2002-11-09

Don't wanna be no trophy wife...

Not like that will ever happen now (still, you never know, its a big world and I'm a big girl) but I am glad that I didn't decide to hitch my wagon to the star of being the polished pet of some rich thug. I may have made a good mafia wife, because I can keep my mouth shut and I have a gaudy taste in decorating, but to be the overtanned manicured bitch of some boring business god would be... well, it might be... I think it would be... shit. I don't like tennis. I am not fond of accountants as rule. Gold bracelets don't make up for black eyes. And I think too much.

So here I am, 28, on the verge of nuptials (albeit still in need of an actual date and an engagement ring), and contemplating a future where I get to be the major breadwinner. This is where the manual ends - there are no rules for being the household income provider if you happen to be a chick - and I am flying by the seat of my pants here. There is a little part of me that is stuck in some nominal fifties kitchen, baking bread and cookies and making the kids' lunches while hubby spends quality time at the office or playing golf. Hell, I'm a child of the seventies, I have the perverse influence of my Chanel lovin' grandma, and a penchant for sexual frivolity. The fifties dream does not sit well with my day to day persona. But it lives there, quietly, at the back of my head, saying stuff like "You'll be happy with a new dishwasher and some quality whitegoods". And then here I am trying to cope with giving my intended an allowance (an allowance!?! what am I doing????) so that he can leave the house once in a while. There are strange forces at work inside, making me desperately uncomfortable with the way things are.

I like working. I like making money. I also like baking, and sewing and gardening. Can a woman of the 21st Century have her cake, divide it into portions, make sure everyone gets equal shares, and then eat some herself? Is this how it is now, this new sexual equality? I am not even sure if men and women CAN ever be equal - by definition and activity we are complementary but not exactly the same. And being equal doesn't mean that i get to go out, earn the dough, and then come home and do hours and hours of unpaid work cooking, cleaning and caring for my nuclear unit.

The more I think about it the more I am convinced that men and women should not live together. Sure, have relationships, get married, spawn a couple of kiddies - but please, pick up your towel off the goddam bathroom floor or find somewhere else to live! I want my house to be a princess' palace, not a hovel filled with half eaten pizza and dog-eared comic books. And it's wrong for me to want him to change anyway - he was like that when I met him, why should it be any different now? No, the simplest solution by far is to have an abode of one's own and regular visitations with a consort of one's choice. In a third party location that someone else cleans up when you are done having rampant sex, or deep and meaningful conversations liberally peppered with the eating of chocolates and strawberries.

After all, I think that's why women go to work - in the hope that one day they can afford to pay someone to pick up their shit for them. Now that's what I call being a resourceful little hunter-gatherer.

bitch - moan