Just the other day I hiked with a couple of girlfriends, both middle age and with kids about to leave for college. "What will become of me once they leave?" the first inquired. "I don't know," replied the second, "after so many years neglecting my career and caring for them and for the family, who is going to recognize that and hire me, especially at this age?"

I thought this question to be a loaded one and a multilayered at that. First of all, since us women inherently care for our communities and our family life (and why we do is an entirely different topic which I will address separately) we always end up neglecting, even if by a small fraction, our professional development. Add to that the fact that society is based on male values of hard-core results and rational goals (and that our Western culture tends to gratify material gains, exterior looks and a success which is measured in terms of our ability to compete and win) and we understand why we may feel a bit lost and not too clear as to where to pick up the pieces of our futures.

For starters, it's important to recognize that we are no longer the same people we were before. For good or not-so-good reasons, the years of giving and utilizing our feminine values of nurturing and caring have not only transformed us but have also given us a spiritual perspective we did not possess before (I am also talking about the women who had no children and/or continued with their careers). As it is common in other cultures, at a certain age we feel the need to reconnect to something more profound, more meaningful and more rewarding. Thus a job where the goals are ego-driven or aimed at some far off objective no longer fits our needs. Even the idea to be "recognized" by someone else is almost ludicrous (seriously now, who is going to even remotely understand what it's like to perform five different jobs on any given day unless it's another woman in the same condition?) because we know so much more. But, when we fill out our new resume, what exactly do we write in the lines of "what we did," and "what do we want to do?"

My experience is that we first need to reconnect, at a very deep level, with who we have become and recognize what we value most in our later years. There is nothing more scary and lonesome than to abandon our true selves out of fear--fear of not making it or of not being accepted and embraced--and the consequences can be frightening and create even more isolation around us.

Secondly we need to find "our community," and for that I advocate searching for women like us and tell each other as it is. Virginia Woolf used to say, " To go down boldly and bring to light those hidden thoughts which are the most diseased; to conceal nothing; to pretend nothing, if we are ignorant to say so; if we love our friends to let them know it,"  and I agree wholeheartedly. Let's be honest with one another, let's have the courage to lean on each other and help us along this wonderful path of truths and self-discovery.

Third, let us have Faith in the Universe (or God, if you prefer) and its capacity to deliver what we are due. I know that when we have nothing to eat and must pay the bills these are just words (and I have been there more than once myself), but at the same time we must ask ourselves: "has there ever been a time when something happened and it wasn't for a specific reason?" In retrospect you may realize that things always occur for us to learn something, and holding on to that kind of Faith is to know, in no uncertain terms, that when when we are ready the situation will change by its own accord.

At this point we will uncover our passion and our next step, whether it is aligned with the views and the needs of a multinational corporation or with the deep yearning to open a knit shop.

With the multiple skills and the wisdom we have acquired, the faith we hold inside, and the openness to share our stories, there is nothing that we won't be able to do!

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Women and the need to drink

The other day my friend complained that her mom drinks too much. “She is not allowed in this house unless she stops. My kids cannot see this!” she shouted. I felt for her. After all, having grown up myself with a mother who started her day with a shot of grappa in her espresso and ended it with Jack Daniels as a digestive drink, I knew all too well the meaning of it; slurred words, vacuous stare, horrid breath and the demoralizing feeling that “us” around her couldn’t help her.

“Sorry,” I said to my friend. “I understand. But please be careful when you speak to her. She is drinking because she is in pain. If you are too harsh she will drink even more.” I replied. 

More and more women—friends, neighbors, people I know—I realized, especially in the “older” age bracket, begin drinking when the clock says it’s ok to do so, i.e. 5:00 PM.   Why is that?
I think it’s because the older we get the more useless and invisible we feel. The kids are gone, we have had one or multiple careers (depending on how many jobs we have had to begin and then interrupt to take care of the babes and the husbands), our partners are gone all day on their never-fragmented-never-in-question jobs (I am NOT dismissing the hard work of our mates and this is a generalization, of course), thus we find ourselves wondering WHO we have become and HOW we are going to spend the next thirty years in a meaningful (to us and others) way.  It is at this juncture that the drink comes in. The pull to drink (and I mean, drinking every day and more than just one drink each time) comes from the feeling that, unless we are paid and validated in the way our culture does, i.e. to produce something valuable and to earn tangible rewards, then we don’t count. The alcohol numbs the pain of this realization and the fear of moving ahead in uncharted and unknown territory. Which way do we go? Do we believe what we are being told or do we revisit who we have become during the last thirty years and use it to recreate a new-found persona that will keep us fulfilled thereafter? You know the answer. But this proposition is very hard and requires a lot of courage because no one has yet created a historically sound, paved path of how a woman over fifty can regain grounds in a fast-paced, heavily industrialized and Patriarchal society. Will we have to sell out our dreams, once again, to keep up with the rest, or can we find a way to emerge while keeping our integrity and our vision alive?

