First, unlike many rebuttals to this article, I'd like to say that I do not feel that having children is a feminine requirement, nor being married and I certainly would never think to retort with the same negative criticism by expressing that I 'look down on women without husband and kids' because well... I don't and that's lightly hypocritical.
However, as a woman who owns her own business and is the mother to two beautiful children, I did feel compelled to weigh in on this blog post. Before I delve in to the number of cons and the overall irony displayed in Glass's post, I would like to state that although I feel her approach was a little too unorthodox I do agree that women should never feel like they are giving up their dreams in order to be a housewife, etc.
That being said, many women's ambitions actually cater towards exactly that, so in a sense this is considered a 'success' for some women. Success is not a dollar amount, it's a sense of satisfaction for our accomplishments and achievements. Achievements in which we typically set for ourselves, not achievements set by others. So if a women chooses to be a housewife and this makes her feel accomplished, she is most certainly successful in her life. Amy is viewing a woman's accomplishments based on her own views of what is worthy of being deemed as such which is basically the equivalent to me assuming that every woman who can not juggle owning a photography business and taking care of children as unsuccessful. Which of course, is redundant.
I noticed that among Amy's other posts she frequently considers herself a feminist and speaks in favor of feminism, which I find absolutely enticing given her abhorrent views on stay at home mothers or I suppose mothers and wives all together. This mindset certainly doesn't feel like the poster child to women equality, but what do I know?
What I do know is that I cannot speak on behalf of all women nor do I feel there is any one woman who can speak on our behalf at all. But, I can speak on my own behalf and what having children along side owning a relatively "successful" business does for me as an individual and how I personally feel that my children have helped mold me in to a better woman all together.
If I didn't have children, I would be blessed with the immense pleasure of sitting at my desk working and looking over to find this going on in my living room {passed bed time, I may add.} :
I sort of enjoy having my own personal miniature comedians, but that's me.
As you can likely plainly see, I do not live immaculately, in fact I am insanely jealous of women who are capable of juggling being a business owner and a housewife gracefully. Small sacrifices, but I do have happy children despite that my house is seldom 100% spotless at any given moment. Sometimes it is for approximately 60 seconds, but I've just learn to cope with the fact that most children are completely grubby. We just go with it, not because we don't of course enjoy cleanliness but because sometimes it's more fun to sit down and play a game of Uno with the kids, get some work done or ... write a blog. Ahem.
But I certainly do not pass judgment on working mom's with less than tidy households, in fact when I see this I think "Oh thank god, I'm not alone. PHEW!"
Regardless and back to the point, before I had children I had a really odd sense of direction. I actually had told myself that I wouldn't be having children until I was "at least" 25. I wanted to go to school and possibly become a teacher, then I found out I was pregnant with my son at the age of 21 which was definitely a shock considering I was under the impression that it would actually be very difficult for me to become pregnant due to a medical condition. This did not stop me from going to school, in fact it was during my pregnancy when I discovered that my wish to become a teacher was actually not something I really wanted. I needed time to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life, but first I needed to figure out how to be a mother when I wasn't ready to be one.
It turns out that, for some of us, upon your child's birth being a mother is actually quite a natural capability. Before I had my son, I felt like I was wandering through life misguided and confused about 'What does it all mean? What do I want to do with my life?' For me, my son gave me a sense of purpose and more importantly a will to make a better life for us. I quit my horrible paying job and ended up cutting my maternity leave in half to start a better paying job.
Now, the job that I ended up with of course was not my dream job and I knew that it most certainly was not what I wanted to do with my life but the most important thing in my life was making sure that I could provide for my child and that's what I did.
Cut to only six short years and a second child later and I have since quit that job and maintained a full-time photography business which I built all on my own. I sacrificed one hell of a lot to be where I am today and I wouldn't take any of it back because I am truly content with where I am. Unfortunately however, it's not every day that I feel successful. But after I read Amy's post I realized how successful I truly am. Not only do I get the benefits of motherhood, which I personally thoroughly enjoy, I also get the benefits of being a successful business woman and although I don't feel that these two things are always easy to balance - they still both bring me tremendous joy in my life and make me feel successful as a woman.
In any case, what is successful to one woman may not be successful to another - but my point in all this is, Amy, that .... success is defined within. We are all a part of society, so blaming 'society' for trends and stereotypes, which you yourself fed with your beliefs, is not the answer. Nor is feminism defined by putting down your sisters with your pretentious judgments.
Learn to respect one another, not bring one another down. If you want to know {what I feel} what the biggest force driving women down is : other women. Men aren't making the condescending remarks about what makes a woman successful. Most men are not even living under the assumption that the woman 'belongs in the kitchen', it's WOMEN who think men think that. Most men I know, don't really care all that much what we're doing to find happiness so long as we're not taking our frustrations out on them or at least, that's been my experience. Men also aren't the ones making women feel uncomfortable in their own skin or like they're too fat, too skinny, too this, too that - these trends are categorically a result of the views that women have about themselves and others. So if you believe in feminism at all, judging other women is not in any way helping your case.
Sincerely,
A woman.
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