I got a not so new attitude

Feminist. Feminism. Equality. Misogyny.

These are words that really annoy me. I can't pinpoint exactly why, but I bristle whenever someone bandies about these words. For a start, they usually get the context wrong, as in "I'm a feminist" to express the fact that they read Germaine Greer. Or "He's such a misogynist" when a guy shows some sort of appreciation for the female form. It pisses me off in such a violent manner, I find myself shaking. Tres weird!

I guess I'd better clarify something here. I am not a feminist and I do not believe women will, can or should ever be equal. Oooh! Incindiery statements, I know. But it's just the way I feel.

First off, I have no problem with the man going out to work while the wife stays home. At the moment, I am lucky enough to be able to not work. My husband earns decent money and we have no debt and no children. So I was able to leave my job to go back to university. And if we're lucky enough to be in this position when we start having children, I would happily stay home with them. Part of this feeling comes from my own childhood. My mother worked when she didn't need to and I know my dad resented it. It was part of the reason for the deterioration in my parents' marriage. My mom worked long hours and was always tired. She wasn't very 'motherly'. We had a maid. We had a lady who came to iron. We had a gardener. I would have loved if my mom baked more and made us elaborate lunches for school and could pick us up in the afternoons. But she couldn't so she didn't.

And I don't want that for my children. I mean, don't get me wrong. My childhood was still pretty cool in lots of ways. But I'm very maternal, where my mother isn't really. So I'm quite happy to be barefoot and pregnant. I would love nothing more than to drop my kids off in the mornings, with a lunch kit filled with sandwiches made from homemade bread and my special muffins or something equally fantastical. I want to pick them up from school, and make sure they have a brilliant dinner waiting for them. I obviously plan to raise my family as a white woman in the 1950s.

So, all of this means that if my husband is out earning the money, the least I can do is keep a clean house, do his laundry and make sure he's happy at home. I've done this in the past. Just after we got married, I'd left my job and went to Munich (where he worked) for two months. It was brilliant. Munich is a gorgeous city and I was lucky enough to have two months to explore and appreciate it. I got an allowance every week, and I used it for whatever I wanted. I had facials, got my nails done, my legs waxed and had one very bizarre massage (there was boob touching, but that's for another day). I also looked after my husband. He didn't expect me to, which is why I did it.

I did all the food shopping, did his laundry, ironed his shirts and made sure there was a nice hot meal waiting for him when he got in from work. And because I didn't have to, I was more than happy to do it. And it made him appreciate it even more. But looking after him made me happy, and he was happy to have me there. So it was all good.

Then I came back to England and went back to work. And I enjoyed that as well. Don't get me wrong. I'm not some gold-digger looking for an easy life. I've always worked. I like working. I like the freedom it gives me. I like the social aspect of it, going to lunch with friends from my office, the Friday afternoon drinks, bitching about the office bitch (who may have been me, but not when I was bitching!). I like feeling like I belong and feeling like I'm contributing to something. I'm not working now, and I miss it. I spend the majority of my days alone, with my telly and internet for company. I miss the commute. I used to get the early morning train, and we had a little 'commute community'. We all shook our heads in disgust, as one, when the train was late. We all moaned about the weather, as a unit. We all bitched about our jobs, all together. We all effing loved it. And I developed an inappropriate crush on one of the gentlemen in our little 'circle'. Oh my! It's ok though. I told my husband. He laughed.

Anyway, I'm quite happy to work and pay my way. But I think my family is more important. And if I don't need to work, why should I stress out about it? Various people have tried to talk me out of this and make me feel bad. But I honestly don't give a shit. Why should I? Like I said to my husband (when he was still my boyfriend), people always blame the mothers. Anything goes wrong with a child, it always comes back to the mother. The mother's failed, the mother isn't doing a good job, why isn't the mother paying attention? The only time the father gets blamed is if he isn't on the scene. He took this to mean that he could knock me up and scarper. Yes. I know. But I married him anyway.

I know my parents love us and did the best that they could, given their situations. My father, who grew up without a father after his own dad fucked off to Germany when he was four, thought that being a good dad meant providing. And provide he did. He provided the hell out of it! Anything we needed and a lot of what we wanted, we got. We took ballet, piano, gymnastics, played sports, had extra school lessons. He was a cheque writing machine. Even now, I'm bloody near thirty and married, and if I called him up and said "Dad, I need to talk to you", he'd say "How much do you want?". The downside of this is that he wasn't there emotionally and he didn't pitch in with the chauffering or attending. My mom was the one who did it. And when us older ones learned to drive, we got roped in to sort out the younger two. My mom was the one who would go and sit poolside while my brother was training. She was the one who'd sit in the bleachers watching my sister master a back handspring. She was the one who sat out in the car while my Maths tutor tried in vain to get me to understand trigonometry and while my Chemistry tutor despaired of me. She did all of this, after having had a stressful day, trying to instill some sort of appreciation for English Literature in the heads of little bastards who would have preferred beating each other senseless. Happy days!

And I don't want that for myself. It's that simple. My mom put herself through that, when she didn't have to. I'm not going to.

In next week's episode (or when I can be arsed to write about it) we shall look at the whole equality double standard!