Swimming Against The Tide

It's a tough job being a woman in this day and age. Even more so being a young woman. Mine is the generation that has never known a world without feminism and 'women's rights' and in many ways we have reaped much benefit from the changes that have occured in the past 30 years or so. We can climb the career ladder and own property (when Margaret Thatcher first became Prime Minister she, like every woman in the UK, was legally unable to buy a house for herself; needing the signature of a male guarantor. And she was the PM!). We can buy our own cars and clothes and holidays and we do not need to rely on a man to provide for us.

We are the 'Sex and the City' generation. We've grown up listening to Beyonce preaching to us about being an "Independent Woman" and we've watched Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda sleep their way through New York, decked out in designer gear whilst simultaneously holding down fabulous, glamorous high pressure jobs. Yes, truly, we can do anything that a man can and we can do it in heels.

And I don't begrudge anyone the right to live how they want but for those of us (there are many...I know there are) who decide not to buy into the system, life can be tricky.

This has become all the more obvious to me since leaving my work and 'coming home'. I wasn't a real high-flyer, but I did work in a high pressure, male dominated industry where competition was fierce. At times, it was a really depressing place to be. Women were seldom taken seriously and there was an expectation that we would work a lot harder than the men just to be noticed.
The effect this had on the women was quite profound. Few were married, fewer still had children. And the further up the ladder you climbed, the less and less likely you were to find women living in traditional families. "Man-bashing" was a common every day occurrence, the prospect of babies and children was frequently scoffed at and Lord help you if you dare to suggest that it's not such a bad thing to be dependent on a man.

So I was not at all surprised to read the results of an American health study a few months ago that rather sensationally revealed that "career women" have higher levels of infertility, more incidents of hormone in-balances and are more prone to heart attacks, stroke and similar health problems resulting from their stressful work environments.

Women have clearly suffered as a result of the massive back-lash against traditional gender roles. Wasn't the concept of female emancipation supposed to be about choice? I find it hard to believe that scores of women across the western world are shackling themselves to jobs that leave them exhausted and childless because they want to.

Maybe this is happening because women so often feel that they simply don't have a choice. The messages we hear throughout school, university, from friends and teachers are relentless. You either work full-time, or you're "just a mother". You either support the availability of abortion, or you are anti-woman. You either earn as much money as you can or you risk handing over all control to the man in your life. You either wait to have babies until you're in you're late 30's or you're wasting your youth.

This isn't choice. This is battery by social expectation.

But despite years and years of heavy propaganda, the tide of our culture cannot wash away the basic biological and psychological instincts of women. A lot of us still do want to have children, some of us really long for it. We still do wish to be married rather than just live with someone. We still enjoy pottering about at home on a sunny day, baking a cake, knitting a scarf or potting some plants. We may be aware that these things don't constitute 'meaningful' work in the eyes of society but a lot of us still do it all anyway.

I'm one of the lucky ones though.

I have felt completely liberated since leaving the work-place and my experiences made me seriously re-assess most of what I was taught by my hardcore feminist lecturers at university. And I was incredibly lucky to meet a man who really valued the role of a traditional wife and mother, a man who is not afraid to carry the financial burden of our family without support from his wife.

I would love to be able to say that I have a magic solution, an antidote to the huge pressure heaped on young women to abandon their natural instincts and hurl themselves into stressful careers which force them to behave and act like men. But there is no antidote. My daughter will no doubt experience the same pressure when she comes of age.

But what we can do is eliminate ourselves from the competition. We can remove ourselves from the rat-race and decide alone how to best spend our time and energy. I believe for some women, this does mean forging a career, even when children come along. But for great numbers of women, the traditional role of wife and mother is a valid choice, made through conscious and deliberate consideration of all the available options.

We need to reclaim our right to choose. We will have to swim against the tide and begin a new, fresh 'women's movement'. We don't need to take to the streets though, wave banners or hold meetings. We can start this movement by simply by refusing to 'justify' our choices to virtual strangers. We can start by holding ourselves answerable only to God and our conscience.

We need to reclaim our right to choose.