The Body Politic
Apr. 16th, 2006 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaThe career advice columnist in Squaresville's local paper recommends women get married prior to a career. She does the math this way:
35 is the cut off point before "geriatric pregnancies" set in. (True.) If you want to have two children before you are 35, (and it is best to have them at least 3 years apart, she says) you will want to start at 30. If you want to start at 30, you should probably be married by 28, because "experts say that for a healthy marriage, people should be married two or three years before they consider having children. A reasonable expectation is to meet someone, date for a couple of years and get engaged with almost a year's time to pull off a wedding. So you need to meet the person at age 24."
"This means that it may make sense for men to work full speed ahead on their career in their early 20s, but women cannot afford that. Women need to make time in their lives to search for a mate in the same systematic focused way that women have been searching for careers in their early 20s.
"Don't tell yourself your waiting until you know yourself better, because waiting won't help in terms of picking a mate. Getting to know yourself is a lifelong process, and after age 25, waiting to get married won't decrease your chance of divorce...
"Yes, you should not have to choose between a good job and marriage. But this column is not about what is fair or what is just. It is about what is real.
"You have a biological clock that does not pay attention to issues of social justice. You cannot control that clock, and you cannot control the workplace. But you can control where you spend your time and energy, and you should look hard for a husband early on. Take care of the marriage first, then the career."
How many buttons can this woman push and still survive? This column made me so angry I'm about ready to choke on my own bile. The biological clock is a big problem. I've often thought that it might be in society's best interest to encourage early marriage/childbearing. Most people are on track with these kinds of expectations. Even without trying they average age for a college-educated marriage is 27 for women, 29 for men. Most people have their first child by 30, and their second by 35. And contrary to popular belief most of us don't have particularly interesting or successful careers at any age, regardless of marital or parental status.
I do think personal relationships trump a career, particularly if it is work one is not particularly passionate about. So who exactly is she addressing in this column, if people are generally already following this plan? People like me who don't seem to be following the prescribed societal norms? Or people who have yet to enter the dangerous shoals of life-altering choices in their twenties? Pretty much, anyone who is over the age of 35 is out. Anyone who is 30 and unmarried is out. Anyone who is under the age of 18 is out. So it is written from the POV of an elder to someone in their 20s.
Do I have advice for someone in their 20s? Yes! Don't make a checklist! Let your life develop. Don't think there is something you have to achieve by a certain age. We have become very success oriented in our society, at the expense of other kinds of love and happiness. What I would encourage any young person to do, (old people too!) is to strive to create a life they enjoy living. Something with a daily routine that brings joy. After you leave college, life stops being about short sprints, and starts being about endurance. Choices aren't unalterable, but things like marriage and a family are endurance oriented choices and are harder to trade in than a career you don't like. These decisions shouldn't be rushed to fit some ideal-scenario timeline.
I think the reason people in my generation were encouraged to find a career first, was because the previous generation who largely did marry prior to finding career footing, regreted that their choices to have a family first meant they had familial responsibilities that limited their choice of careers.
There is also something truly hypocritical about the message many women my age received growing up (that we don't need a man, that we can do anything,) that has now been completely reversed. (Better do it while your young, there's not much chance of getting any of that once you turn 30!)
This column is by an ignorant woman from Squaresville, but it definitely matches the kind of message I've seen targeted towards young people in other sectors of the media. This columnist is not original in her ideas, she is merely voicing something that is already in the air.
I often wonder if my path is unique, or if my peers will find themselves in similar situations in the coming years. The demographic I best fit is "divorced, no children" even though I have never been married. I seem to be struggling with meaning of life issues that are more appropriate for someone in their 40s or 50s whose children are leaving home. And while I doubt I will spend the rest of my life alone, children are something about which I feel less certain. If I were to become pregnant, I am no longer at a place in my life where termination would be the default option. But I would ideally not want to bring up a child as a single parent.
I think what makes me most angry is that this kind of "reality" check hits at the body politic. It politicizes a woman's body and childbearing choices. Do people need to know that childbearing is something that can't be put off indefinitely? Absolutely. But why are we choosing this message, over all the other possible messages we could send young women? Why are we still reducing the choices available to women as being related to the abilities/limitations of her body?
My sense is that we are expecting too much both out of our bodies and our lives. The attributes of a "successful" life are becoming more and more prescribed so now we must not only time our careers, but our marriages and childbearing options within three year increments. We are still operating under a "have it all" formula, the only way in which it is achievable is to adhere to such a specific schedule. And we are requiring of the individual, or the heterosexual, monogamous, relationship, all the functions that once were fulfilled by a diverse community.
