On Women and Having it All

I'm going to make this brief because I can't even believe we're still having this conversation but whatever. Can women really have it all?

Yes.

Yeah, but really, like, can they "have it all?"

Yes. Yes they can.

Okay, hear me out here though: having it all...women...?

Yes. Is there anything else I can help you with?

Hypothetical conversations with myself are how I answer all of life's big questions. Of course, by now this is a truth so universally acknowledged that I'm baffled when the question is still posed. Baffled, I tell you! And I don't mean posed by the media, because they'll keep beating a dead horse until decomposition spreads its bits across this green earth; I mean when posed by actual people I know to other actual people I know, or even to me by some very, very foolish individuals.

There's built-in metaphors for this kind of thing, for seemingly limiting the number of activities we are allowed to participate in at any one point in time. "She's got a lot on her plate," or "She's juggling a lot of stuff right now," or "a bird in the hand is worth two in the" - okay not that one, but definitely those first two. Where is this plate? Why am I suddenly a circus performer? If nonsensical metaphors are just up for grabs here, then give me all the plates and all of those juggler baton thingys because I'm going to fill everything with Halloween candy and throw it in the air and keep it all moving because I have fifty arms with twelve hundred fingers and I'm made of Valyrian steel and no one can stop me!

See, it just gets real out of hand real quick.

Let's not speak in metaphor. Let's just say that someone is a mother and a career woman and in her free time enjoys writing and baking and Tae Kwon Do. And then let's all collectively not act shocked because, frankly, there's not much shocking about that. Substitute the martial arts for running or yoga or Cross Fit and this actually describes a lot of women I personally know. This is not some kind of anomaly; this is the new standard. The rest of us are actually behind.

It's never been my experience that someone looks at a man who has kids and is successful in his job and also finds time to workout and brew his own beer and just goes "Wow; I don't know how he does it." I want someone to walk into the Weinstein Company and pitch a movie where Bradley Cooper plays a remarkable man who is the breadwinner for his family and still finds time to read bedtime stories to his kids and have a fulfilling personal life. You'd be laugh/coughed straight out of the office (when I picture the Weinsteins, they look like the grumpy old men from the Muppets, so they cough a lot; I have absolutely no reason for this). There's no story there. Just like there's no story here:

Do laundry, schedule a meeting and check mail? My god, she's an android kill her!!!

I didn't set out to bash a stupid movie from 2011, and I feel a little bad about throwing it to the wolves considering I've never seen it. Then I watched a clip on IMDB and I swear to god I will burn every copy of this movie I ever come across. It's not just insulting to women to say that the ability to run a meeting and do laundry in the same day is some kind of supernatural feat for our sex, it's also incredibly insightful of just how ingrained sexism still is in our culture. I mean, it's 2011 people. Really?

Apparently, not old or infirm. 

I remember when I first got married (ugh, boring personal story - I know, I know; bear with me here), I would thank my husband every time he did the dishes, or the laundry, or swiped a Swiffer sweeper across the floor. Why the hell was I doing that? He wasn't acting like it was some big production, he didn't beg for recognition. I was being sexist. Sexism isn't just this idea that women should have to do the cooking and the cleaning and the child rearing, it's a concept that places the chief responsibility of these things getting done on the woman's shoulders instead of recognizing that there are two perfectly capable people living in the same space with, give or take, equal opportunity with which to get the job done. 

And if your thing is writing, in addition to working and parenting and staying fit and meeting all those interpersonal requirements that keep you from turing into a blood-crazed sociopath, then just do that. Write. And don't listen to people who talk about plates and juggling balls in the air and all that meaningless word picture shit. Time isn't something that is just going to be handed to you any more, you have to painstakingly carve out every square inch of your day so that those things that matter most are given prime real estate and those things that don't fall in shavings on the floor (Ah! Metaphor! I can't get away)! 

So have that baby, take that job, write that screenplay or novel or teleplay or role play interactive board game; have it all. Have your damn cake and eat it too while you're at it because there's always more cake and the really delicious kind is dirt cheap so go to town. And be a wise steward of you metaphors. Treat your time like currency and spend it wisely (see, metaphors like that - pure gold - hahahaha I apologize).  

Next up: my groundbreaking definition of Feminism (not really; nobody is asking for that).