is pretty grand.
Though I think I might explode if I hear another sociologist writing about the poor, ordinary unaware masses and such.
Bleh.
I really like my textbook.
I was just listening to an audio lecture since I'm doing a correspondence course and it was talking about the presumption in our society of maternal instinct and romantic love.
Apparently the conglomeration of lust, friendship, romantic love, devotion etc etc into one be all end all monogamous forever thing is new. Also new is the assumption that everyone has to have this happen or they are monstrous or unlucky. What a pressure, when so many marriages based on love end in divorce.
Apparently the "knight in shining armor" cliche is interesting because it isn't referring to romantic marital all inclusive love as it does now. It's referring to a sexual passionate relationship between a knight in shining armor and a damsel in distress that meet rarely and have other partners in marriage respectively. And the reason they have such passion in their meetings is because they rarely see each other and get to live with someone else.
I love this course because it keeps breaking down these weights I didn't know I felt of societal expectations. First came gender roles, now comes the feeling that I MUST find someone who I find perfect and will forever want to be near and this and that.
Which is a great stress to lose, because I think one of the reasons it's so devastating the first time you learn a relationship you're in won't work out is feeling like you've done something wrong, broken the fairy tale code and now will never love anyone fully. etc etc. Not feeling like there's a distinct happy ending to seek romantically that will be ever fulfilling is sweet. Especially being more aware of shitty romantic couplings in my raising. Like my parents and their siblings and friends parents. etc. etc.
Mad rambles.
mad.
rambles.
And maternal instinct. A great point raised about it is how much information new mothers have to seek out. They don't know where to cut the umbilical cord or how to initially feed or bathe their babies. They have to learn from others or pick it up slowly from societal expectations. Crazy shiz. Real maternal instinct is what a cat has- they go into a secluded place and birth, bite off the cords in the right place and know when to feed and how to bathe their kittens with their tongue. Women aren't cats. And the expectation of a woman to do all primary infant care on their own is so nuts. And the expectation of a woman to instantly love their baby because of chemicals from fetal gestation is nuts since it doesn't always happen that way and thus isn't instinct. In fact, a lot of women have post partum depression. It reminds me of when my friend's mother had another child with a new husband and already had a child to take care of. the husband left the house like... 2 days after she gave birth to do what he does and kept wanting to maintain the same situation at home, so this woman with healing stitches and exhaustion and a newborn and shit is trying to do the freaking laundry all on her own in this house with another kid to take care of too. dear god. someone explain how it seemed logical to isolate us into nuclear family groups and put so much on the woman of home life since it didn't affect a country's economy or anything that kids were being raised. blahblahblah. ag.
It's nice to feel like
there isn't a natural woman I have to be filling the ideals of to be a successful human and woman. There aren't instinctual ways to love or parent or steps to take that I am a failure if I don't take.
It's like...
hey guys! You don't have to be simultaneously motherly and wise and comforting and soft and simultaneously masculine and ball busting and active and simulaneously graceful and thin and simultaneously curvaceous and sexual and nympho and the prettiest and the smartest and know your place and bust out of it but not to much and be nonthreatening AND edgy enough to keep a guy's interest and all of this shit.
it's like...
whoa.
there is no way to be the good girl or the girl everyone loves
because everything requires different qualities that make an incomplete feeling identity
and every image is so different from the others because that makes it "fresh" and it's all just fashion of ego
and yeah.
confusing.
and made up.
and temporary and in this specific locale and time
and somehow benefitting some social structure you may have never linked that quality to and.
geez.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
sweet.
