Tuesday 12 May 2009

Woman at Work

It is another day when I don't know what to write. I am sure though that something will appear on the screen - it always seems to. If I can just keep typing. One more letter, after each one. Keeping going... Persevering....

life feels a bit like that right now...

When I get an attack of the hormones, i don't want to slog at work. I want to take life a bit more gently. I want to be one gigantic slob. Maybe a slightly creative or bookish slob but a slob all the same. I don't want to go for a walk, I want to go for a saunter, but I want it to be the only real thing I do all day. I don't want to talk but I do want contact, i want it in the form of nice undemanding hugs.

I came home today and I felt so tired. Is it fair? I don't think so. We are not people of equal effort. Some days we could work for hours and hours and it not be a bad thing and other days just turning up at work is wrong.... I never thought i would envy the women of other cultures who get to go into seclusion at this time.

We are bought up on the assumptions of feminism and the democratic culture that women should be treated equally and this means we can function fully all the time. Of course we can... but... I am not sure we should. Why do I have to prove anything?

Same with childbirth... Women get kicked out of hospital so quickly now. From what my Mum says, the hospital staff used to spend time with new mothers, making sure that they knew how to do the things they needed to, like feeding, burping, changing nappies and bathing. Women didn't have to work and keep house and bring up a family....

Now not all women want to stay home and not all men want to work. Why have so many choices been taken from us in the guise of giving us freedom? I am not saying I don't want to work. I want to be able to respond to my bodies needs. I want to be able to balance my life.

I don't think these set working hours we keep to allow us to honour balance or our womanhood.

But then what do I work for anyway? What does my work achieve? Not a lot of anything real to be honest with you.... Nothing about the work I do feeds anyone, or clothes them. The work i do is really just another link in the big corporate money machine... Definitely not a link in the chain linking us all together in love. Still I get paid and I get a generous holiday allowance, plus bank holidays. I also get training, maybe, in useful industrial skills. I believe once I have been there a while I will be eligible for a nice pension scheme which almost certainly won't support me for the many years I can hope to be retired for... Guess I shall be back there tomorrow then with my aching back and stomach and a dreamy lethargy more suited to spirit journeys than data entry.

4 comments:

  1. It's all just so very wrong....

    *sigh*

    I'm about ready to head off into the woods for a decade or three....coming along?

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  2. Most definitely!

    Can we grow raspberries and keep a goat?

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  3. mmm...(pokes head round door)...can i come too?

    somewhere in the equality-drive, seeking recognition has led to a dis-honouring of our womanliness... but the wheel keeps turning, the balance will come once more... in the meantime hugs all round & an extra one for rose!

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  4. oh yes! The more the merrier! And ta for the hugs. I like hugs a lot and can't live without them!

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