The Little Edit That Grew

This was just going to be an edit pasted to the top of the “College?” post, but it grew lengthy, so it gets its own space.

I was thinking while driving somewhere, and this is just an idea bumping around in my mind, but was the feminist movement of the Sixties brought about by a lack of respect by men? Women wanted more respect and decided to try and be better than men at what they do in order to gain that respect. What should have happened was that the men should have been shown the error of their ways and been taught to respect the work that their wives, mothers, sisters, etc. do.

I can see what happened in many homes in the Fifties so clearly as if I was there. The man comes home from his job, sits in his chair, and does nothing the rest of the night. He might even say, or think, that his wife owes it to him to pamper him since she didn’t
work all day.” He never helps with the dishes, doesn’t help with the errands, and mostly ignores his kids unless it is to play catch. That stuff is all his wife’s responsibility and since she doesn’t bring in any income, she needs to ask him for money to buy anything, just like one of the children.

Of course that lack of respect would get wearying. “Women’s work” is used as a derogatory term for a task. The wife was not honored for her sacrifices; rather she was pushed into the background, an unimportant part of the household. My boss at Howard Hanna used to like to say that the employees were expenses, while the real estate agents were revenue generators; therefore they were more important than us. Of course that is idiotic, but that was probably the same thought pattern so prominent regarding women who worked in the home.

As with most backlashes against a grievous crime, it went too far. Just as the anti-feminist backlash that attempts to push women into the background again is going to the other extreme.

There can be arguments about a woman’s proper place regarding her husband, I have found that ignoring Wife #1’s advice to be rather foolish, just as it is foolish for her to ignore my advice. A husband and wife are to be a team, this is too often forgotten in the argument over what “dominion” means.

Over the past few years I have discovered the truth of the matter about working mothers, you people are destroying yourselves! With Wife #1’s health issues, if something is to be done around the house, at the least I have to be a big part of it, or most often I have to do it myself. This includes most errand running, grocery shopping, most house cleaning, laundry, dishes,

*Thank you Lord for dishwashers*

and cook several meals a week. That is not counting the things that I do myself for upkeep on the house, I do this while working, without any kids. I can’t imagine what it would be like to do this while trying to be a Mother to children. No wonder the divorce rate is 50%. Women are stretching themselves too thin, while men get lazier. Behold the fruits of the feminist movement. The backlash went too far.

There can be no argument that the moral decay of our country has been accelerated since the Sixties and Seventies. Kids today run wild, problems that would not have been imagined in the Fifties are now commonplace. Over 50% of childbirths are out-of-wedlock. This number soars to 70% in the inner cities. Women have worked so hard to try and prove that they can do it all, but they can’t. How selfish of men to just idly sit by while their wife runs herself ragged! But it is short-sighted selfishness, their marriage grows stale since their wife spends all of her energy on everything else, that she has nothing to give towards the marriage, divorce looms, kids have to parental control, and so society suffers.

The answer to the problem is simple, just as most answers are. Men must apologize for their selfishness, their lack of respect towards the hard work that women do, and acknowledge the fact that the wife is just as important to the family as he is, might even be more important. The Proverb about the perfect woman rising before the sun rises and going to bed after the sun sets assumes, I believe, that the husband is working all that time too, maybe more. There is a guy I know who works long hours, and he does extra work outside the home, yet many times he will run to the store to get groceries.

Women for their part need to admit that they were wrong. There was a problem, a lack of respect, yet their methods for gaining that respect were wrong. They tried to be better than men at being men. I am not saying that a woman can’t do the job a man does, what I am saying is that the family suffers when this occurs. In their pride in fact, they have tried to be men and women at once, doing the women’s work as well as the men’s, and all have suffered, especially me.

Why me you ask? Well, I figure if only one person went to work, there would be less traffic on the roads at rush hour, making my commute easier. Also, both spouses wouldn’t need to own an SUV for their drive to work, this would cut down on the amount of gas used. Greater demand means a smaller supply, this causes higher prices. So not only are your families suffering, YOU ARE CASUING ME TO SPEND MORE MONEY THAN I SHOULD HAVE TO ON GAS!!!!

Now of course I do not see a day when men will repent of their foolishness, and women will admit that their actions were incorrect, but I think it should be a warning to the backlash against the backlash. We do not need a pendulum swinging madly back and forth from one extreme to another, what we need is balance. We need men to respect the work that their wives do, and women to respect the work that their husbands do. They are both equal parts in the marriage, without both parts doing their jobs well, the marriage will suffer, and maybe even fail.

Quick note to men: Little irks me more than seeing women working while men sit idly by. Sure, it might be their “job” to do the housework, but I have yet to see a wife get irritated by her husband helping out. Go out and get the groceries sometime, it will be a learning experience I promise you, we might even bump into each other at the checkout line.

Fritz