A few days ago I had a very long conversation with F., one of the Wolfson freshers. She is Italian, and we talked at length about the state of education and women in Italy - I always find these conversations interesting because, despite the fact I'm Italian too, I have so little knowledge of what it is like to live in Italy today. Actually, I pretty much have no idea. So we talked about universities in Italy, which are underfunded, based on nepotism, and ultimately do not present an academic community conducive to research. This I all knew, but was fascinated to hear the detail of. Even more interesting, we talked about women, and the position of women in Italian society.
F. explained how horrified she was to realise that, somehow, Italy is going backwards in this field, and how she has spent a lot of time sitting with her childhood friends who seem to have little to talk about apart from how they clean their kitchens and how they're trying to get their boyfriends to marry them and make them babies. It reminded me of a friend of mine who once made a side-by-side comparison of glossy women's magazines in Croatia, the UK and Italy: the Croatian ones talked about fashion and hobbies, the UK ones about sex and orgasms, and the Italian ones about how to look good in front of men and bag yourself a husband. Whilst this is generally quite funny and says a lot about culture in the three countries, the Italian one is a pretty worrying trend, and one I think is spreading (or maybe it's just been more over the DL over here?).
The UK is generally better when it comes to women and women's status, don't get me wrong, but in the last few months I've encountered some pretty weird things. Most of the women I know are well educated (sometimes beyond postgrad), have good jobs, and are generally independent. Yet so many of them seem to have one ultimate dream: to get married and have children. It's not that I see anything wrong with long-lasting relationships (more on marriage later) or having children, but the idea that women's ambitions are still reduced to 'family' does terrify me. Surely we should see beyond this? What makes it worse is to see the men involved with these women, who, to be quite frank, don't give a shit about the big wedding and the children. Queue the big white dress, hundreds of guests, thousands of pounds spent on renting a wedding venue which is somehow always disappointing... And women thinking this is "the best day of my life!" Isn't that a bit sad? And isn't the happiness actually to be found in the years spent in a meaningful relationship, rather than the one day and the one rather antiquated rite of getting married? Apart from the trite statistics on divorce, I think it would seem obvious that marriage has become more and more a meaningless institution; and this is coming from somebody whose parents have been happily married for 39 years! People get married without much thought or, for that matter, love. Same goes for children. This absolute need to have children most of the time appears to be based on selfish reasons (reproducing yourself into another human being who will love you whatever you do) than reality (bringing another human being into this world, and doing your best to both make them into nice people and give them a fulfilling life).
The more I think about this, the more I am sure about two things:
- If I ever do get married, and I am not discounting the possibility absolutely, it will be because I want to make a commitment to somebody in front of family and friends. This means no big wedding, no expensive venue, and most definitely no white dress (white dresses are for VIRGINS you people!). I would then pay for a big dinner for our families and our closest friends. End of story. And most definitely NO wedding list. If I do get married it won't be to force people to buy me crap.
- I am not sure whether I will ever have children. Whilst we are told all the time how big a commitment this is, I don't think most people realise quite how big. Too many people do it in less than ideal situations - no money, no stability, no mental wellbeing involved. How can you bring a child into this world without making a 100% sure that you will be able to give them the best possible life? Oh, and also: I have no desire to be pregnant. Sounds pretty horrendous, actually...
My only conclusion is that, possibly, I feel differently about all this like I feel differently about nationalism/nationality. The life I have led means that I don't feel like I exactly 'belong' anywhere: I may have two passports, but I don't feel like I belong to either of those two countries; I might have lived in England for almost ten years, but I don't feel English. If I had to define myself as anything, I would say I am European, but that just sounds hippie-ish. In the same way I don't define myself by the fact that I have a womb. I have thought of myself in many ways (a student, an NGO worker, a traveller, a postgrad, a Wolfsonian, an office worker) but never have I defined myself as first and foremost a women. This doesn't mean I don't feel strongly about women's issues, actually, just because of it I feel even more strongly about it. I find it offensive that because of this silly womb, which many women may never use, we should be disadvantaged in any way. I feel very lucky that indeed I have never felt disadvantaged because I am a woman.
So, we, the lucky ones who live in a part of the world where we're a lot less disadvantaged than we could be, should really make an effort. And that means aiming for a bit more than a big white dress and a pram, surely?