This is Why

It's things like this that make me hate women, especially the ones who think they're "feminists."  Oh, not the column itself--the comments.

Stay-at-home moms are "cute."  They're obviously intellectually inferior to working women, too, because, DUH, obviously being at home with kids and chores offers nothing in the way of intellectual stimulation (and, DUH, obviously that's all stay-at-home moms do with their days!).  It follows that stay-at-home moms are women without goals, without a life, obsequious and socially retarded.  It is equally obvious that women who become stay-at-home moms are "rich" (not moms who, as the column itself makes reference to literally can't "afford" to go back to work, even if they wanted to, due to the exorbitant prices of childcare and so forth--for some of us in more rural areas, the cost of transportation is itself prohibitive, and not everyone [yet] has the luxury of working online, as I do--my job effectively makes me a working-stay-at-home mom, which is really ideal for me). 

Oh, and I love the woman who writes that none of the well-educated women she knows don't work.  Where the hell does this woman live? 

God, women like this just do so much to advance opportunity and freedom for all women.  There is nothing that makes me, as a woman, feel more liberated and empowered than being told that I'm "cute" or intellectually inferior and poorly educated because I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. 

The ironic thing about it is that I was just helping a student, right before I read this, with his essay on The Awakening.  I've read that book about 5 times, and personally I've always thought it was stupid.  I don't think Edna Pontellier is notably oppressed by anything other than her own uselessness and incompetence (I understand that is not the generally accepted reading of the novel, and believe me, I caught hell in lit classes more than once for my opinion about it--in general, though, whining about how hard it is to break society's rules doesn't get anyone much mileage with me, although it does make me think of Devo...), but let's say she is.  Let's say Edna's real problem is being held down by all the sexist bastard men in her society.  She, because of her (flighty and weak) personality might be better off today, being told what to do by the female commenters of the International Herald-Tribune, but are we really to pretend that she would have fewer choices?  Or that the prescriptions and judgments laid down by today's society are actually less harsh and confining than what poor old Edna faced?  There is no real difference between being told you're intellectually inferior just because you're a woman and being told you're intellectually infererior because you're a woman who has decided, after surveying all your options, to stay home and take care of your kids.

I think, actually, the thing that infuriates me most about this (because in reality I am reasonably confident in both my intellectual abilities and my education) is that I still hear so many women talk about how "men" and/or the "patriarchal society" judge women's choices.  It's true that they do sometimes.  But no man of my acquaintance has ever believed that I suddenly became illiterate when I decided to stop working for pay.  Of course, no man of my acquaintance would dare.

And why, pray tell, does receiving pay make something worth doing?  I mean, if I was doing a boring, repetitive job that I hated for pay, these women would be so OK with that.  If I'm doing a sometimes boring and repetitive but oftentimes amazing and quite stimulating job that I love for no pay, then I'm like something they have to scrape off their shoe.   This just doesn't make sense to me, except by some standard societal notion that people are only worth their salaries, but I utterly reject that notion and always have. 

Feh.  I've had the satellite TV shut off, so that I don't watch the news anymore, and usually the IHT just doesn't upset me all that much, so things in my life have been relatively calm and happy.  I watch the chard grow.  I read, especially because I'm trying to get as much reading in as possible before the new baby interrupts that.  I walk down to the river--a river that will be dry in just a few weeks since it only has water in it during the runoff.  You know.  That kind of thing.  A nice, peaceable life, in which I get along with people.  And then this.  Damn. 

I will now go back to sticking my head in the sand and teaching my son about evolution, our current lessons revolving around his obsession with prehistoric life.  I take a great deal of pride in the fact that today, when two Mormon missionaries came to visit us, my son offered them each a piece of his Easter chocolate--the last two pieces of it.  I thought that was pretty cool for a 4-year-old.  He loves people and is so generous and kind to people.  The bloody remarkable thing about it is that somehow, despite my own misanthropy, I've taught him that.  I guess other stay-at-home moms, being braindead, don't teach their kids anything at all.  I guess it's just by virtue of the fact that I do work for pay, albeit very part-time, that I'm able to teach him these things.  Stupid people.  I'm done.