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Article - (19 December 2009) 3 Comments - (Newest, 23 December 2009)
A female Ireland age 30-35, puds123 writes:

It’s strange to believe that woman used to only wear long skirts and tops that revealed nothing especially when you go out on a Saturday night and see girls wearing little or no clothing. Women fought for rights that we should have been given for many years like the right to vote and to have the same rights as men in the work place. Over time and thanks to some great historical women, women today or almost if not equal to men but recently the question was posed to me have women taken it all a bit too far?

When I first heard the question my first response was ' no of course we haven’t, we should be the exact same as men and we should be able to do what we like as long as it’s not illegal etc.' But later on I found myself wondering whether or not my answer was right or not.

The traditional role of a woman was to get married, have children, look after the children and the husband, run a house , do the cooking and cleaning and then teach their daughters to do the same thing. Eventually women became increasing unhappy with this and demanded changes that we got.

Now women can have children but they don’t need a husband, we can run a house but we can also have a career, we can party as much as we like and we can wear what we like. It seems we have everything we ever wanted.

However, is it unfair to children to have parents who are separated and split the parenting duties between them in a unique way? To have the children on the weekends or over the holidays. Who does this actually benefit?? Women? Men? Children?

I found myself unable to come up with an answer I don’t thin it benefits anyone but it is an option that has greatly been used by many separated families. Career driven women also miss out on watching their children grow up and it’s left up to the local childminders or crèche to bring over children up while we go to work. Obviously this option is there for a reason because we feel we need it but is right and fair to our children. I really don’t think so. How can it be good for our children to spend the whole day at school, then be shipped to the crèche and then to be picked up by a tired parent who just wants to go home. By the time you get home cooking a homemade meal is a chore to heavy to bare so a takeaway is called or a microwave dinner is provided. Obesity is a huge problem for many children today and I can’t help but think it’s because of the eating habits we are passing onto our children. Would this be a problem if one parent was at home ensuring a healthy and notorious meal was awaiting their children?

Since women have become much more liberal we have made dating hard. Men no longer know whether or not to open the door for the woman, pay for the meal, bring the woman home to her door step etc. Many women would still love all these traditional things to happen but is it fair to

want this yet want to be equal to men? Can we really have both and must we choose between the two.

It feels like the modern woman is a person who works all day to pay for a crèche instead of having a full time job at home looking after their children. I am not saying that a woman should not have a career I am simply just asking can a woman have a career and a family without one of them suffering?

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A female reader, puds123 Ireland +, writes (23 December 2009):

puds123 is verified as being by the original poster of the question

I dont believe any is blaming women little koala we are just simply talking about our society and the role women now have and whether or not its changed positvely.

kc100 i completely agree i dont think there are any answers i think we just need to all live our lives in a way that works for us and is realistic.

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A female reader, the little koala United Kingdom +, writes (21 December 2009):

the men have to help in the house too, etc etc

its still not fair. and no, its not fair on the kids either. but is it really fair to blame women?

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A female reader, k_c100 United Kingdom +, writes (21 December 2009):

k_c100 agony auntI totally agree with you puds, I think us women have shot ourselves in the foot with all this "equality" business!

My stance on the situation is this: women should have the choice, but need to understand that we cannot have it all. Ultimately, women will always be different to men and never quite "equal" because we are the only sex who are able to have children. Therefore we will always have that difference, and that will always stand in the way of equality. But too many women see that as a bad thing, too many women are tying to have it all and do it all, and our lives are suffering as a result!

Looking back to the 50's - women were mothers and housekeepers. Look at the women of today - we are mothers, housekeepers, career/business women....we are doing far too much and everyone is suffering as a consequence! We struggle with our relationships, the kids suffer, we are having to pay a fortune in household help (babysitters, childcare, cleaners, people to do the ironing, gardening...) - I always wonder are we actually better off now than we were in the past?

I totally agree with the part about men and how they treat us when dating - they have no idea how to treat women anymore because they dont want to be patronising by being overly gentlemanly with us, but then they want to show that they are interested but have no idea how to go about it!

It really is a difficult situation and I dont think there are any answers, I think it is just down to the individual. I personally would like society to return to more traditional values, I would be happy to be a stay at home mum when it comes to the time for me to have kids but it is very much frowned up, and stay at home mums get labeled as lazy and tarnished with the same brush as a rich woman who goes out to lunch with her friends every day. The government needs to give more support to stay at home mums (and working mums for that matter) because stay at home mums are saving the economy a fortune in childcare benefits! But likewise for working mums, they need more help financially so they have the possiblity of going part time or something like that, because a lot of people just cant afford to support a family these days on one wage.

Its a very tricky situation we have got ourselves into, I bet the feminists of the 60's would have never intended to land us with three times as many roles than we had back then!

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