Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Downfall of the Housewife

I'm officially 3 weeks into my senior year of undergrad and already I'm sleep deprived, malnourished, over worked, and extremely bitter. Which causes me to ask the all important question:

Who's responsible for the downfall of the housewife?

I'd like to meet that person, shake her hand, tell her thanks for women's rights, and then smack her across the face and yell, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!"

Yes I understand the pressures placed upon the housewife in the past were unbearable with all the cooking, cleaning, sewing, children raising, and husband pampering. If only you could have held out a little longer. I'm sure you had no idea that microwaveable dinners were so near on the horizon, or that they would invent a pretty little box filled with colorful images known as the television that could simultaneously babysit and raise your child. I know you did what you thought you had to do, and I appreciate your efforts, but COME ON! You've ruined the rest of us. You do realize that don't you?

What did we gain from all of this? The right to vote? A lot of good that did us. The country is still run by megalomaniacal male chauvinists. Not that you boys aren't doing a fantastic job (of running us right into the ground), but I'm just not seeing where we fit into the picture. If women's rights were an attempt for ladies to escape the kitchen and child rearing duties, I can only say that it has failed. We are still expected to do all these things, but now on top of it all we are expected to have college degrees and be successful out in the world. As if menstruation and pregnancy were not large enough burdens to bear. Your psychotic pursuit of equality has changed to role of housewife to just a job women have on the side. It is no longer a worthy profession that little girls grow up dreaming about. Except this little girl! That was my dream job, and you ruined it. Now if a woman wants to stay home, raise children, and watch soap opera's she is labeled a mooch. She has to be actively employed and blog writing doesn't count (yet...I'm working on that). There goes my afternoons of locking the kids out of the house all afternoon while I curl up with a book. Thanks for nothing!

Instead I'm here having one pisser of a senior year in which I sleep an average of 4 hours a night and go for 18 hours straight in a day. I have bags under my eyes, I eat granola bars for meals because I don't have time to make a real meal, and I no longer even have time to punish myself by running. Excuse me, but I should have that right. If I were in 18th century England my chief concern would be tricking someone into marrying me, and as appalling as that might sound to the feminsts of the world, I'd be more than satisfied with that profession. If you avid readers have been long awaiting a return of an amazing writer like Jane Austen...forget about it. She's probably out there but she will never realize her talent because she's busy with her temp job and worrying about what trouble her children will get into for that half hour they have between their school getting out and her returning home from her job.

Wow this was a psycho bitter entry tonight...3 hours of sleep will do that to a girl.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

amen!!!

now get some sleep for God's sake!!

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Anonymous said...

so this is a blog. I am shocked at how bitter my little doopsidoosi has become. very interesting. I'll be watching!!!

Anonymous said...

I love it... and I'm right there with you!!!!! I share your pain... I have gone from not only having to take care of my husband but not a celebit priest. I thought Rob was a challange.

Unknown said...

About the stay at home wife part: MOAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA!

Poppy B. said...

Yes, we housewives/mooches get no goddamned respect. It's not as though we're coachmen. Or lamplighters. Or little matchgirls. Or the guy who rings the bell and says "10:30 and all is well."

I mean, our job isn't obsolete. It still exists. It's just become this part-time thing we're supposed to be doing in an hour and a half a day.

And an hour and a half? Won't even do the laundry and clean the bathrooms. At least around here, it won't.