Last week one of my coworkers found a video on Fox News entitled "All-Male Fox Panel Laments Female Breadwinners." Somewhat shocked and horrified, we took it as our comedy for the day... But the clip stuck with me.
Let me summarize it for you, although the title is pretty self-explanatory:
The clip consists of four guys in suits talking about a new study stating that in 4 out of 10 families a woman is the primary breadwinner. Of course they find this "concerning and troubling," and spend about four minutes discussing the crumbling, the dissolution, the disintegration of American society and why it can be directly attributed to women being the primary breadwinner in less than half of American families.
"It's having an impact on our children," they say. "We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships, and it's tearing our society apart."
"We're losing a generation. Bottom line, it could undermine our social order."
It's easy to dismiss everything they are saying as sexist and ignorant. Because it is. But there is something in this conversation that needs to be addressed.
I work for a registered minority- and female-owned company. This always casts political and social issues under a really interesting microscope. Especially political and social issues that deal with women or people of color.
When we sent the clip out to everyone in the office, the female partner said, "You know, it's unrealistic to think that we can balance having a fulfilling career, taking care of our kids, maintaining a successful marriage, keeping a clean house... I don't envy you young ladies. I don't envy your generation. You have some incredibly difficult choices to make."
The clip stuck with me, and that comment stuck with me. It's not as though this is something new to me. My female friends and I have been battling the question for most of our conscientious lives, and particularly since we graduated college: What sacrifices do I want to make to have my dream life? What sacrifices should I make to have my dream life?
Do we sacrifice our dreams or our callings for love? Or do we sacrifice love for our calling? Do I move to a new and faraway place, where I know no one, because my significant other got a good job there? Do I move to a new and faraway place, where I know no one, and leave my significant other behind because I got accepted to my dream grad school, or because I got offered my dream job?
The social environment in which I grew up taught me that I should not sacrifice my personal -- read, "professional" -- dreams for a romantic relationship. Because I will inevitably become resentful and that will take a toll on the romantic relationship I gave up everything for.
But I grew up in a family that prioritized the collective, the community, the relationships within a community, above all. Plus, that greater social environment planted this seed in my head that I can have it all. This is one of the main complaints of my peers: that we were led to believe something untrue, namely, that we can do anything; and it is one of the main complaints of older generations against our generation: that millennials have this sense of entitlement, this belief that we deserve to have everything we want. We want to have our cake and eat it too, and it turns out, suddenly, that we can't.
Damn.
So I, and a lot of other people in my peer group, feel a little confused.
Many of our mothers, now that we're out of the house and figuring out our own lives, are having an opposite realization. My mom has said on multiple occasions that she made the conscious decision to do things she wasn't wild about sometimes because she would be with the people she loved. As a mother and wife she would have given up almost anything for us, and on many occasions she did.
I think that choosing a family or a relationship as #1 is a decision that is unfairly vilified for women in modern, forward-thinking society. But there is real emotional and psychological fallout for those women who do make that choice, and put love in the top spot in their lives.
And there is real emotional and psychological and social fallout for those women who make the choice to put their careers in the top spot. There is and always will be fallout, no matter what we decide to put first. Something will always fall behind.
Those Fox News guys were right when they said the rise of female breadwinners is "having an impact on our children." They were right when they said it's undermining our social order. They were right, honestly, when they said that we as "people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships."
But it is ignorant, cowardly, to conclude that this means we should go back to "the way things were." It's ignorant, too, to say that the rise in female breadwinners caused all of this chaos. I would call it more of a symptom of an outdated model that was also flawed and that isn't really working anymore in the world as it is turning out to be.
We do need to learn how to have truly complementary relationships, where all involved parties are on equal ground. We need to figure out some way to raise our children to be functional human beings who can have functional relationships, while also making sure they don't go hungry and that they are comfortable with diversity and the change that is an inevitable part of our future.
We need a new model. I don't know what it is, and I dread the day I have to make an actual decision about my family, my relationships, my career, my lifestyle. I'm barely sustaining sanity as it is, between work, my love life, my friendships, my family, my workout schedule, and having time to eat. I know if something happened to make two of those things suddenly really conflict, it would be the hardest decision I have ever had to make. It already has been, on a smaller scale. And when my friends ask me what to do in x. y, or z situation, I have no idea what to say.
And this, I think, is the real reason "society is crumbling." The global population is getting bigger while the earth stays the same size. The amount of valuable resources really doesn't change, either -- money, time, energy. We're running out of options. The pressure on families is that much higher. The pressure on individuals is that much higher. We have to do a lot more to be seen, and our odds feel like they're always going down.
As a society we need to be creative and resilient and trash the conceptual limitations we have had for a long time. It's time for a change. Get on board, suits. You're going to get left behind. I hope.
