Friendly Fire (or, The Personal is Political, Part II)

Recently I made the unfortunate decision to join women I didn't know well for a day trip, despite knowing that such adventures should be ones that allow for quick bailing. During the car ride to our destination, I learned why I hadn't spent more time with these women. They terrified me. Their favorite topic of conversation was their husbands, whom they loved to talk about but didn't seem to like very much. They shared stories of husbands who were so stupid they couldn't do laundry or who were so inept that they could not "babysit" their own children. What bothered me more than what these women said, though, was how they spoke: they seemed proud to one-up each other in stories of clueless men, beginning tales with, "Oh, you think THAT is dumb! Well MY husband..." They showed no sense of injustice or any desire to change the situation. Seeing their husbands as clueless seemed to give them a role, a sense of power. I tried to wipe the incredulous look from my face while I wondered why anyone would marry someone they didn't respect or why I had the great idea to go on a day-long outing with people I barely knew.

Yet these supposedly stupid husbands seemed cunning to me. They had someone to do laundry, cook, raise children, and also work a job to provide half of the household income. If I could somehow convince my husband that my wee little lady brain lacked the ability to comprehend the sorting of laundry or the cleaning of toilets, I'd be tempted to give it a shot. Credit for egalitarian relationships is not only due to the non-knuckle-dragging men who cook and clean (and please, it's not "pitching in" when it's their own home), but to women who resist outdated gender roles and require men to do their share. Merely complaining about it has all the effectiveness of breathlessly clutching at pearls.

When venturing beyond my egalitarian-loving social circle (where men do laundry without expecting a merit badge), I realize that a good deal of the inequality women face is perpetuated by women themselves; we're going down by friendly fire. The chaos is understandable, though -- the enormity of the social shift that our generation finds itself in cannot be overstated. Many of us born in the 70s were born during a transitional time of mixed messages. While many of us were raised with the idea we could be anything we wanted to be, any professional success came along with a duty to marry, have children, and handle the duties of the home. Most of us were not raised with the expectation of becoming as professionally successful or as financially savvy as our husbands. Yet our generation was the first where women not only outnumbered men in the college classroom, but outperformed them as well; some sociologists believe women now show greater professional ambition and work harder in the workforce (my offices have shown anecdotal evidence supporting this). Women are in unchartered marital territory full of options but not much precedent; taking on new responsibilities seems easier than delegating old ones. Venting with girlfriends is easier than insisting on new rules with husbands. I read a quote from the 70s in which a feminist (Steinem, I believe?) offered a married woman the advice to pretend she was dividing household duties with her best friend and then not to lower that standard with her husband. While this 30-year-old advice seems forehead-smackingly obvious, apparently this memo has not been widely circulated. It's easier for some women to think of their husbands as stupid than to realize they're victims of the patriarchal systems of their own making.

There's an email forward that gets passed around every few years in which a wife details the average night in her home. The wife announces she's going to bed and then bathes the baby, does the dishes, folds the laundry, makes tomorrow's lunches, prepares for a morning meeting, and THEN goes to bed. The man says he's going to bed and then just goes to bed. Somehow, there are women who find this email hilarious, who add smiley faces and "Isn't this the truth??" before forwarding on. I sit there screaming at this fictional woman who doesn't tell this dude to get his butt off the couch and make some lunches, which is not prevented by the presence of a Y chromosome. I usually direct much of my feminist angst towards laws and policies which place women in unfair and subordinate positions. Yet during times like my fun little day trip, I realize that my little group of progressive friends doesn't always represent who's really out there, and more of my feminist angst should go toward the women themselves who are more comfortable confronting a boss about a promotion than a husband about the laundry.