The dilemmaS we face.
"Maud, do you have any plans for your future? When do you want to have a child?" My friend Amber asked when we took on a bus to our job interview.
"Nope."
"To the child thing or to the plan?"
"Both. I haven't gotten a boyfriend or even a job. What I need to focus on is my job."
In fact, I have plenty of talks like these for the past few weeks. It astonishes me that I am the only one who don't actually care about a husband or a child. My friends are so worried about their future husband and children, so they choose jobs discreetly. Compared to them, I am completely an optimist. I don't care about what kind of jobs and sometimes when I pass the interview, I turn down the job for some excuses like I don't like manager or the company used to own their employees money, which I think it's reasonable for me to reject. All I want for a job is the potentials. I don't care how long I need to stay in the company. If I could learn a lot from this job, I will live in the company. That's what I am thinking.
However, my friends care about different things. Some of them share the similar idea with me while the others are a little uncertain toward what they are going to do. They have a lot of potentials but they are afraid that they can't finish their bucket lists, including children, husband and a family.
I can't condemn that I do have the same concern. It's in our blood to settle down, or maybe, just in Asian women's blood. Our parents keep giving us some expression that unmarried women would be looked down by the society. Sadly, our TV shows don't spare us. They create a word, Losing Dogs, for the women who haven't married in their thirties, and described them like they are mostly sexually hungry. As modern as my mother is, she talks about them like plague.
"They would destroy your family, dear. Don't let your single friend be alone with your husband." She says that like I have already married.
This kind of insecurity circles around everyone. I don't know why.
Now, I start looking for a job. My future life imagined by the whole society smashes on my face. I never say I want a child, but some friends have started to talk with me about the future day care system. I never say I want to marry someone, but they have started to talk about men like they are some candies.
I don't really understand. I have so many visions to realize. I have so many things haven't done. I don't want to talk about children now. I want to discuss some news with my friends. I want to talk about the books I am currently reading, the series I love, or at least something less depressing.
I haven't graduated from college but I start to get a glimpse of what kind of future I would have. Got stuck with some women who don't care about feminism, which truly needs their concern, and who don't care about anything but their children and family. And one day, I might lose all the things that I had insisted to keep, the intelligence, the vision to help feminism stand in Taiwan and the persistence to learn.
I am not a week woman, but now I am truly afraid that the society would shape me into one of those women I never truly like. (By the way, it's not against laws that I hate other women.)
I would become normal.
Two days ago, I saw a commercial made by Japanese. It talks about the skills women need to have when they are in a blind date. Five women against five men. Women need to be innocent and dumb to attract men. When men say something serious, they always praise their intelligence or play dumb.
When I saw it, I was truly angry. Of course it's interesting in some ways, but doesn't it give some wrong messages? Doesn't it make women hard to admit that they are smart and intelligent? Doesn't it deepen the expression that women are calculating toward marrying out?
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVIUDx1n34 )
I don't understand why a lot of people like it. It's strongly against women. If we allow this kind of commercial to influence us, it would one day eat us or our future generation. People would spread around this wrong message and then it roots. Some shows or series would be done based on it, and we women need to suffer from it.
We have a lot of examples, don't we? Models need to be skinny. This belief comes from a particular model who is skinny and famous. People love how she looks and then all the models need to be skinny. Gays are mean, which comes from some silly shows, but truly every gay is different. Like heterosexuals, mostly we are not the same.
It saddens me that a little commercial can really change a lot. It might ruin our efforts and our ancestors' efforts in a blink. The dilemmas we face nowadays would be confronted by the next generation.
"Nope."
"To the child thing or to the plan?"
"Both. I haven't gotten a boyfriend or even a job. What I need to focus on is my job."
In fact, I have plenty of talks like these for the past few weeks. It astonishes me that I am the only one who don't actually care about a husband or a child. My friends are so worried about their future husband and children, so they choose jobs discreetly. Compared to them, I am completely an optimist. I don't care about what kind of jobs and sometimes when I pass the interview, I turn down the job for some excuses like I don't like manager or the company used to own their employees money, which I think it's reasonable for me to reject. All I want for a job is the potentials. I don't care how long I need to stay in the company. If I could learn a lot from this job, I will live in the company. That's what I am thinking.
However, my friends care about different things. Some of them share the similar idea with me while the others are a little uncertain toward what they are going to do. They have a lot of potentials but they are afraid that they can't finish their bucket lists, including children, husband and a family.
I can't condemn that I do have the same concern. It's in our blood to settle down, or maybe, just in Asian women's blood. Our parents keep giving us some expression that unmarried women would be looked down by the society. Sadly, our TV shows don't spare us. They create a word, Losing Dogs, for the women who haven't married in their thirties, and described them like they are mostly sexually hungry. As modern as my mother is, she talks about them like plague.
"They would destroy your family, dear. Don't let your single friend be alone with your husband." She says that like I have already married.
This kind of insecurity circles around everyone. I don't know why.
Now, I start looking for a job. My future life imagined by the whole society smashes on my face. I never say I want a child, but some friends have started to talk with me about the future day care system. I never say I want to marry someone, but they have started to talk about men like they are some candies.
I don't really understand. I have so many visions to realize. I have so many things haven't done. I don't want to talk about children now. I want to discuss some news with my friends. I want to talk about the books I am currently reading, the series I love, or at least something less depressing.
I haven't graduated from college but I start to get a glimpse of what kind of future I would have. Got stuck with some women who don't care about feminism, which truly needs their concern, and who don't care about anything but their children and family. And one day, I might lose all the things that I had insisted to keep, the intelligence, the vision to help feminism stand in Taiwan and the persistence to learn.
I am not a week woman, but now I am truly afraid that the society would shape me into one of those women I never truly like. (By the way, it's not against laws that I hate other women.)
I would become normal.
Two days ago, I saw a commercial made by Japanese. It talks about the skills women need to have when they are in a blind date. Five women against five men. Women need to be innocent and dumb to attract men. When men say something serious, they always praise their intelligence or play dumb.
When I saw it, I was truly angry. Of course it's interesting in some ways, but doesn't it give some wrong messages? Doesn't it make women hard to admit that they are smart and intelligent? Doesn't it deepen the expression that women are calculating toward marrying out?
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVIUDx1n34 )
I don't understand why a lot of people like it. It's strongly against women. If we allow this kind of commercial to influence us, it would one day eat us or our future generation. People would spread around this wrong message and then it roots. Some shows or series would be done based on it, and we women need to suffer from it.
We have a lot of examples, don't we? Models need to be skinny. This belief comes from a particular model who is skinny and famous. People love how she looks and then all the models need to be skinny. Gays are mean, which comes from some silly shows, but truly every gay is different. Like heterosexuals, mostly we are not the same.
It saddens me that a little commercial can really change a lot. It might ruin our efforts and our ancestors' efforts in a blink. The dilemmas we face nowadays would be confronted by the next generation.
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