FEMENISM

           Being a woman is not easy, but being a Mexican woman and finding new information in a more open-minded country with a different culture is very hard. In the three generations behind me that I was lucky enough to see on my mother’s side, I encounter a pattern of the behavior of my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and finally me. That behavior is to serve the husband and the children at all times. I was encouraged this behavior indirectly because that is all I saw with the women in my family and directly because when I got married and my husband and I lived at my mother’s house when my husband got home from work I was always told by my grandmother and mother to offer him something to eat and cook it or if it was made to heat it for him to eat as soon as he put one foot in the house. At first I was oppose to this behavior because I migrated to the United States and I learned more behaviors and open my mind to the world to view it differently from what I have learned in my culture, but eventually I found myself caught up in that behavior without me noticing it. The punishment of a woman for not behaving this way with the husband and kids and I only saw this with my mother because my great-grandmother or grandmother would never go against their husbands, it was that my father would get really mad at my mother for not having the food ready and yell at her that he was working all day that he was tired and hungry and that all he wanted is to get home and eat. Sometimes he would even get up from the table and leave the house for the rest of the day. My mother learned from my father’s reaction and intended to never make that mistake again.

           Not less important, most men in my culture are not even encouraged not to cook, clean, or cared for their family by helping the mother, they are not encouraged because since birth all they see is their mother serving them and their father, obviously this is only learned by boys because girls are always shown that they should help their mother to take care of the brothers and the father. If a boy by any rare chance wants to help the mother to cook or clean the father would immediately punish the boy and yells at him that that is the mothers’ or sisters’ chores and that he is supposed to work on the lands or whatever their job out of the house is, so he can bring money and that is all he has to do. When he is done with his part and gets home he is supposed to relax and wait for the women in the house to serve him. I remember the first weeks that I refused to use this behavior with my husband, one day he got home from work and my grandfather immediately asked me to serve him food and in a joking manner but respectfully I told my grandfather that my husband could do it himself and my grandfather looked at me mad and told me very seriously that I had to do it because he just got home from work and he was probably very tired and hungry, so out of respect for my grandfather I did it and honestly I kind of got used to that behavior and of course my husband did too even though he agreed with me at first.

In terms of job and career options, many women are exposed to and encouraged to take different career paths than those which men may take. Many of these careers focus on care professions such as nurses. When many women declare they are going into the medical field, people tend to immediately assume they mean they want to be a nurse. I have had this be the situation with a few friends down at U of I who have explained how people take it when they say they are going into the medical profession. Being pressured into careers like this tells them that making sure that other’s needs are met is more important than their own needs and firmly pushes them towards a serving role in society. Some people, including women, find it odd or a problem if a woman wants to hold a higher position. Part of this may be fueled by the cultural expectation that the man is supposed to be the primary breadwinner and earn more than his wife. If a woman takes a higher paying, higher position role it may seem odd if she makes more than her husband.

Men are pressured into career paths such as doctors or surgeons and higher up medical professions. Men are often turned away from nurse positions because it is seen as a more feminine position. Men who do end up choosing to become a nurse are looked down upon and often mocked such as in a number of T.V. shows and other media where a patient gets a nurse and when they find out it is a male they are rather upset about it or find it odd. Men are taught that they are supposed to take the higher positions and that nurse positions are below them. There is also the factor of income and doctors and surgeons make more than nurses. Historically men have been seen as the “breadwinners” earning all or most of the income of the family. This goes back even to the Great Depression where even though families were broke and starving, men refused to allow their wives to work. When a man is unable to be the primary source of income for his family, his masculinity is often challenged.