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Her name is Woman
People say “Be yourself!”, they don't mean it. People say do what you think is right – but they mean what they think is right.
Personally something keeps bugging me. Its not something I guess you hear a lot of people say but I'm sick of hearing feminists dictating what a woman should be. That is the truth. People tell you to do what you want but they honestly think that means be a doctor or a lawyer. Discrimination against housewives and mother is really making me sick.
They complain if you depend on a guy – some girls like that. They complain if you give up a career to have a baby – some girls don't want to be out there. I guess you could say I'm traditional. I don't care if you go and work, I don't care if you don't want to get married. I don't care if you want to pay all of your bills – but because you do doesn't mean I should.
When I lay down at night sometimes my dreams are to be a doctor, sometimes they are to be a personal trainer. Sometimes my dream is simply meeting a guy and getting married, let him work and me stay home with the kids. That doesn't make me a bad person – I'm not made like everybody else.
I dream about sewing and knitting my babies clothes and booties. I dream about cooking and cleaning and having pride in my home. I dream about sitting around with my husband in the evening watching a movie or reading the Bible while we play with our babies and kids.
Women have fought for so long to become this figure of not needing anyone and depending on themselves. But there are girls out there who want to depend on a husband they meet at church camp, there are girls who want to depend on their high school sweethearts. There are some girls who want to have babies and who want to clean.
I can understand women and girls wanting to become a real career fighter but that isn't for me. I want to have a garden and let my little girl pick the flowers, I want to bake cookies with my little boy.
This figure that we have been fighting for has really backfired. Tthere is such a beautiful thing in women. We are passionate, caring, loving, understanding, and always there for a good cry. But because Women have fought for this image we have lost a lot of that. I understand if you want to but some women and girls walk around manly and rude. I think a woman who stays home is beautiful. I think a woman who works at the Hospital saving lives is beautiful. And they are. Why can't everyone see that?
People say I'm like this because I'm a non-denominational Christian who doesn't cut her hair or who only wears skirt. But that isn't it at all. I have the freedom to do whatever I want and this is what I want. Some women are too gentle and to tender to be out in a world where there is too much hate and violence. Some women are stronger and want to fight against the injustice on inhumanity. Whether your saving a life through surgery or through raising a child to grow up and be a good person who cares, your still saving a life. Protecting an innocent baby who can't fight for itself against abuse and neglect isn't just for Social Workers, mother fight against injustice too, just in their own way. And that is a beautiful job that shouldn't be degraded.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a wife or mother . . .thats what some of us are born to do. In each woman there is a special beauty. Her heart especially. Why take the space in your heart that you could have love and fill it with hate? Just because you can see your reflection in the water doesn't mean you can see everyone else's.
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This article has 6 comments.
There are radical feminists who believe that women are mindless slaves if they want to be wives and mothers, but there aren't very many of them, and I don't think these radicals have very much power in our society. Most feminists (including myself) would agree with you that motherhood is one of the most beautiful and meaningful paths a woman can choose in her life, and that it is perfectly alright for a woman to decide to be a stay-at-home mom. My mom didn't work for almost twenty years while she was raising my sister and me, and she's the strongest feminist I know.
But for centuries, nearly the only option women had was to become wives and mothers and nothing else, which made many women extremely unsatisfied. It is because of the struggle of feminists that young women like us have the freedom to "be ourselves", whether that means having a career, a family, or as many women (The majority, perhaps?) want these days, both. Whatever a woman chooses to do with her life, she should be grateful to feminists who are the reason she has a choice at all.
If a woman wants to be dependent on a man, hey, it's a free country. And I suppose that woman is also free to be powerless should that man leave her or abuse her or die. But I believe a woman ought to be able to depend on herself first. A woman must know how to provide for herself - pay her own bills, earn a salary, get from place to place without relying on her husband to drive her, etc - should her man not be there to provide for her. It is also essential to a woman's self-respect that she have the ability to take care of herself. That doesn't mean she has to have a paying job, but she must be able to get a paying job if she needs to.
As to your saying some women are "manly and rude", I say that we often have double standards about what constitutes as rude for men and for women. What might be called "rude" in a woman might be called "assertive" in a man. As for women being "manly", that's an argument people used against women's suffrage: that if women could vote they'd become manish shrews. Not every woman is a tender little flower. If a woman is interested in things that may be considered "manly", there's nothing wrong with that. Women are unique and complicated, and a woman who likes to play football is no less womanly than a woman who likes to sew.
Also, I don't believe that some women should be sheltered from the "hate and violence" of the world as if they were children. Even gentle, tender women ought to be able to deal with the harsh realities of life and can deal with them just as well as men.