My mother could not do either. As a heavy drinker she was touted as an unfit mother; as a worker, she was unfit because she left me in the care of others. She had no open doors and no one to help her, thus she drank from 8:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night, when she collapsed in bed in the hope of never waking up. Eventually, the drink killed her and she got her wish.

PS In my next BI-WEEKLY articles I will be exploring what it implies to go deeper within and find new means (and meanings) of moving forward, the significance of living in a Patriarchal society (down to the daily, nitty-gritty examples), the roots of the problem and suggestions for solutions that we can adopt starting immediately. If you are interested in these topics, PLEASE BOOKMARK my site, www.paintedred.info, and come back in two weeks. Thank you for your patronage.

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My attention was caught by an article that appeared on the current issue of MS magazine; in it, the author, Carmen D. Siering, describes Bella, the protagonist of the much acclaimed movie Twilight, as “a blank slate, with few thoughts or actions that don’t center on Edward.” She continues by saying that, where Bella is “infantilized,” Edward is “condescending” and the only one allowed to “initiate intimacy.”

I pondered. Wait a minute!  Why did I like the movie if such were the premises? Is it possible that I, too, am a victim of our patriarchal society’s canons subscribing to the widespread notion that women can’t be happy unless they have a man who worships and loves them? The mere fact that the book sold 22 million copies and many more saw the movie seems to corroborate these assertions.

For my part, I watched the movie with detached interest at first, a glimpse of excitement in the middle and a longing for “it” to continue by the end. For two days I fantasized about it and even convinced my daughter to buy the movie once it came out in DVD. And yet, throughout it all, I sensed a weakening of the person I have become, as if, through the two hours of watching it, I had regressed into the young woman I was, when being liked and nurtured by a man was intrinsic to achieve happiness and fulfillment.

How did we so easily buy into a story that is so clearly devoid of redeeming values? What happened to the teachings of the strong women that were our grandmothers and the ones who fought for our ability to stand up and claim our strength?

According to Adrienne Rich, author of “Of Woman Born,” patriarchy, which literally means “the power of the fathers,” became prevalent in our culture after the advent of industrialization in the early 1900’s. Women, from working their farms, sewing textiles and tending to the animals, joined the men in the factories and showed resilience to hard work and pain in a far greater measure than their counterparts (and took care of the households as well afterward). Men, threatened by such powerful presence, made sure that the women retreated into the house to become full time mothers and homemakers, (which also coincided with the need for comfort and centeredness that emerged after the Vietnam War).

It was during this time (50’s and 60’s) that Disney released Cinderella and later Sleeping Beauty, movies that sent a clear and loud message to young women all over the world, that of needing a man (preferably one riding a white horse) to rescue them. I grew up during those years.

According to Rich, it is Patriarchy that is responsible for the woman’s loss of her individualization and the birth of “the Mother, the dangerous archetype, source of angelic love and forgiveness in a world increasingly ruthless and impersonal.”(29)***

Patriarchy is a subtle and a hard to discern phenomenon. In the words of Rich, “It does not…imply that no woman has power…but that the power of the fathers…permeates everything, even the language in which we try to describe it…(she) has access only to so much of privilege and influence as the patriarchy is willing to accede to her…” (33-34).”

Patriarchy is far from dead. The fact that so many people fell in love with Edward (I am one of them, remember?) and what he represents, means that we have not yet acknowledged, reclaimed, and put into practice our ability to function without the dream and the illusion of a man sweeping us off our feet with his white horse or, better yet, his blood-dripping teeth.
 