Why not just tell young women to find a good physical speciman with which to breed early in life, mate, and look for a man with other good life-partner qualities for later? We could have our young studs for breeding, and our "mannys" for raising the offspring. Neither need interfere with a career, and the "mannys" would care of the children while we're at work. Perhaps a third partner could be used as a shrink, masseuse, sex partner, and all-purpose companion. After all, why expect one man to "do it all" when we can't?
Now I want to see a smack down between this columnist and Maureen Dowd. And I want my comparmentalized partners to address all my varying needs in my compartmentalized life.
Edit: I looked her up. Penelope Trunk is not a ignorant Squaresville columnist, she is an ignorant, syndicated, Boston Globe columnist.
35 is the cut off point before "geriatric pregnancies" set in. (True.) If you want to have two children before you are 35, (and it is best to have them at least 3 years apart, she says) you will want to start at 30. If you want to start at 30, you should probably be married by 28, because "experts say that for a healthy marriage, people should be married two or three years before they consider having children. A reasonable expectation is to meet someone, date for a couple of years and get engaged with almost a year's time to pull off a wedding. So you need to meet the person at age 24."
"This means that it may make sense for men to work full speed ahead on their career in their early 20s, but women cannot afford that. Women need to make time in their lives to search for a mate in the same systematic focused way that women have been searching for careers in their early 20s.
"Don't tell yourself your waiting until you know yourself better, because waiting won't help in terms of picking a mate. Getting to know yourself is a lifelong process, and after age 25, waiting to get married won't decrease your chance of divorce...
"Yes, you should not have to choose between a good job and marriage. But this column is not about what is fair or what is just. It is about what is real.
"You have a biological clock that does not pay attention to issues of social justice. You cannot control that clock, and you cannot control the workplace. But you can control where you spend your time and energy, and you should look hard for a husband early on. Take care of the marriage first, then the career."
How many buttons can this woman push and still survive? This column made me so angry I'm about ready to choke on my own bile. The biological clock is a big problem. I've often thought that it might be in society's best interest to encourage early marriage/childbearing. Most people are on track with these kinds of expectations. Even without trying they average age for a college-educated marriage is 27 for women, 29 for men. Most people have their first child by 30, and their second by 35. And contrary to popular belief most of us don't have particularly interesting or successful careers at any age, regardless of marital or parental status.
I do think personal relationships trump a career, particularly if it is work one is not particularly passionate about. So who exactly is she addressing in this column, if people are generally already following this plan? People like me who don't seem to be following the prescribed societal norms? Or people who have yet to enter the dangerous shoals of life-altering choices in their twenties? Pretty much, anyone who is over the age of 35 is out. Anyone who is 30 and unmarried is out. Anyone who is under the age of 18 is out. So it is written from the POV of an elder to someone in their 20s.
Do I have advice for someone in their 20s? Yes! Don't make a checklist! Let your life develop. Don't think there is something you have to achieve by a certain age. We have become very success oriented in our society, at the expense of other kinds of love and happiness. What I would encourage any young person to do, (old people too!) is to strive to create a life they enjoy living. Something with a daily routine that brings joy. After you leave college, life stops being about short sprints, and starts being about endurance. Choices aren't unalterable, but things like marriage and a family are endurance oriented choices and are harder to trade in than a career you don't like. These decisions shouldn't be rushed to fit some ideal-scenario timeline.
I think the reason people in my generation were encouraged to find a career first, was because the previous generation who largely did marry prior to finding career footing, regreted that their choices to have a family first meant they had familial responsibilities that limited their choice of careers.
There is also something truly hypocritical about the message many women my age received growing up (that we don't need a man, that we can do anything,) that has now been completely reversed. (Better do it while your young, there's not much chance of getting any of that once you turn 30!)
This column is by an ignorant woman from Squaresville, but it definitely matches the kind of message I've seen targeted towards young people in other sectors of the media. This columnist is not original in her ideas, she is merely voicing something that is already in the air.
I often wonder if my path is unique, or if my peers will find themselves in similar situations in the coming years. The demographic I best fit is "divorced, no children" even though I have never been married. I seem to be struggling with meaning of life issues that are more appropriate for someone in their 40s or 50s whose children are leaving home. And while I doubt I will spend the rest of my life alone, children are something about which I feel less certain. If I were to become pregnant, I am no longer at a place in my life where termination would be the default option. But I would ideally not want to bring up a child as a single parent.
