Ladies, let's face it. We have it pretty good here in the US. We can drive. We can vote. We can work. And we don't have to walk around with stuff covering our faces. World War II brought to life a new side of women. Women were working in factories, playing baseball, and raising families by themselves while their husbands, sons, and fathers fought the good fight. The world realized that American women are tough, and so did American women. We started fighting for equal pay for equal work. We started proving that women are just as capable as men to be CEO's, senators, and whatever else we wanted to be. However, things are a little different now.
Women are now bombarded by talking points and feedback from feminists across the country. You can be whatever you want. It's your body- a man in Washington can't tell you what to do with it. Women are just as good as men at everything...and probably better. It all sounds too good to be true- and that's because it is.
It seems interesting that women are told they can be whatever they want to be as long as it fits in with what the hard-core feminists had in mind. Be a CEO. Be a senator. Run a multi-million dollar corporation. Get your masters degree. Get an abortion. Be and do any of those things. But the first time you mention being a submissive wife, or being "just a mom" all of a sudden they tell you you're not living up to your potential.
Take Candice Cameron for instance. It seems DJ from "Full House" is all grown up. She has been married for 17 years and has three children. During an interview, she said that one thing that helped her relationship with her husband was to take a backseat role in making decisions. She would voice her opinion, but the decision was ultimately left up to him. She has since been flooded with people telling her she has sent women back 100 years. That she's nothing more than a doormat. This just isn't so. It takes a very strong woman to voice her opinion but leave a decision up to someone else. We live in a society where women wear the pants in a relationship, then want to get out of the relationship because their significant other isn't a true leader. How can he lead if you won't let him? If you want to see your husband "be the man" then you have to give him that chance.
I have personally been pressured by society to get back into the work force. There's two different forces at work here. There's the group who think stay-at-home mothers are lazy and sit around eating bon-bons all day (I laugh at them). Then there's the group who say women who stay home with their children are wasting their talent and intelligence. We should be out there, leading. Proving to people around the world that we can do it. Well, even if I were to concede to be "wasting" myself, what better to "waste" it on than my own children? And no. I'm not conceding that I waste anything. My talent has always been being good at a lot of things. What better career field could there possibly be than being a mother? I'm a chauffeur, a chef, a laundromat, a nurse, a referee, a coach, a psychologist, a guidance counselor, a teacher, a judge, a personal assistant, and yes, a maid. YES. I am a maid. (Let's not kid ourselves ladies. We don't have to like the title though.)
My point is this. Who in God's name decided that the founding point of feminism would be to compare us to men? How is that empowering? Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, we aren't supposed to be equal to men? Maybe we're supposed to be...complimentary? Not quite equal, but just as necessary?
I challenge every single one of my readers to help me redefine feminism. A new feminism where we are no longer compared to men about anything. Where we can literally be whatever we want to be. Whether it be a CEO or a stay-at-home mom. Whether it be a single, working mom who does a great job, or a submissive wife. Let us no longer view ourselves as in a struggle to define rights for women. Let us simply look back at what we have accomplished, look at all that women already offer this world, and sit back with a deep satisfaction and say to ourselves, "You're damn right we can."
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