A Helping Hand Can Be Found at the End of Your Sleeve
Women need to grow up and take responsibility for their choices and their lives if they want to be liberated.
No, you don't get to say "It's not fair! I want the benefits of freedom and none of the responsibilities. I want to still hold men responsible for sex like I'm chattel property while not being chattel property."
Multiple US states have it encoded in the law that if the wife has a baby, her husband is financially responsible for that child and we don't care who the biological father is. Men sometimes decry those laws which date to a different era, an era when women were rarely financially independent and often couldn't have a job without her husband's permission or a bank account in her own name.I have concluded it was likely rooted in knowing that some men engaged in threesomes with the wife and a male friend or similar activities and deciding "Bud, when society lets you treat your wife like chattel property and you do shit like that, no, you aren't allowed to claim infidelity on her part and wash your hands of the consequences of your actions because that's probably not what happened and we aren't having this conversation with you. You will pay for any children your wife has and we are done discussing your perverted crap, mmmkay?"
Most likely, historically, men who liked threesomes whored their wives out without asking her permission.
That's what it meant for a woman to be chattel property of her husband. He could do with you as he saw fit AND that includes disposing of you when you're no longer useful to him.
If you want that, you belong in a brothel, not in the bed of a one night stand after he ASKED and you CHOSE to AGREE.
I don't know how we get there from here. I strongly suspect that getting work via the so-called casting couch -- probably mostly often a BJ without a condom -- is extremely common and this actively undermines female careers because the men who make the decisions -- the men power -- will treat men they hired on merit different from women they hired because she put out.
And there are boatloads of social expectations for both men and women that help push men towards serious careers and women towards putting her man's career first, if only because Accidents Happen.
Men with serious careers and substantial power tend to be married. It helps them get their needs met so they can focus on the job and assures people he's not trolling the office for playmates, even though he may well be.
Women who get married imagining this will help tell people she's serious about her job and not sexually available tend to end up putting the husband's career first.
And as the footnote of this piece indicates, I git an ugly email attacking me for writing it and I was eventually banned from Cyburbia for taking the high road, a tale told elsewhere:
My conscience is clear. He claimed to be in an open marriage, I only knew him socially, not really professionally, I was legally separated and my husband had told me "Do what you want. It's California. It won't impact the divorce proceedings."
He was a top level moderator on Cyburbia abusing his position of power. I was a lesser moderator with only administrative powers over the little sub I established. I would bet moderators on Cyburbia put that on their resume.
I was naive to think this entirely social and had nothing to do with my career aspirations and no matter how high a road a woman takes, she still gets to choose between everyone treating her like either a whore a frigid bitch.
No, no one posts my writing anywhere. A couple of men have posted gossipy pieces by me to Hacker News and once a guy posted my writing trying to get into my panties while having absolutely no respect for my mind and competence whatsoever.
Men who like me want to marry me. Women generally don't like me.
Years ago, some <s>little bitch</s> woman on Hacker News was whining and crying about how humans are so uptight and we should standardize having a test so you can both show your paperwork proving you are clean to sleep around casually.
I don't recall how much or even if I engaged with her. I may have had the good sende to err on the side of not giving her a bullshit excuse to hate on me while announcing to an overwhelmingly male forum I'm the sister who does the tube snake boogie if you ask nicely. I get enough harassment as is without talking about that nonstop on Hacker News.
But first of all, if you regularly have casual sex, no standardized paperwork is sufficient to guarantee you are clean.
Second, stupid little incompetent twit blaming the rest of the planet for your lack of game, if you're a heterosexual woman, you can see action by just not saying no to the endless men wondering if you will sleep with them.
The problem after that is convincing people to take your career seriously, I guess.
But if you are a woman and men are your cup of tea and you will genuinely take responsibility for your choices, you can get your loving cup filled and keep it filled. And possibly even attract uncommonly good men you won't regret letting next to you.
I still have absolutely no idea how you pay your bills on merit and not on your back while politely calling it marriage. I'm dirt poor and can't convince assholes the world over to pay me for my work instead of hitting on me while watching me starve.
But if you want women's liberation, responsibility and freedom go hand in hand. Asking for freedom while refusing to take responsibility for your girl bits and your life is broken and won't get you what you claim you want.
And the power is in your hands. No one but you can decide you will take responsibility for your life and your choices.
Rights will follow women choosing to do that en masses, not precede it.