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| Tuesday, 2 September 2003 |
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What do women want? Apparently we're a lot more complicated these days. According to the statistics, women in Sri Lanka tie the knot much later in life, choosing to get an education, a job and attain some stability in their own lives before entering into a partnership with the male of the species. Upon making the marital commitment, several other issues arise; the modern woman, ever conscious of her waistline, her independence and the most arduous process of obtaining maternal leave from the workplace, chooses more often these days to postpone child-bearing. No more the wham-bam nature of marriage in generations past, when honeymoon babies were "in"; the modern couple prefer to discover themselves within the union before attempting to go forth and ... well you know the rest. And what of single womanhood? Aye, there's the rub. If marriage is supposed to be complicated, single womanhood is infinitely more traumatically complex. Every single woman has her story, and cliche as some of them may seem, underlying what may seem like sour grapes or an inability to commit is a far more profound issue. The 20th century woman has seen more changes in her lifetime than has a woman of any other generation in human history. This is not merely hyperbole, you only need to take a brief look around you to know this is true. The computer that I type this story on for instance is a thousand times more efficient than my mother's rickety old typewriter I typed my first official letter on at age 12. I have not only seen the transition from that rickety old typewriter to this Windows 98 computer, but I have lived it. And Windows 98 will no longer suffice, I am now in search of bigger better things, learning Unix for instance, mastering Linux, advocating the cause of open source. The type-writing kid has come a long way, and the journey is nowhere near reaching its end. And that analogy was just pertaining to computers. The modern woman has lived through several constantly changing definitions of femininity, of motherhood, of social role-play. She has witnessed some of the biggest revolutions of the women's emancipation movement, experienced and defeated some cases of male chauvinism and arrogance; everyday she makes giant leaps on corporate playground, juggling career and motherhood, unwilling to sacrifice either for fear of losing her independence or worse, her claim to womanhood. Each time I hear the story of a single woman, not to mention a recently married one, I'm reminded a new of how this constant social defining and redefining has resulted in the serious confusion for the modern woman. While the single woman lives in dread of waking up one morning and finding that she has "missed the bus" (to quote an irritatingly ubiquitous and almost vulgar phrase), and contemplates the pros and cons of cohabitation vs. life alone (toilet seats and toothpaste tube caps playing a big part in the considerations of course), the married woman wonders if she has further complicated her life by introducing a now permanent "other-person" to it. The married woman looks upon her foot loose and fancy free girlfriend with pity (and possibly a degree of envy), while the supposedly blissfully single woman thinks "ha, I ain't falling for that one" and sighs inwardly. The maiden looks at feeding mothers cooing over their babes and shudders in horror at such responsibility, all the while experiencing a queer and inexplicable ache inside. There is a sort of imbalance of powers in each situation. The modern woman, whether married or single, finds it difficult to figure out which path it is she should take. So she finds herself on an endless roller-coaster of confusion, giving rise to an increase of unprepared mothers or severely disgruntled female employees. And when it comes down to it, why do we allow ourselves to be dictated to by modern perceptions of femininity, or for that matter the archaic ones? Why does society play such a phenomenally important role in sculpting of our personal paradigms and leanings? Who says you're a bad mother if you decide to work, and who has the right look down on you if you decide to give up your job to raise your kids? Women are more afraid than they've ever been; suddenly the battle cry for freedom has died down to mellow protestations and cowering compromise. What many feminists have lost sight of is that freedom is not the right to do as men do, but simply, the right to choose either way. It's time the modern icon for feminism stopped being only the beer-guzzling, cigarette-bumming corporate executive or development professional. The breast-feeding mother is just as beautiful an icon, testimony to the fact that feminism does not mean a loss of feminity. Feminism is my right to make the choice between being corporate executive and mother of five. As I was sitting up in my office today, working late as usual, trying to catch up before the rat race takes off again tomorrow, a little girl walked past and stopped by to chat. She told me about school and her dolls and argued with me that she was only ten, and still a just a little girl. Before she left, she shook hands solemnly and enveloped me in a big bear hug, kissing me daintily on each cheek in a final gesture of goodbye. In the warmth of her hug, her little arms about my neck, I felt the cares of the day melt away, replaced by a wonderfully fuzzy feeling inside, that I can't seem to explain. No, nothing much has changed at all. - Sachiel |
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