6. Independent Women – Destiny’s Child 2001
Question, tell me how
you feel about this
Try to control me, boy, you get dismissed
Pay my own fun,
oh, and I pay my own bills
Always 50-50 in relationships
Lets look
at misogyny first. It’s the noun for people that have a dislike of, contempt
for, or ingrained prejudice against women. It’s sad that society has felt the
need to come up with a word like this. However, don’t think that this is a biased
situation as the English language also has the complementary word ‘misandry’
for those that feel similarly about males.
Then there’s
mansplaining. This one’s more fun than misogyny as it’s the noun for the explanation
of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a condescending or patronizing
manner.
You know what I’m talking about sisters.
We’ve all been mansplained to before. It’s as rude and condescending as English
speaking tourists thinking that talking louder and slower to non-English
speakers will help them understand what’s being said because, of course,
everyone should understand English.
Okay, so
this one isn’t a new word, nor has it been thrust to the fore in the media, but
we also have the word ‘husbandry’. I find this word perplexing. It means to take
care of domestic (household) affairs. Yet if we look back in time to before the
1960s we typically saw the wives taking care of all the household affairs.
Unless, of course, I have a warped vision of the past and the wives were actually
servants of their husbands who had oversight of the household.
Yep, I’m
thinking this one through as I type and am becoming more cynical as I go. Of
course women were servants to their husbands . . .
Sarcasm
aside, it’s sad and disturbing that during an era when women typically only had
very small worlds due to lack of mobility (my grandmother did her bit for the World
War 2 effort by driving troops around at Kapooka but handed her license in immediately
after the war due to it not being acceptable for women to drive), lack of mass communication,
and lack of external interactions (I’m thinking work, nightlife and sport here)
the place where they typically spent most of their time, their home, was under
the oversight of their husbands.
Did you
read Post 3 where I discussed my uncle having a forty-something dummy spit? I
guess some of us have moved on while others are still wallowing in the 1950s.
Unfortunately,
almost eight years after Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech, American
congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to defend herself due to similar treatment
from an elected representative. I found both Gillard’s and Ocassio-Cortez’s
speeches both inspirational and sad at the same time. Inspirational that they
were prepared to address these situations head-on, but sad that they had to do
it.
As a final note, don’t get me
started on my, about, 10 year old self asking my mum why my dad had to sign off
on her getting a David Jones card.
Too late. I’m
started.
Even as
recently as the 1980s women, who were responsible for doing the vast majority
of the household shopping, couldn’t be trusted with a store credit card.
Unless, of course, their husbands said it was okay by them. My 2020’s self finds
this a disgusting reflection of society. My mum worked fulltime in order to
contribute financially to the household, but the executives of David Jones felt
that my dad had more entitlement to her income than she did because ‘Oh my
God! A woman!’ couldn’t be trusted to spend wisely!?!?
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