Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

[isabelledolce]

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Yesterday I went to have my haircut and decided to gossip with my stylist, Melissa. I've never really bonded with her before but I decided that I should solidify our relationship after six years together with only an occassional infidelity, once when travelling in France and I was seduced by the glamour of Toni &

Comments

[thebohomama]

Something thats interesting to point out (For reference sake, I'm 21 and pregnant, not married but in a long term relationship) the growing number of women now deciding to have kids over 30. Now that I get convenient emails and pamphlets constantly about childbearing, I find it interesting that chances for problematic pregnancies and birth defects increase substantially in pregnant women over 30, and even more over 35, 40...

[moucho_blasto]

I'm getting a distinct "women just want to have kids" vibe from this... I would say that lots of women now a days don’t want to have kids. ATM I’m doing undergrad sociology at the university of Newcastle. 2 of my modules this year have given me a really interesting in site into having kids. The first sociology of ecology: in my reading for that I found that a lot of women in the “deeper” end of the ecological interest wont have children because they believe the world is over populated and they see children as furthering the problem of in-sustainability. The second amusingly titled “gene wars”: part of this module is on the anthropology of bio-science. It’s given me a whole new tilt on bio-genetic-relatedness and kinship. Basically new reproductive technologies dissolve traditional kinship rolls. For example the donation of eggs and sperm changes traditional notions of parenthood

[technocracygirl]

Wow. This story is filled chock-a-block with unspoken presumptions. It's a "mommy war" story, and thus has the same old stereotyopes embedded in it: women don't really want careers, they want families, and when they're old, they'll regret it. Never a word about the society that creates this dilemma, you'll note. I find it interesting that at least here, the "mommy war" figure is a hairdresser, which is a step down from the traditional lawyer/stockbroker/woman with a man that has a high enough income to let her stay home from work and take care of the kids figure. I would have liked to have heard more about this woman's future childrearing plans, etc., since that tax bracket is not one that's usually heard from.

Other than that, you might as well read Caitlin Flanagan for all of the "insight" in that snippet.

[djadjavanja]

where did you read about "mommy war?" from what i see it is an observation and a good one. and what career are you talking about? hairdresser? ha. :) all the females that i know in the top 0.5% of income are married besides one which is married to her corner office on Madison Avenue. and trust me she doesn't have any fun.

[technocracygirl]

It's an observation, yes. And maybe my hackles are up because I've seen so many of the "It's wrong for women to not want to settle down and raise a husband and children as quickly as possible" stories. Every so often, someone in New York will get a bug up their rear about how "mothers are dropping out of the workforce" and "if you're over forty, you're more likely to get killed in a terrorist attack than get married" and there will be a barrage of stories about how women are dinking away their lives with work and fun and regretting it when they're older. And it never occurs to these authors that there are women who would like to balance work and family, or that there are women who don't want to have a family. It also never occurs to them to ask, say, sociologists if there is some such thing as an "opt-out revolution." (There isn't.)

So when I read something like this, I will tend to be dismissive of it, because the "women should settle down and raise a family" meme gets promulgated a whole lot more than any other.

[djadjavanja]

The author simply notes that women today prefer to be single and have fun rather than married. There is no benefit as you say to the institution of marriage. This is her observation and according to your response it is correct.

[mindgoesblank]

Poor Ms. Lauper. Technocracygirl, you nailed it.

[dubiously]

In the future, when you are angling to debate and create altercations on this particular subject, you might try posting such entries in communities with members who will be even more enraged by your comments than the members here, such as childfree or vhemt. That might get you more of the response for which you are looking.