Not Very Organized

Ok. I wanted to talk about something profound, but don't want to come across as thinking too hard, too early in the day, after too much coffee and chocolate. But what the hell, let's go there anyway.

What bugs me the most is that I am treated like some wayward child by some couples after they find out I don't have children. Something in their hind brain kicks in, and I am lowered to the status of a second hand citizen, AND a child. The unknowing lectures I receive, and the poo-pooing of any opinion on children, child-bearing, and public attitudes about progeny (everyone's a critic) that I receive would stun Oscar Wilde. This is just one small example from an entire field.

And Southern Women are raised to be NICE. And that's just about all. Long-enduring, all-suffering, baking cakes and brownies after bringing the kids home from the soccer game and feeding them. Or, if you consider yourself a feminist in the perspective of the culture, you are hedonistically and dangerously sipping a glass of wine in the kitchen before donning that new negligee. Cups of hot chocolate, pinks and baby blue clothes after a "certain" age, lipstick, and anti-aging creams flood the market. The cost of panty hose alone is enough to overcome anyone of moderately fragile constitution, and can rise above some countries annual GNP.

And I know I am painting a simple picture. These examples are just the ones everyone knows about. Compare the advent of, say, Viagra, with that of public breast-feeding.Which one do you think gets the most positive press?

And if a Southern woman cannot be NICE, her image devolves into some kind of cave dweller, set out to destroy "our way of life." When all she really is a survivor. There is no room in her roles for self-expression, and if there is, there is a stereotype for that, too: a hip, upper-class, with a bohemian scarf around the head, and a tumble of curls coming from it, wearing rubber gloves and teaching children how to hand-paint. Sally Fields epitomizes her in commercials. But playing the bassoon? Don't think so. Too sexually suggestive...And so we have a stereotype of stereotypes, if you catch my drift...

Just some thoughts on this Sunday, and not very organized ones at that.