A Woman's Inner Battle

02.23.2011

I’m currently reading Tom Brokaw’s book titled Boom! Voices of the Sixties in which he includes brief memoirs on different events and people. As a woman, my life is shaped by experiences that affect my gender and I don’t care what men think, they’ll never understand what it’s like knowing that the odds are against me in getting equal pay or equal opportunity because of my gender. But as aware as I like to consider myself to be, I’m realizing that I really don’t know what women went through so that I'd have the right to vote or the right to choose whether I want to work or not. This particular choice, it’s important to note, is not one that men have. I certainly take issue with the idea that I’d have so much more to give up but when it comes to working, women do have a choice even if it’s not the most financially sane one. (For example, there’s a couple I know of where the wife refuses to work and just pops out kid after kid to avoid the discussion or there’s another couple I know of where the husband was out of work and despite this, the wife refused to get a job because her job was raising the kids – even though her husband was at home too, unemployed, and taking money from his parents to put food on the table). That was a long tangent but my point is that women have the choice to work with kids or stay-at-home with kids. Men don’t naturally have that choice.

Mr. Brokaw wrote about women who were involved in some way with the women’s movement in the 1960s and although I didn’t agree with all the women’s choices or beliefs, what I appreciate is they didn’t let society’s view of what they should be or do hamper their goals in any way. It’s very easy for us women to push ourselves to the side because we’re taught from a young age to serve others and though I’m not advocating selfishness, I think it’s important to keep one’s goals in mind and not lose sight of that. I want to share some quotes that inspired me and made me feel proud to be a woman. It also made me appreciate all those women before me who paved the way for me. On behalf of all women today, Thank You.

She has little patience with women who worry about what they should “do.”

For her, it “isn’t an ethical question. It’s a question of how are they going to

move forward. There was a wave of sentiment that you were somehow

diminished if you didn’t work. My view has always been, work if you want to.

If your job repels you, move on to something else. Be good at what you want

to be.” – Carla Hills, lawyer, Beverly Hills, CA (p. 229).

She thinks that characterizing issues related to family as “women’s issues”

guarantees failure. “These are universal social issues that involve men, women,

and children. If you want to raise a family, it takes time and energy, and it

requires life adjustments – remember what every expectant parent hears: ‘It will

change your life!’ And it does. When ‘family’ is only a woman’s issue, then it

is women who will be expected to make the adjustment.” – Laura, Carla Hills’

daughter, mother of 2 and lawyer herself (p. 231).

“I used to think you could have it all,” she says. “Now I believe you can have it

all, but not all at the same time. There are costs to every decision. Mine weren’t

cost-free. I had only one child and two divorces. That’s a cost.” – Dr. Judith

Rodin, 1^st female president of an Ivy League university (U of Penn, 1994-2004;

pp. 221-222).

“I think my generation of women is constantly anxious about balancing

working

and motherhood. We don’t want to completely give up one for the other, and

we’re such compulsive mothers that we’re going eighteen hours a day between

the office and our kids – taking them to music lessons and soccer games, to

museums and swimming. The dads help a lot, but the moms want to be there

for their kids and for their jobs. It’s tough.” – Jennifer Brokaw, mother of two

and emergency-room physician. (p. 240)