Not to panic, people! Sexism is alive and well. Just ask
Trump. Or just call on people in my supposedly progressive neighbourhood.
Today, I was told that having a career is "just an option".
Would such a statement have been thrown at a man? Absolutely not. Because,
apparently, only men can have real jobs. For women, a job is just "an option".
Deferring to the speaker's age (and possible signs of senility), I didn’t
bother to retort. Sometimes it’s just best to let the half-wits think they’ve
had the last word. Their words hold so little weight, it takes a whole lot of
idiotic words, tacked clumsily together into barely intelligible ludicrous
statements, for them to even become quote-worthy, you know?
Just what would these half-wits advise that us working women
do with our lives? Marry men with "real jobs" and support them I suppose? In my
case, this half-wit would rather have me spending my time looking after the
day-to-day running of the apartment building in which we live. Don't get me wrong: I admire anyone who can take care of that AND keep up with a job that has round-the-clock demands. I am simply not cut out for it. I twirl and twirl and twirl, but Wonder Woman I am not.
Say, since my career is "just an option" that I can give up,
who is going to pay to put food on my table? Since I’m a woman, clearly I
should know my place and sponge off my parents perhaps? Or dip into the piggy
bank of my brother, what with his real career and all. Or just depend on some
random Mr. Money Bags, eh? Or wait... Jesus! He da man! He'll provide if I pray hard enough.
In this day and age, I am aghast that a woman’s career is
still taken so lightly. I speak for both single and married women.
For instance, single women friends have told me how they’ve
been taunted for "having no responsibilities". As if marriage and babies are
the only real responsibilities for women. How about running a house on your own? Planning
your own life so that you’re never going to have to be financially dependent on
somebody else? Single women run their own houses, pay rents and maintenance,
commute a couple of hours to work each day, work 10 even 15-hour days, take on
mortgages, support their parents, put food on their own dining tables, and so
on. Those, dear half-wits, are responsibilities too.
My married women friends, who "choose to continue working",
fare no better. When they drag themselves in through the front door of their
houses each evening after an exhausting day at work, what do they get? A nice
warm cup of coffee is thrust into the hands of their spouse, while they’re
dumped with a nice warm baby with a sopping, soiled diaper that needed to be
changed three hours ago. Woohoo! Nothing says "Welcome home" better than squelchy
poo!
I’ve heard men at a previous workplace tell us, their women
counterparts, that they firmly believe men are the primary breadwinners while
women are, by design, meant to be caregivers playing a supporting role. This
sentiment voiced by men with shiny engineering degrees and fancy Master’s
degrees. It just goes to show that education does nothing. Equality? Pfft!
With such rampant misogynists around and women who continue
to perpetuate the notion of this "career optional" mentality, are things really
going to change any time soon?
My boss, a woman I look up to and admire to the core of my
being for doing it all and with such strength and poise, including co-founding the
company, was recently asked by a business journalist how she supports her
co-founder husband’s career. "Supports"? The fact that she co-founded the place
is of no consequence – the natural assumption being that the men did the 'real
work'. So a woman in a business is just there for what? Aesthetic purposes? To
see that the coffee machines are in working order? To chase up on errant
housecleaning staff?
Incidentally, in my apartment building, all maintenance
responsibilities are carried out by women. Because, you know, the men have 'real
jobs'. Yes, even the ones who’ve retired and vegetate in their houses all
day. Ass scratching is a real job, you know. I believe the official designation
is Chief Ass-ecutive Officer.
Anyway, what would I really know? After all, society says a working
woman shouldn’t be taken seriously. Because a career is just an option. Just
like a side of fries with your burger.
I’m pretty sure this post is going to ruffle a lot of patriarchal
feathers and raise some chauvinistic hackles. How dare this woman voice her
opinion? How dare she speak out? How dare she place it on the internet for all
the world to read? While I eagerly await their hate mail, I have one last thing
to say to such indignant dunderheads:
Reading this blog post is just like a woman’s career to you –
you know, optional.
