I Think You're Confused

As a stay-at-home mom, this article caught my eye. I'm glad that the author acknowledges that women do have the right to do as they like with their lives, including staying at home and bringing up their children. Someone who argues that women should be able to do whatever they want, should let women do... whatever they want. Even if that means spending a season of their lives as a stay-at-home wife and mother.

I'm confused, though, at the assertion of the author that a women who does enter the workforce must do so for the purpose of "women's advancement." At least, a woman who enters an elite field like Harvard-trained lawyer, or Senator, must do this. Presumably, waitresses and administrative assistants can work merely for the grubby purpose of actually earning a living. But when she mentions that a woman can attend Harvard or Yale, become a lawyer, Senator or even POTUS, and then turns around and says that women need help advancing, she loses me. What else do women in this country need? Most charitably, I would say that leftists get caught up in some imaginary dream of perfection. Some woman somewhere suffered something that we can fix, so we must work harder to make things right for All Women Everywhere.

Less charitably, it seems like the professional left always needs a victim to stand before the cameras and cry, so that the left can push more of its issues forward. Whatever women have, it's not enough, it would seem. Honestly, if women have the freedom to choose their vocation, I think they should be able to choose not to devote their lives to "women's advancement."

The Road Ahead

I've been sick all week, which means survival mode. It's also meant I've been unusually depressed. It also means I've been at the computer a lot, which has made me even more depressed. It may not be the best idea for me to be reading so many current event blogs, but I have an insatiable need to know what it is going on. The worst part is feeling like I can't do anything but what I am already doing, which is my vocation of bringing up my daughters, with the help of their father. And maybe that's all that I'm supposed to be doing. I certainly haven't been called to do anything else as of right now, and my motherly duties are expanding. The Dancer is spending more and more of her time at... the dance studio, now that she has started pointe on top of her other classes. The Musician hangs out with friends a great deal and is starting her important senior year in high school this fall. Yikes! I may also have to try my hand at organizing fundraising efforts for my daughters' school activities if a levy does not go through this spring. It's actually very freeing to think about just following my vocation....

Love, Marriage and the Patriarchy

This post has become very long. For those of you who already know about Eve Ensler and V-Day and the left-wing feminist agenda, move on to the next post above. If you want to understand the background of the above post, or you want to read my ramblings about the subject, keep reading!

Some hard-core leftist feminists apparently don't enjoy watching others celebrate romance and happiness on Valentine's Day. They had to come up with V-Day, to highlight violence against women. As the article I linked too describes, yes, violence against women is tragic, it is real, and it should be stopped whenever possible. However, linking it with Valentine's Day is seen by many women, like the women of the Independent Women's Forum, and myself, as an assault on normal, romantic relationships between men and women. My husband and I have a stable and loving relationship. I chose to get married, to have children, to be a stay-at-home mom. My husband and I made the decision for me to homeschool our children, and we ultimately made the decision to send them to public school. I'm not a victim of the patriarchy. Since most of my regular readers are also in stable marriages, I think you would agree that marriage and family can be a good thing.

Where the left-wing feminists go wrong in their V-Day approach, I think is two-fold. One, linking violence against women to simple, everyday loving marriages and male-female relationships. Two, thinking that constantly drawing attention to something will somehow magically end it. How much sense does pushing "Valentine's Day as V-Day until the violence stops" really make? I find it hard to believe that leftists really believe in the perfection of humanity, and yet the women that promote V-Day seem to. Welcome to real life, and real, fallen humanity, and a world where there will always be people who are violent, selfish, murderous, debauched, physically ill, mentally ill. I wonder if the Lutheran concept of vocation does not come into play here. I can feel sorrow for tragic events that take place far away, but my real vocation is helping my neighbor, the person that is here in front of me. Putting a sticker on my car that says "Free Tibet" will not free Tibet. Giving my out-of-work neighbor a bag of groceries will help feed a family.

Or are these women just pushing their agenda, that women are victims constantly in need of help, constantly need Daddy Government looking out for them? It's easy to proclaim you'll push X until Y happens, when you know Y will never happen, if your real goal is just to push X. Either way, their ideas and worldview are miles away from me, and I think they would realize that, and despise me for it. What I wonder about it is the people who think, or pretend to think, that this stuff is mainstream, and I'll explain why in my next post.