***See more on Motherhood in my blog dated 4/2 or on my upcoming ones
 

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Does full-time motherhood allow for fulfillment and a sense of accomplishment in today’s culture? Does working full time give parents a sense of balance in raising their children and handling the demands of a career? The answer is NO to both.

Betty Friedan, author of “The Feminine Mystique” wrote that, after nearly two decades of women abandoning their careers to have kids and stay home, these women were more depressed, isolated and frustrated than ever, even if they have first gone to college. “Like a two-headed schizophrenic…once she wrote a paper on Graveyard poets; now she writes notes to the milkman…”  The Feminine Mystique was written nearly fifty years ago but could have been written today. While more women ARE going to college and finishing their education, many accept the role of mother and wife, thereby forgoing the chance to shape and express their own identities in society.

I am one of ‘them.’ Raised mostly by a foster family and people other than my own parents, I quit my highly stressful job when I had my daughter. After countless hours of pushing her on the swing and rushing to the park in between naps, I witnessed the annihilation of my mental abilities. The biggest challenge became whether to cook chicken scaloppini or pasta for dinner. For years I felt as if I were suspended on a thread that depended on the passing of time; one day melded into another and my days were interminable.  When I tried to return to work it proved disastrous, caught as I was between the guilt and the anxiety of leaving my child behind and the demands of my job. The result was that I couldn’t perform either one to my satisfaction and eventually quit trying to do both.

Friedan asserts that the unhappiness of women (and at times men) while raising a child full time is the result of the fragmented, unrecognized, and undervalued existence that women conduct. I can’t agree with her more.  While it is very rewarding to be with our children, it can also wipe our sense of identity and direction.

Friedan continues her study by stating that, “with the career woman out of the way, the housewife with interests in the community becomes the devil to be exorcised…there is the discontent suburban wife who raises hell at the PTA; morbidly depressed, she …envies her husband…” I have seen with my own eyes the multitude of talented women vying for a spot in the various groups where we could express our skills and abilities. The question is: is the lack of pursuits in a woman’s life a consequence of the denial suffered by society or is motherhood a determining factor in the obliteration of other areas of interest?

Of course, one has to take into account the social class of the individual(s) in question. As a white, middle to upper class woman who has had the choice—albeit not always—to pick between homemaking and full time work, I suffered the conflict of wanting to be home with my child and yet longing to express my creativity in full. Over the years I quickly morphed into what Dr. Polly Eisendrath-Young defines as the ‘hothouse mother’ (from Women and Desire, an account of women desires and pathologies in the context of a patriarchal culture) which states that: “when a mother is “perceived simply as a resource for others’ needs rather than as a person in her own right, she becomes the Hothouse Mother”. In her estimation, the ‘hothouse’ concept is simply the result of society’s inability to respond to the needs of the parent of a young child, especially mothers. In their desire to become ‘ideal mothers’ women cut themselves from society and the ability to function amongst adults in the workplace. They become depressed, isolated and neurotic, which in turn plays against the image of what they are trying to achieve.

Friedan suggests that the solution for a society who doesn’t want to deal with women’s dissatisfaction is ‘the disappearance of the heroine altogether’ (the mythical figure from the past), which provides the answer to one of today’s dilemma also. Many women are talked into compromising their goals in the name of raising families and adjusting to the community. When a woman is seen only in terms of her sexual role, says Friedan, the barriers to the realization of her full potential—career, education and political interests—are no longer a problem. What remains is ‘the problem that has no name’ a vague wish for something more to which magazines reply by suggesting the adoption of a different outfit.

The central question remains: why is our society not capable of providing full time parents with a sense of their worth as they educate and form the individuals of tomorrow? Could it be that our capitalistic culture acknowledges and only rewards those who produce in a materialistic sense?

This is something we must strive to change. Unless we understand that caring for one another and contributing to each other’s wellbeing and education is the only guarantee for a prosperous future, we will suffer losses and produce less-than-whole members of society.

The topics around motherhood in industrialized societies, the fragmentation phenomenon and the consequences it carries, the isolation aspect—endemic of an industrialized culture—and the issue of re-entering the work force once the kids leave home are many and I will be addressing them in the blogs to come.

Thank you for your interest and your support,

Lauretta

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