Re: respect (edited)

I know young people don't usually date anymore - they just meet-up they call it. One real negative in my opinion about the womens' movement was the sexuality. We were trying so hard to make heads or tales of what to do about it all. We were groping in the dark actually and the notion of free sex took hold. Most of us realized later that it was harmful to us to engage in it because we are so susceptible to actual physical diseases that can spread so easily. It is also really difficult for most women to separate sex from love and I think for good reason. It is how we make babies and it is serious business. Not intending to be prudish about but I for one want my sex all mixed up with love. Later in the eighties divorced and middle aged women were bragging about how kinky they all were. It was in and they were all trying to out do each other in the kink area to vie for the single men or even the married men who were into cheating. It was a smörgåsbord for overgrown, middle aged, divorced and never married or even married boys. The women were secretly hoping to change some obviously unavailable guy into a husband by being a super middle aged kinky sex kitten? Didn't work. The game was they could have all the sex they wanted with you as long as they made it clear that they were not into a commitment so there were all these women trying to out kink each other. Many women got their hearts broken once again.

We were trying to be open about it in the sixties - to speak freely and get over our embarrassment of it and also to stop making it a crime for a girl to engage in it and to be literally punished along with her offspring for the rest of their lives for having a child without marriage. And of course to make it legal and as accessible for a poor woman to get an abortion as it already was for middle class and wealthy women by making it fund able and legal. (legal, fund able abortion for those who don't know, was the reason that the crime rate suddenly plummeted in the nineties) We obviously live in a society that is overrun with sexual provocation and also sexual taboos of all kinds projected onto only women. So schizophrenic. Want it, dress for it seek it but don't do it? It seemed that men had total freedom and woman had none. We are still trying to come to terms with it all. I think in some ways it is worse now. So complex - so many factors to consider.

We thought that birth control was the answer. It gave us the freedom to explore, but then we had to deal with the low consciousness and selfish attitudes of a generation of men who were childish and spoiled to say the least. We were desperately trying to educate ourselves and our male friends, lovers and husbands about OUR sexuality. How can we be expected to desire wham, bam thank you mam sex? Some were open and got it but I don't think that most did. We quickly learned that free sex usually didn't work for most of us. We wound up getting emotionally involved no matter what we promised ourselves. (I think there are some women who are emotionally able to engage in it but I am not one of them and most of the women I know are not either. Most wound up married or in long term relationships that they desired to be monogamous. But we were experimenting and lots of mistakes were made. Lots of men got the idea that now they were entitled to free sex all the time with no ties whatsoever. One idiot said to me - c'mon what are you saving it for baby? typical

No I guess the girls are over it? Meeting up and no emotional involvement? I don't think so - I just had a young niece come to stay with me for her last year of high school - She was amazingly knowledgeable about sex and daring I would say,(it's all over my space) but when she got involved with a real boy - she fell in love - It happens - LOL Then he used her up and moved on to the next conquest. same old same old.....

So much for free love and open marriage and all that.

I think what women want is for the work that they do - homemaking - doctoring - service professions - whatever it may be - to be respected - and that our sexuality be respected AND UNDERSTOOD AND CARED ABOUT - for real - not as some fake obligation.

In her book "Nickled and Dimed" Barbara Ehrenreich stated that there is no such thing as unskilled labor. As anyone who read the book or even heard about it on T.V. knows - she, as a journalist who went about the country posing as a working class woman taking so-called unskilled, minimum wage jobs such as waitressing and maid work to see if it was even possible to make ends meet. It wasn't she found. She wasn't only writing about womens' jobs of course but the jobs she took were the jobs a so called unskilled woman could get. I highly recommend the book for those who believe in the myth of the welfare queen and hate their tax dollars being spent to help those in need. I WANT my tax dollars spent to help those in need - mostly women and children - and not on the war machine. I anted the aid to poor people increased instead of practically eliminated as it was during the Clinton years. This society needs to be viewed in a far more wholistic manner than it is.

So - I feel this way. Homemaking is one of the most important jobs in society whether there are children involved or not and should be highly paid as should all work should be. In my humble opinion, most of the lowest paid work is actually the most necessary and the most valuable. Child care? What could be more important? Home making is highly skilled and creative work. My husband hasn't a clue how to go about organizing a cupboard for instance. What happens in a house if no-one attends to all the little details - chaos I tell you - total chaos and it sucks.

Now I know most people don't like Cesar Chavez but I do for one reason. He is for the ordinary hard working people of this world and one of the things he is pushing for is PAY FOR HOME MAKING. The women adore him as you can well imagine! They call themselves Chavenistas! He gets it!

These are just my opinions - take it or leave it - I am open to differing ones as long as the discussion is civil and doesn't involve name calling and other types of abuse. I offer my opinions in a spirit of openness and love.

So it's all about respect - for work, for women as well as men. For sexuality too.... Tweet