Thoughts" posted a very articulate comment regarding the feminist movement. As usual, Norma is right on target.

My mom was one of the few moms who stayed home and outside of a few occassional violin lessons, never earned money herself once she became a mother. However, she did a lot regarding the management of the household that saved money. She also sacrificed for us...we don't have a newborn picture of me because my mom was afraid it cost too much. While we had every lesson we ever wanted, we only went on a family vacation twice. My parents once went to Toronto alone after mom had a miscarriage. I am so glad that they are able to travel a little bit now. Of course, do they take a trip to Germany, the ancestral home of both families and Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms? No, they visit my brother and his wife in Boston and family in Ohio!

The women I know that stay home or plan to stay home either worked and saved before their kids were born or earn money from home. Mary Kay, Tupperware, Avon... One of my daughter's friends mom sews and raises goats. She's not part of a cult or strange sect...that's just how she helps the family's income. My trouble is that I got it into my head that you get a degree and do a specific job using that degree. I need to change my mindset regarding myself or I'll never get anywhere.

Norma has once again helped me refine my thinking. Feminism did have an important role. However, I think it had some unintended consequenses, including some poorly raised children, clueless and lazy men, and very confused women.

Again my apologies for any poorly stated comments...I'm too tired to refine my writing right now!

Feminism

A couple months ago, I stumbled upon a website called Ladies Against Feminism. It made me cry. I yearn to be like those women. At my very core, my heart's desire has always been to serve God and to be a wife, a mamma to as many babies as God would give me, keep a pretty house, play my cello, sing, sew, write, maybe even cook. I have always hated wearing pants and I'm not cut out to work outside of the home and I never was...

This is an unedited-stream-of-consciousness-diatribe about my thoughts on this topic:

When I went to college, I went to become a music teacher and then a librarian. I chose the library profession because I thought it was one where I could work part-time just in case we needed extra money in an emergency. When I wanted to quit school to become a wife and mother, my mom encouraged me to stay and finish and it would help me be a better mom. [I think my background might actually make me a great homeschooling parent, but that's another story.] I am a perfect case study of someone who got caught in the feminist trap without even knowing it.

When I was in the third grade, we lived down the street from the homes where new doctors lived during their residency. One of the moms had three young children and needed a little help. She offered me five cents an hour to help out. Mrs. V. was an emergent feminist in 1973 and my dad started calling me "Little MS" as he figured that Mrs. V. was indoctrinating me in feminism. She might have been, but I sure don't remember any of it...I was helping her with her mommy duties and playing with her kids. I do remember really resenting my dad for calling me that...I HATED IT!!!

I blame my poor marriage choices to feminism...my first husband was a college grad who made a lot of money, but he always said that when I finished grad school, he was going to retire. He was probably kidding, but we divorced 6 months after I started grad school. Maybe if I wasn't so stuck on the idea that I too had to have a career, I wouldn't have gone to grad school and we would have stayed married and I could have been a stay at home mom. I doubt it...his mom had nine kids, was married to an engineer, and still worked as a nurse as soon as her kids hit junior high.

My second husband was an all-around loser, but he was a so called "Christian", which in my warped mind made him suitable for me. I felt that at my big salary of 25,000/year I could support us and anyone else who would come along. I lost that job, replaced it right away for less money, and lost that job almost immediately. I found a job with fluctuating hours that had to support us until we divorced when baby was two months old. All the time he was having his career of private investigator which meant he worked when he felt like it and called it his job.

Due to my poor marital choices, it was a good thing that I went to grad school and was able to support baby and me. However, I think my credentials clouded my mate selection. I am now happily married to a good man. He works hard and is steady and reliable. However, he was the son of a widow. His mom worked hard her whole life. He thinks that children of moms who work turn out fine. He sometimes forgets that his grandma took care of him all of those years.

My husband is brilliant but didn't go to college. He has stayed at the same job for 30 years. This position pays about as much as a librarian position, but then librarians don't make a lot of money. There is also not room for career growth...he has been a warehouse/sales/delievery guy for all of these years. If it weren't for the union, I think he might have sought better employment, but now he's two years short of retirement. I pray he finds a satisfying and lucrative second career, because I don't think it is right for me to leave my young kids home while I get back on the corporate ladder.

The trouble is, I am tangled up in the trappings of a two-income family with 1 1/2 incomes. I need to cut back and be satisfied with what my husband can provide so I can return home. I had to leave a vomiting baby and my 8 year-old home on a snow day to be a work this morning. That is so wrong. My husband was home with the kids, losing a day's wage because I made a work comittment I needed to keep.

Escaping the web of feminism is very hard...there is much more to it than one would think. First, I love to wear dresses, but I feel really weird cleaning the house in a dress or exercizing in a dress or ice skating in a "modest dress". Do you give up your favorite activities...can't you put leggings on to play in the snow with your kids??? Do you take care of your horses in a dress????? Do you have to ride side-saddle or not at all???? Where does practicallity come into all of this????

What about going to hockey games with your husband...I could wear a dress, but is enjoying hockey feminine or feminist??? Or cheering my Alma Mater, which was not even a private church college, but a major BIG TEN party school (although I didn't not party in the 'party-school' way.) What about my car...I love cars I love my car I even love driving my rear-wheel drive car in the snow...does that make me a feminist????

What about make up???? I love wearing make-up...I think it's girly...as long as my heart is a pretty as my face, I don't think it is un Christian either. Hair color...come on, I've had gray hair since I was twenty...I'm supposed to be attractive to my husband, aren't I? I love long hair, but mine breaks off so much, I need to keep it on the short side...with clips and sparklies to keep it girly. I don't even like to wear oxford shirts because they look so manly, but then a lot of what I think "feminizes" my clothes is sometimes considered immodest. I don't want to end up looking like a cliche. Do you have to look like the Amish??? I know a (anti-feminist) young woman who dresses very stylishly...she even wears red nail polish sometimes...

This is all getting me to look at my values again. I think I got a bit liberal since I married my husband. I need to get back to the BIBLE and the US CONSTITUTION for my compasses. Unfortunately, no where is it written, at least I don't think it is, that a lady can not drive a Ford Mustang...

John Lennon

The saddest thing about John Lennon's untimely death was that had he lived, maybe he would have done something that I liked or admired.

Regardless, I have a clear memory of the death of John Lennon. My friend told me the next morning at 0-hour orchestra rehearsal. Her parents were English and her brother's name was Julian. Maybe that is why she was the first to share the news. I was in the 11th grade. I remember being so ashamed because my first reaction was to think that John died of a drug overdose. For graduation that spring, I gave my boyfriend a cross necklace and a copy of "Double Fantasy". I know why I gave him the cross, but for the life of me, I can't remember why I chose that album...maybe I felt sorry for Yoko and the kids...

I'm sorry if I've offended anyone with my comments. John did have an amazing impact on world culture and you must tip your hat to someone like that.