Because a woman's work is never done, and is underpaid, or unpaid, or boring, or repetitious, and we're the first to get fired, and what we look like is more important than what we do. And if we get raped it’s our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a real man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic or pushy and if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and un-feminine and if we don't we're typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate, safe contraceptive, but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and for lots and lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement...
That pretty much sums our class discussion up. :)
I thought The Other Two was more importantly a story about how one cannot escape their past, whether it be their ex husbands or their family's social status. A "you can take the girl out of the ______ but you can't take the ______ out of the girl" kinda thing.
ReplyDeleteI think we're supposed to be seeing some kind of evolution of feminism and the woman's place in society during that day through these last few readings. Meh, whatever, I guess. what really got to me in The Other Two was that Waythorn saw those bits and pieces of Alice's past in her actions and realized he appreciated her more BECAUSE of them not IN SPITE of them. I thought that was the real aha moment in the story.
At the risk of sounding like I'm pandering, I do think the double-standard is alive and well where a woman is a gold-digger while a man with similar behavior is "ambitious" and "driven."
ReplyDeleteA lot of people don't want to face the privilege that their various statuses in society afford them. Class privilege, gender privilege, heterosexual privilege, religious privilege, etc. Part of that is that people don't want to think they are bad people, or have had unfair advantages. In America we like to believe that everybody has a fair shake and starts at the same starting line, even though everything points to that not being true.