I never understood why there is always a barrier in gender or work related stuff socially when talking about parenting. Parenting is supposed to be composed of a couple, when the lawyer used her success as a writer as also a weapon against her to testify what a bad parent she was it strike me like a dirty strategy to take her down. Why does the responsibility of parenting only falls into the woman?, why isn’t he taken accountable for his actions after all the evidence it was shown against him?. It was for my surprise that though its hard to admit, the husband was somewhat privileged, for being a man, for not having success. As the author argues, in society , a woman is always there to accommodate and be administered by a husband, she can not be successful, unless of course she bled or was unperfect in other aspects of her life.
There’s always an excuse to bring down its success. While in society men can have success, not take parenting seriously but it would be pardoned right away due to its “hard working” and societal standards that a husband should provide for the family and by doing so he is exempt from real parenting, from nurturing his child… Is that really the only goal of man? only provide?… When I think of a stable hard working family I think of the couple being hardworking citizens, contributing to society and at the same time taking care and providing for their children. I think these kind of gender norms only harm and not help when unnecessary arguments raise. Why was so hard to believe that the woman was a great wife, writer, and mother? and why does it matter if she was more successful?. In any case, the wife should’ve been an inspiration to him to write better books and be as successful as her, instead the husband decided to curse her success and ruin her life with jealousy. I admire her for being brave enough to tell her story to the world and though not publicly, I understand how hard it was to endure such relationship with someone you thought was your soulmate.
I personally think this was a great piece of writing portraying what is like to be a woman and be undermined not matter how many accomplishments only because culturally and socially it is not the norm for a woman to be a hardworking citizen with a successful multifaceted life. Being a man myself I come to the realization that I have yet to be more open to other ideas and paths that cross the line of what I would consider normal. Though I would never have acted as the husband in this course of events, it doesn’t mean that I will not learn from it as a viewer and as a writer.
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