Confusion

Women and men are worse off today than our parents may have been. How, you ask? Yes, there is the whole devaluation of the dollar, the shrinking of the middle class, blah, blah, blah. But the real confusion, the kind that can pit one spouse against the other, occurs because gender roles for men and women are no longer so clearly defined. The patriarchal world, the one our mothers understood and maneuvered, has been scrambled, jumbled, and messed up, leaving all of us scratching our heads. This is the age when the Metrosexual Male, those men in touch with their feminine side, is a part of our consciousness about male identity. We now know there is a distinction between swishy men and those simply into good grooming practices. This gender confusion now makes a marriage a constant battle ground as we try to figure out what our roles are supposed to be.

Most of my friends in LA had no such concerns. They seemed content to stay at home, assuming traditional roles, the very roles Betty Friedan and others had fought against. Most seemed relieved actually to be able to stay at home, even if they were bored witless by the lack of intellectual strenuousness in this 'privilege'. Now that I think about it, most never, ever voiced concern at all. It was more of a collective sigh of relief that they'd found a man, caught a man, and thank goodness he's a good earner, and can now stay at home being taken care of by this very man. It was all a bit disturbing, as if the last forty or so years since the ardent feminists had argued more for our sex had never occurred.

Some could argue that educational levels may play a part in a woman's satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their marriage. The more educated you are, the less likely you are to be satisfied. And certainly not to stay at home playing the dutiful wife. Sad, isn't it? The higher your degree, the certainty of your unhappiness. When I look back on this particular group of friends from LA, most had a BA, although some couldn't even claim that. Very few had anything beyond a BA. Most had worked, but seemed to be happy to not have to do it again. Some even had lucrative careers, financially, if not all that stimulating. One could say they were happy to have avoided a life of the middling management life by getting married. And most could never understand what it was I did with my time when I claimed, 'to be working.'

The writing life is a mystery for most people, other than other writers. We do this thing, most people aren't really capable of doing, alone, for hours on end. The end product may or may not get published, thereby adding a sense of futility or, if one is so inclined, as masturbatory. We are a world where productivity has to match some result. But the writing life is one where such artificial expectations defeat the whole purpose of this thing you are driven to do.


My marriage sometimes feels like an archaeological expedition as we try to dig out clearly defined roles for both husband and wife. Our search and negotiation is all the more vexing because of the ephemeral quality of my work. What's worse for my dear husband is the fact I was raised by parents, despite being Asian, who are ardent feminists. I was told my entire life that a woman's happiness depends on her ability to carve out a separate identity from wife and mother. That really, men may leave, and children will definitely leave, therefore you'd better have something of your own or you are screwed. This also went along with all women should absolutely have money of their own. The idea of a woman's financial life being dictated by a man is absolute anathema to them, and would be a signal of failure.

With such pressure, you can imagine the sense of urgency in our search for our respective roles as husband and wife. And how complicated it all becomes since I view my career and the productivity of my writing life as important as his. Sometimes when we've gone around and around about these very issues, I secretly wish I could be more like my friends, those content with being just a wife and mother. This secret wish lasts a nanosecond once I recall the underlying boredom and unhappiness each exhibited, sometimes unwittingly. But nonetheless, I do harbor it, every so often.

Life would be so much easier if our roles for husbands and wives, were clearer less amorphous. But it seems all of it gets murkier each year, all of us floundering around trying to figure it all out for ourselves. I suspect divorces will start to occur with some frequency in the next five years. Whether or not they will be the result of the confusion in gender roles still remains to be seen. All I know is the archaeological expedition seems to go on and on, each year bringing a new territory to be explored.