As pointed out on Feministe today, an important part of this whole women having varying degrees of “it” is the support of men (their male partners in the case of heterosexual women as well as men generally).
I tend to forget about that aspect, because Eric and I have a very equal partnership. I would say “I’m lucky that Eric and I have an equal partnership,” but that’s total bullshit. It’s not about luck, it’s about expecting that my partner be an actual partner and contribute equally to the management of our life together.
It makes me face-twitch in anger when I hear women say that their husbands are “babysitting,” or when they say that I’ve “trained” Eric well because he does half the chores. I trained my dog, not my boyfriend, thanks.
But yes – being able to have a satisfying career and a few kids is probably a lot easier for women to do when they have partners who are on board with those things and doing their share of the work. Because (again, speaking from zero experience here) as much as kids look like they’re really rewarding and awesome to have, they also look like a dump-truck full of hard work, and if I had a partner who just left most of that work for me to do, my head would probably explode.
Thanks so much for hanging out through all my feminist ranting this past week, guys.
Honestly my husband probably does more of the work than I do and it’s still a dump truck full of hard work, as you say. =) Thank goodness for gender equality.