Let me summarize it for you, although the title is pretty self-explanatory:
The clip consists of four guys in suits talking about a new study stating that in 4 out of 10 families a woman is the primary breadwinner. Of course they find this "concerning and troubling," and spend about four minutes discussing the crumbling, the dissolution, the disintegration of American society and why it can be directly attributed to women being the primary breadwinner in less than half of American families.
"It's having an impact on our children," they say. "We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships, and it's tearing our society apart."
"We're losing a generation. Bottom line, it could undermine our social order."
It's easy to dismiss everything they are saying as sexist and ignorant. Because it is. But there is something in this conversation that needs to be addressed.
I work for a registered minority- and female-owned company. This always casts political and social issues under a really interesting microscope. Especially political and social issues that deal with women or people of color.
When we sent the clip out to everyone in the office, the female partner said, "You know, it's unrealistic to think that we can balance having a fulfilling career, taking care of our kids, maintaining a successful marriage, keeping a clean house... I don't envy you young ladies. I don't envy your generation. You have some incredibly difficult choices to make."
The clip stuck with me, and that comment stuck with me. It's not as though this is something new to me. My female friends and I have been battling the question for most of our conscientious lives, and particularly since we graduated college: What sacrifices do I want to make to have my dream life? What sacrifices should I make to have my dream life?
Do we sacrifice our dreams or our callings for love? Or do we sacrifice love for our calling? Do I move to a new and faraway place, where I know no one, because my significant other got a good job there? Do I move to a new and faraway place, where I know no one, and leave my significant other behind because I got accepted to my dream grad school, or because I got offered my dream job?
The social environment in which I grew up taught me that I should not sacrifice my personal -- read, "professional" -- dreams for a romantic relationship. Because I will inevitably become resentful and that will take a toll on the romantic relationship I gave up everything for.
But I grew up in a family that prioritized the collective, the community, the relationships within a community, above all. Plus, that greater social environment planted this seed in my head that I can have it all. This is one of the main complaints of my peers: that we were led to believe something untrue, namely, that we can do anything; and it is one of the main complaints of older generations against our generation: that millennials have this sense of entitlement, this belief that we deserve to have everything we want. We want to have our cake and eat it too, and it turns out, suddenly, that we can't.
Damn.
So I, and a lot of other people in my peer group, feel a little confused.
 |
| there are 168 hours in a week. i need at least 250. |
Many of our mothers, now that we're out of the house and figuring out our own lives, are having an opposite realization. My mom has said on multiple occasions that she made the conscious decision to do things she wasn't wild about sometimes because she would be with the people she loved. As a mother and wife she would have given up almost anything for us, and on many occasions she did.
I think that choosing a family or a relationship as #1 is a decision that is unfairly vilified for women in modern, forward-thinking society. But there is real emotional and psychological fallout for those women who do make that choice, and put love in the top spot in their lives.
And there is real emotional and psychological and social fallout for those women who make the choice to put their careers in the top spot. There is and always will be fallout, no matter what we decide to put first. Something will always fall behind.
Those Fox News guys were right when they said the rise of female breadwinners is "having an impact on our children." They were right when they said it's undermining our social order. They were right, honestly, when they said that we as "people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships."
But it is ignorant, cowardly, to conclude that this means we should go back to "the way things were." It's ignorant, too, to say that the rise in female breadwinners caused all of this chaos. I would call it more of a symptom of an outdated model that was also flawed and that isn't really working anymore in the world as it is turning out to be.
We do need to learn how to have truly complementary relationships, where all involved parties are on equal ground. We need to figure out some way to raise our children to be functional human beings who can have functional relationships, while also making sure they don't go hungry and that they are comfortable with diversity and the change that is an inevitable part of our future.
We need a new model. I don't know what it is, and I dread the day I have to make an actual decision about my family, my relationships, my career, my lifestyle. I'm barely sustaining sanity as it is, between work, my love life, my friendships, my family, my workout schedule, and having time to eat. I know if something happened to make two of those things suddenly really conflict, it would be the hardest decision I have ever had to make. It already has been, on a smaller scale. And when my friends ask me what to do in x. y, or z situation, I have no idea what to say.
And this, I think, is the real reason "society is crumbling." The global population is getting bigger while the earth stays the same size. The amount of valuable resources really doesn't change, either -- money, time, energy. We're running out of options. The pressure on families is that much higher. The pressure on individuals is that much higher. We have to do a lot more to be seen, and our odds feel like they're always going down.
As a society we need to be creative and resilient and trash the conceptual limitations we have had for a long time. It's time for a change. Get on board, suits. You're going to get left behind. I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment