3 Worst Things About Being A Woman
I have never been into babies. I don’t get the appeal. If it didn’t seem like an extremely terrifying kind of labor, I would like to straight up birth a toddler. Every toddler is a philosopher. They want to know why things are the way they are and ask an unlimited number of questions about it. I am sooo on board with this game. I think you could probably be a great writer if you had a five year old, just ask the same questions she does and think earnestly about the answers with a beginner’s mind. Actually, if it weren’t for the patriarchy it kind of seems like having a kid could be a good career tool. But that’s not really the case.
Some way harsh realities about having a uterus:
1. It is embarrassing to talk about your uterus ticking
It’s a biological fact that your fertility decreases with age but women who want to have babies are viewed as “desperate.” Even saying “I should want to have a baby in case I miss my fertility window, but really don’t want to” is humiliating. I am fighting embarrassment right now.
Men don’t have this problem. If some ability in men’s bodies went away after age 35 we sure as hell would a) have a cure by now and b) not shame them for wanting to discuss it.
2. Having a baby costs you your identity
Mom culture is weird for me, I don’t think I would fit in. Like, I would be in parenting groups with women and I am scared it is going to feel like Sunday school where you aren’t supposed to ask more than prescribed questions. I like how mobile I feel in my life now. If something isn’t working for me I don’t have to put up with it. I don’t want a parenting class to tell me I have to do something a certain way if it doesn’t make intellectual sense to me.
I think having a baby would cause me to completely lose my identity. I know everyone, myself included, loves mothers but I like how right now my identity is based on the things I’ve accomplished and my personality. I don’t want to be defined by my relationship to someone else. I don’t want to give up being a person first, and a relationship second (or third, or fourth).
Instead of people wondering if I am silly for writing about my life on the internet, they will wonder if I am a bad mom for writing about my life on the internet. I like being a person.
3. It feels like life is over for women after they have kids
I think mothers also are looked down on. As much as we claim to revere them, I think its some sort of oppression by elevation. We revere what they do—but aren’t we glad it’s them, not us! I’ve never been a “one of the guys” girl. I am very happily a girl’s girl. But I am career-driven, independent and mobile—all the things guys get to be for the rest of their lives. Women can play this game, but really only single, childless women.
Being a mother reminds people that you are a women. Single women can be on par with men in their careers, but when you get married or have a baby you get wage gap-ed. I’m worried about the feelings associated with that, if people think my life is over for the next 20+ years except for being a mother.