I’ve avoided voicing the things I think about to avoid controversy. I spew out a daily schedule of what I do to keep this blog regular and my mother knowing what I’m up to. But let me take a Sunday morning to share with you what I’ve been thinking.
I read recently in the NY Times a quote from the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson—some guy who founded a Tea Party group in California (and you know how crazy those Californians are). He said, “I think that one of the greatest mistakes that America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote. We should’ve never turned it over to women.” Wow. That blows me away, BUT what really gets me is that he’s not the only one thinking like that. Guys like Jesse Lee Peterson and Dwight Schrute are a bit more plentiful than I’d like to think.
Have you ever seen a documentary on the suffrage movement? The PBS one on Stanton and Anthony is a great one. I remember seeing that for the first time and being amazed at the plight of women in its recent past. Our young girls today don’t know at one time they were worth so little. I was raised with strong female voices in my family sharing with me that I could do whatever I wanted. It wasn’t until I became a woman that I learned that my mother and grandmother paved the way for my freedom.
I have often felt that ANY woman, no matter her political leanings is better than a man in her place. I’ve learned that it works out better if they appear to be intelligent on TV interviews. There are men who seem to think that one of the primary reasons America is falling into the toilet IS because women are taking over, running companies, and making more decisions in society. I would say quite the contrary.
I was delighted to see in the NY Times Op Ed article called, “Men, Who Needs Them?” “It’s increasingly clear that “mankind” itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate and essential maternal connection defines our species.”
So let’s just say we get rid of men altogether? Well, I taught a class of all girls once and it was kind of boring. As much trouble as those boys are, they do bring excitement into the classroom. And having just lived the past two weeks without a spouse (he was serving in Kentucky), I was living the life of a house full of women. I pulled out carpets and moved furniture on my own. I have a few sore muscles to remind of what life might me like without my husband—harder. As we caught up on life this morning over coffee, talking about all the things we need to do, I asked if he might help me with a little home project and he gladly accepted. I look forward to working with him, I miss him when he’s gone... fully understanding how much he complicates my life.
So the answer isn’t getting ridding of them. It’s working with them… Men need to help raise our children, they need to clean the kitchen and do the laundry. If women are indeed, ruining the country with our running companies and making decisions, it’s only far for men to ruin our homes with their awkward folding techniques and putting the dishes in the wrong cabinettes.
“Meanwhile women live longer, are healthier and are far less likely to commit a violent offense. If men were cars, who would buy the model that doesn’t last as long, is given to lethal incidents and ends up impounded more often?”
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