The Rights of Women

“So, what do you do?” an older woman asked me at a social gathering a few years back.

“I’m a mother,” I replied.

“Yes, but what do you do, business or anything.”

“O, nothing like that now.  I’m taking care of the children for a bit,” was my tense reply.  I could feel her cold contempt at that reasoning.

“Yes, but a woman shouldn’t just sit at home.  You need to find even a small business to do, sell something, anything,” came the entreated response.

I looked up at her, for she was wearing heels.  Her hair was styled sleekly around her head.  Her makeup was flawless.  She wore a floral dress that looked expensive and exuded femininity.  Her perfume, nails – you couldn’t fault her.  Some may, I didn’t envy her.  Yet I wondered why she should appear to pity me or worse, feel disappointed.

After several years as a stay at home full time mom, I came across numerous variations on the same theme.  Have you tried looking for a job, what about further education, can I offer you a job, do you need a small loan to start something, what are your skills and on and on.  On my part, I couldn’t understand what exactly was so wrong about the choice I had made, to dedicate my skills and efforts on raising my daughters.

A woman shouldn’t be idle, they would tell me.  As if childcare is an idle exercise.  It’s very hard to ask a husband for money to buy the small things in the house daily, was another argument I heard.  A family member even said to me, but if you knew you didn’t want to work you should never have wasted your parents’ money on a university education!  To which I angrily retorted, “I was never given the option to say no.”

In my calmer moments I reasoned that the arguments these women presented to me were merely a narration of the challenges they themselves had faced and were trying to escape from through chasing careers outside the home.  I was nothing more than a sad reminder of the bondage they were fleeing, and perhaps they assumed that I was clueless or powerless to free myself.

It appears to me that the drive for gender equality and the empowerment of women is robbing me of the right to choose the life that I want to live.  I appreciate the sacrifice made by so many women to ensure that I could graduate from college with my brothers.  But if I feel that I want to be a homemaker, why should I be criticized?  After all, I am opting to spend the day doing the things most women are spending significant proportions of their earning to get done – clean the house, nurture and teach the children, cook. 

The funny thing is, its only the women who criticized.  The traditional men thought it was as it should be.  The younger men thought it was quite brave of me to dare.  They understood, as I soon did, that choosing a more traditional role for myself meant I was viewed as less of a woman.  The women’s movement has redefined womanhood, and I wasn’t complying.  They criticized and condemned me.  Various interventions were proffered, and when I refused, they suspected my husband was overbearing.  No woman would accept that I chose homemaking to entrepreneurship or formal employment.

When they were not attacking me of course they were complaining.  They hated their job, their bosses, their low salaries.  They were unhappy with the maid and the gardener and the over-priced pre-schools their children attended.  Business was too low, clients unreliable and the debtors were a nightmare.  Their marriages were strained and overall, they were stressed, unhealthy and pretty much not any fun to be around.  I wondered if they were hounding me for no other reason than that misery loves company.

The advancement of women has made lots of progress in my generation, and I do not propose to take anything away from it.  I merely hope that it retains all the rights of all women, including the right to choose.  And while the definition of a modern woman is impressive, it need not be the only one.  A less modern woman is still a woman.  It’s great that a woman can go to school, vote, drive, work, own property.  It should still be great if her sister marries, takes her husband’s name hyphenated, and settles down to caring for her family on a full-time basis.  I think the only condition should be that she should be able to choose.  And it should be a universal human right that we accept the choices of others, regardless of how much they remind us of pre-historic times.