I think what makes me most angry is that this kind of "reality" check hits at the body politic. It politicizes a woman's body and childbearing choices. Do people need to know that childbearing is something that can't be put off indefinitely? Absolutely. But why are we choosing this message, over all the other possible messages we could send young women? Why are we still reducing the choices available to women as being related to the abilities/limitations of her body?
My sense is that we are expecting too much both out of our bodies and our lives. The attributes of a "successful" life are becoming more and more prescribed so now we must not only time our careers, but our marriages and childbearing options within three year increments. We are still operating under a "have it all" formula, the only way in which it is achievable is to adhere to such a specific schedule. And we are requiring of the individual, or the heterosexual, monogamous, relationship, all the functions that once were fulfilled by a diverse community.
Why not just tell young women to find a good physical speciman with which to breed early in life, mate, and look for a man with other good life-partner qualities for later? We could have our young studs for breeding, and our "mannys" for raising the offspring. Neither need interfere with a career, and the "mannys" would care of the children while we're at work. Perhaps a third partner could be used as a shrink, masseuse, sex partner, and all-purpose companion. After all, why expect one man to "do it all" when we can't?
Now I want to see a smack down between this columnist and Maureen Dowd. And I want my comparmentalized partners to address all my varying needs in my compartmentalized life.
Edit: I looked her up. Penelope Trunk is not a ignorant Squaresville columnist, she is an ignorant, syndicated, Boston Globe columnist.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-16 09:34 pm (UTC)I admire your ability to come up with a coherent response to that BS; ARGH is about the best I can manage. Please do send a response?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-16 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 12:53 am (UTC)Irrelevant but curious.
Also, I particularly enjoyed this bit: Yes, you should not have to choose between a good job and marriage. But this column is not about what is fair or what is just. It is about what is real.
"Look, nobody says you have to enjoy making the pursuit and capture of a suitable husband the prime focus of your existence in your early twenties, but let's face facts: that's the only way your life is going to work out in any remotely acceptable fashion, so why don't you shut your liberationist whining and get on it."
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 01:55 am (UTC)My mom says three years is ideal so you only have to potty train one child at a time.
Yeah, that reality line got me going, too. Whose reality is that? Apparently those of us who didn't manage to get on the marriage bandwagon by 28 are now abject failures according to societal standards, will have flacid careers, pathetic marriages, and retarded children.
For your information (and everyone elses) I did get my first proposal by 27 and I turned him down. I guess I missed my one chance at success, happiness, and healthy children.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 02:18 am (UTC)Furthermore, my grandmother got married at 18, widowed at 19, had a "career," married my grandfather when she was 34, had my uncle when she was 37 and my mom when she was 38, both at-home births, and is the happiest and healthiest (for an 86-year-old) person I know. So suck on that, anti-feminist backlash.
I also love the fact that you need a year to "pull off a wedding." Damn, a wedding is a seriously long con.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 07:34 am (UTC)Particularly irritating to me is: Men may “work full speed ahead on their career in their early 20s, but… Women need to make time in their lives to search for a mate”. Why is all the onus on women? Why is it OK for men to get ahead in their careers while women must let career slide in order to ‘search’ for them? (since the article is about how we must all desperatley race to have kids, I assume the ‘mate’ in question is male) Why is it assumed that women are gagging to be married with kids by 40 but men couldn’t care less?
This looks like a glaring bias to me, one that reveals an underlying agenda I’m not at all happy with. I think it would be nice if our culture altered its whole attitude to a ‘sucessful life’.
All of which is a more long winded way of saying GRR. ARG.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-18 02:21 pm (UTC)"...Don't tell yourself your [you're] waiting until you know yourself better..."
(Unless this wasn't copied/pasted and just a transcription error, which I know I've done. )
I have indeed heard the sentiment elsewhere. There's only one relevant fact (being that the older a woman gets, the harder it is to have children, unlike men) but she's taking it as an end all to a woman's life and seems to be trying to make those who aren't jumping on the husband wagon feel guilty. I agree with you: BLAH. But I have to laugh at ignorant (or simply attention-seeking?) columnists. I'm 30, don't have a career or a husband, and have no regrets...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-18 03:17 pm (UTC)My complaint is sort of the opposite of "Why do bad things happen to good people?" It's more of a "Why do good things happen to stupid people?"
Not a very nice thing to be thinking, I know, but there it is.