For generations there have been expectations, from society and for society and for both men and women. But are quite different from each other in the actual experience, in real life, thoughts and expectations.
I saw a funny meme with a girl washing a car in a bikini from a number of decades ago with the caption “a 1980s go fund me”. And although it may appear quite amusing, it has always struck me how it was engineered to be that way. Women for the longest time either couldn’t work or were heavily restricted in earning potential. Still seen today, but they like to try and portray that it being addressed. So, if you wanted any kind of decent life, or home, or future, it was known you had to ‘marry well’, or secure ‘a good partnership’. How very convenient for men, to have most women only able to take part properly in society if married. And even then, for quite some time, women still weren’t allowed to deal with the finances or anything deemed important or complicated. Held down and held back, unless they jumped through the social hoops provided and did what was expected.
I did start to wonder why it was decided women should be allowed to work, was it really just for more taxes? Was it to help destabilise the family unit and home? Was it to allow ‘equality’ in word only, as it never really materialised, and now seems to be doing a rather swift backwards move. Encouraging women to marry well, then calling them gold diggers. Encourage them to work, then say they are abandoning their family. Encourage confidence, then call it a complex. Encourage embracing being a woman, then try and redefine the word and meaning to include men. It hasn’t gone unnoticed, because it’s a game that’s been going on for a long time.
Men also seem to be now getting some of it. Encouraging manliness, then calling it toxic. Encouraging being a family man, then insinuating that makes you weak. And it works its way round everyone in the end, everything that is presented as social order and etiquette by the behaviourists who study us. Like with the soap operas they have on a never-ending conveyor trying to tell you, show you, how life is and how you are supposed to be. But they aren’t real life (despite how some people view them), they are closer to a Greek tragedy. An exaggerated hyper fixated version of someone else’s view of life events and experiences. Condensed and orchestrated for effect, and for purpose.
But as with each new generation and time, expectations change and new ones roll out. What society demands of us, and what we demand of society. Standards and ethics change, ideals and agendas help to keep it all at a steady moving pace. So even if you do manage to work out what is required, given a little time that often changes, and if you don’t keep up, you get left behind…
