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!

Comment (2)

Last night my sixteen-year-old daughter came home sobbing. "I...I..." she kept trying to say something but the words wouldn't come out. Eventually, she told me that her feelings had gotten hurt during her Varsity team soccer tryouts.

"Did you perform badly?" I inquired.            

"No," she said; "it's just that some of my friends were mean to me," and explained how a couple of the older girls-with whom she shares sleepovers and clothes-pretended not to know anyone and acted as if they owned the field.

"They kept yelling and bossing a few of us around," she continued, "it was horrible."

"What did the coach do?" I asked.

"Nothing! He sat in a corner and watched," she replied.

"You know," I said, "this is why sometimes the world goes crazy. We think we are better than others, and try to destroy the weaker individuals or species, but all we are doing is hurting ourselves."

"How?" she asked.

"By refusing to recognize that competition, especially amongst women, diminishes our strength and annihilates our compassion, our empathy and our innate gift of caring for ourselves and others. What's good about that?" I replied.

"I guess you are right," she said and went to bed.

It stands to reason that these girls would feel threatened and react accordingly. After all, they know the ropes-having been on the team for more than a year-and fear losing their place. But, as healthy as at times can be , competition taken too far is detrimental and dangerous.

Some of the most famous feminist writers, historians, psychologists and anthropologists like Audrey Lorde, Jane Baker Miller, Rianne Eisler, Rosemary Radford Ruther and Jane Belenky, believe that women should never compete. Born with the natural gifts of nurturing and empathizing with others' suffering, women form the foundations of our society-creating communities, developing relationships, tending to the sick, the elderly, babies and the handicapped. Cultural values of "survival of the fittest," "competing until you die," and "eat what you kill," minimize women's natural gifts. Soon we are warriors ready to kill anything that stand in our way, including friends who have a chance of getting the coveted spot on the team. We fail to see that this behavior also blinds us when we need to save endangered species and appreciate the others' gifts that may not be as apparent as beauty, physical strength or athletic aptitude. These beliefs are what keep us from growing more compassionate, wiser and generous. It is these beliefs that may ultimately destroy our planet as we know it.

Only teens, these girls have already replaced their feminine traits with the ruthless values of a society based on aggression and dominance, no doubt inspired by the adults around them. It breaks my heart, but it also makes me realize how much work there is to do.

I want my girl to make the team; it will help her self-esteem and improve her athletic skills. But, if to make it she has to kill off her inherent, inner beauty, then I'd rather that she didn't. I hope that she sees the difference and can look at her friends with compassion and understanding and, more importantly, the firm resolve of never to be like them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comment (1)

If you are a middle aged American woman living in the suburbs and you haven’t seen the movie Revolutionary Road, I suggest that you do.

It depicts the story of a married woman trapped in the mind-numbing, ordinary life of a suburban house-wife and full time mother, her struggle to reclaim her identity, and her relationship with a husband who tries to hush her cries while he continues with his undisturbed career. The movie shows us the malaise of a culture that prefers to shut down a woman’s feelings in the self-serving illusion that a pretty home with a yard, a faithful stay-at-home mom with two beautiful children and a hard-producing husband are the answer to a her quest for happiness and fulfillment (ironically, the only person seeing through the lies is a guy who had been hospitalized for an alleged mental illness and who has the courage to tell April’s husband that he is a hypocrite). The movie doesn’t end well, predictably so, but leaves one with the clear picture of how and why so many women cries have gone unheeded, and continue to be so, over the years, in the name of outward appearances and peace for their husbands and families.

Like April, I too for years have questioned how and why I have come to lose my identity, lost in the myriad of household chores as much as in raising my child and in living my life mostly through the successes of my husband’s career. I held jobs here and there, but none of them panned out as smoothly or as visibly successful as the professions I had had prior to marrying and having children. My talents (I speak four languages and have worked in high-tech, highly regarded positions) struggled to find a place in the small talks of a suburban town while performing mind-numbing chores like grocery shopping or taking my child to the park. Why was this happening? I asked myself over and over.


Literature points out that a woman goes through three phases:
•    a first encompassing youth and adolecensce and the assimilation of notions relevant to her culture;
•    a second during which she expresses what she has learned in a professional sense, in her family life and in her community;
•    a third where, particularly in a Western culture, she questions the value of of her actions and longs to revisit her deepest feminine side.
That a woman finds herself puzzled and often in distress during the third phase of her life is a byproduct of her having assimilated and bought into the patriarchal values which have been prominent in the industrialized societies since the birth of the Greek and the Roman cultures. Throughout time, we have lost our ability to recognize how we take care of others before taking care of ourselves, and often fall into the trap of believing that “a job” will save us, forgetting how this job and its paramters were created by men, and lack an intuitive/feminine side which allows for balance and a life beyond work. Thus, a woman ha sto choose: she either raises a family or works. If she does the first, her creative expressions and talents are underutilized and the privatization of the home since the 50’s and 60’s will most likely cause her to become desperately isolated. ; if she chooses the second, she needs to renounce her dreams of having balance in her life.

Maureen Murdock, author of “A Heroine’s Journey,” writes of how a woman feels after having raised kids and done everything asked of her:

As she peels off the well-worn mask she presents…being nice, polite, compliant, agreeable…(she will) find daggers of rage about time sacrificed, confusion about betrayals…sadness for having abandoned herself, and helplessness about taking the next step. (120)

What is a woman to do, one may ask, after all these years?
The answer lies in our ability to communicate with one another and come together in full consciousness of the mechanisms at work around us. Only then can we begin the task of changing those aspects of our culture that don’t accomodate our needs as women, as mothers and as very creative individuals.

Comment (0)