rs-forever's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marriage Yesterday, I was speaking to the lady who cleans the labs. She looks Native American, and she said she was originally from Peru. She was adopted by an American father and brought into the country. People expected her to identify with Peruvian culture, but she did not. She did not identify with American culture either, she said. We were speaking about "Women's Right's", overpopulation, access to birth control and then finally about marriage. She believed marriage is an institution that is State made. And that with a marriage the woman works thrice as hard as she did when she was single. That she cooks, shops and does laundry for her husband too now, and possibly children. I think there is a quiet happiness in these things. I like folding Ryan's clothes. I like sorting out the socks and bundling them, folding the shirts neatly. I enjoy cooking something that he will like. It is not a chore for me. And Ryan helps me with everything I do. If he does not, and if I am tired or have school work, I ask him to, and then he does. But I was afraid of saying this to the woman with the determined face. I was afraid that she would judge me. That she would think of me as a spineless woman, even if I was an engineer. Think that I am Indian and then generalize my thoughts to that of all Indian woman. So I agreed with whatever she said in words. But not in belief. I keep telling myself that I did not want to aggravate her a day before Thanksgiving. Or that I did not want her to think that I considered myself to be smarter than her because I go to engineering school here, and she is the cleaning staff. I did not want to hurt her. But now I am unhappy because I did not stand by what I believed in, even if it makes me sound un-feminist, if there is such a word. I believe in women's rights and everything. But I detest the "pseudo-feminist women" who impose their ideas on everybody else, so that the other women feel bad about whatever they are doing, while they themselves do whatever benefits them the most, throwing their great feminist ideas into the wind and not make it appear so. Of course I have no clever example just when I need one, but this has been my observation all along. This does not apply to the poor cleaning lady. She is truly feminist! This is why she could make me think. With a pseudo feminist, I would not even pretend. But really, why is marriage such a bad thing...? I cannot see any reason why. *** I have my thesis defense scheduled for Monday. I am very, very anxious about it. Even more so because Ryan would be in Boston, on his first day at the new job. I feel like I would not have an anchor anymore. 4:14 p.m. - 2009-11-26 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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