Ohhh boy. Okay, I've been reading this thread on and off for the last couple of days and finally decided that you all need a new opinion that isn't from the 50s. Let me say some of this is off topic, but I think you'll understand why I included it.
I am 25 years old, been married 2 years as of last week, but we've been dating off and on for 6 years. As I read these posts I'm reminded a lot of my parent's marriage, then I realize that most of you are speaking of marriages 25-30 years stong. My parents have been married 32, so you all are about the same generation. Let me back track a bit here so you can understand where I'm coming from (sorry, lengthy family history).
My grandmother and grandfather (mom's side) married late in life, she was 28, he was 43. They got married WWII era. Now that's pretty old for a female back then, and you might wonder what she was doing before that. Well, she graduated high school at 15 with full honors, graduated college at 19 with a maths degree (made the math honor society at *17* and got a 100 in a calculus course only her instructor told her it 'didn't look good for a girl to get this' so he gave her a 99) and was teaching 18 year old boys high school math at 19 (she was 5'1" and 98lbs, if you want a funny visual image). Durning WWII she worked with engineers on the first radar system, taking the engineering terms on how to use it and do maintence on it and teaching the men who were going out into the field in layman's terms. My grandfather was a mechanical engineer and they met and got married.
Now I heard this story growing up and thought what a great, strong female role model my grandmother was. She was one of the most intelligent women I have ever known and influenced who I am a great deal. However, I tend to skip over her history after she got married. Although she worked a bit here and there, she dropped right into the role a lot of you seem to talk about: she cooked, cleaned, sewed, raised the kids, did charity work, and a load of other domestic stuff. Now don't kid yourself, I learned that side too, but by the time I was little my grandfather was dead and I got the good domestic education without seeing the submissive side of it, as least from her.
But here's the legacy of my grandparents that bothered me even more. After they got married they had three children, first a boy, then my mom, then another boy. My mom tells me stories sometimes about her childhood and one of them went something like this: my grandfather would take the boys out fishing. My mom wanted to go but was told that she had to stay at home and help my grandmother in the garden. When the boys returned from an afternoon out on the cool ocean, my mom was all sweaty and dirty from weeding in the hot sun. The boys handed her the fish they had caught, went into the living room to read comic books and left her to clean and cook the fish for dinner. But, it didn't stop there with the domestic roles, there were financial repercussions too. My grandfather and two other men started an engineering company after WWII that has since gone international. When my grandfather passed away the stocks were held by the families of these three men and were quite valuable. When my grandfather's will was read, my mother found out that she had some regular shares in the company while her brothers got valuable voting shares worth 3 times as much as her own...
My mother is also one very smart lady with an IQ in the 160s, but growing up with this legacy of submissive women in turn affected her own marriage and relationships. She and my dad have a 'comfortable' relationship now and my dad is one of the sweetest, most gentle and giving men I know, but if he complains about what's on the table for dinner, you better believe my mom will get up and make him something different. She's always been the housewife doing the exact same role my grandmother did. It worked for them, so great, but it's also been detrimental.
My grandmother now has alzhimers or however you spell it. She gets 24 hour care in her home because she was adament about not being put into a nursing home. My mom was the child that set up the nurses and caregivers, my mom has been the one for years that continues to go to her house once a week and do stuff (my dad has always done the maintence of the property in his spare time) she's the one that fills in cleaning, feeding, dressing, and caring for her mother *without getting paid* when the nurses can't be there. When her brothers call, they never ask how their mother is, never ask if the bills are getting paid or if there's enough money. They say 'we're coming up for 2 weeks and staying at the property'. I should mention my grandparent's house is on the ocean in maine. When my mom made it clear that having extra people in the house confused my grandmother and sent her into a tizzy they said 'no problem, we'll stay with you' without even asking.
Now, if you saw all of this from the outside, would you agree with me that the submissive role isn't a good one for women to learn? My uncles have no respect for what my mom is going through (a difficult situation even if my grandmother WAS in a nursing home) and don't care about how much time she spends down there keeping the household running. All they want is to be able to come up whenever they want to and make sure they get their inheritance. All my grandmother is to them now is something that's blocking their way to money. Now you may think that's not repercussions of the submissivness, but I know quite well it is.
But getting back to what I personally think of all this. I got very lucky. My parents, with these specific roles, had two daughters. There was never any problem growing up with treating one child different from the other because we were both girls. And it's funny, my sister learned all the sports and woodworking stuff (she's a fine furniture maker now) and I learned all the domestic stuff. But that was just the way we wanted it. But we saw how my mom got treated by her brothers, we saw the aftermath of what our grandmother had done and we said 'this is rediculous!'. In my marriage (and Mj can back me up when he gets home from base) we are equal partners in everything. Now right now it's difficult because i'm not working full time (but singers never work full time) and he's working 12 hour days in Air Force pilot training. So of course I do more of the household stuff, bill paying, cooking, etc. But if we were both working full time jobs, I'd expect him to do an equal share of the domestic stuff as well. When we make decisions we make them together, not he makes it and I agree. That's just rediculous! Women can be just as smart and sensible as men are. I'm a good example of that. I'm smart and practical and I don't fit the stereotype of spending tons of money on clothes and purses and shoes. If I don't agree with something he's said, you better darn well believe I'll correct him or at least discuss it with him. That's just the way a good partnership should work. If your spouse is saying something that's totally incorrect, you should mention it in a non-threatening way so they don't look like a total idiot.
And before I have to run, let me add to the original debate. Of the women in my family, ALL of us have worked on committees at some point and NEVER have we broken up into subgroups or personally attacked someone or sat there and talked about something different for hours while everyone else was doing business. We just don't function like that and I'm will to bet that there are a lot of mature women out there that don't either. I'm a great person to work with in a group because I stay focused and I don't make it personal.
Sorry this got so long, but sometimes I think it's valuable for you all to realize that there are some women around here
