#23 - Soapbox

I don't usually use this blog to get on a soapbox, but I've decided to make an exception because this is something I feel strongly about and I don't think there are enough people out there who are saying it. First of all, I'm not a feminist.

I know that's not popular to admit to these days, but I think it's important to stand up for what you believe in. Sure, I think women should have equal rights - I think they should be paid the same as a man for the same job; I think they should be respected; I think they should be free to be individuals, etc.

But I also think most people have gone WAY too far in protecting women's rights, to the point that they have swung the pendulum the other direction. Men are degraded; a man is seen as a jerk if he wants to rest after a hard day at work. Women who raise kids all day are seen as heroic for the work they do, and the man is expected to take over when he gets home - doing the dishes, watching the children, etc. - as if he's just been kickin' back at the office all day while his wife was hard at work.

I recently saw an article that was supposedly printed in Good Housekeeping Monthly in 1955 titled The Good Wife's Guide. It's actually a fake (see Snopes for more information on that) but it is true that those kinds of opinions were common 60 years ago, although I don't believe they were really that extreme. I think whoever falsified that document was trying to rile people up about the huge injustices of the past so we would go home and be even more demanding of our husbands to make up for what their forefathers did.

I do have to say, too, that some of the points in that article are good advice to an extent. Take "Greet him with a kiss", for example. And what's wrong with the advice to have dinner ready (or at least in the process) when he gets home?

A lot of women, after years of male oppression, have decided that women shouldn't have to do ANYTHING for their husbands and that it is the husband's job to bend over backwards at all times to accommodate her.

I did a search for more information on this and came across this article. She says how I feel better than I could, although, as with anything, I don't absolutely agree with every point she makes.

I hope everyone will go home and treat their husbands a little kinder. Yes, our husbands should be good to us. They should help us with the kids and let us go out for girls' night and such. But don't they deserve the same? Shouldn't we be helping them out, letting them have a guys' night to unwind and have fun, etc.?