This quote is particularly poignant for me this week:
How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.
~ Anaïs Nin
I’ve come to a point where I am in a foreign country, unemployed by necessity and heavily dependent on a fiancé.
How strange is this! There is quite a difference between a stay-at-home mother and a, for lack of better term, kept woman. Thankfully course work gives me meaningful things to do but it is so difficult to feel useful after several years of uninterrupted independence.
This situation is only temporary but I wonder about those who experience it as their only situation. Do they have their own aspirations or are they lulled into complacent stagnation? Do they become comfortable and require direction as to how to live their lives or do they strive against it?
I’m obviously being a tad dramatic but to me, this is how a male dominated society lasts; dependent women being OK with their dependency.
Not that dependency is wrong. My SO and I depend on each other because that is how a relationship works. You rely on family for support. The difference is whether someone is their own entity or if they are codependent.
I feel this quote can be read in different ways.
In a modern way, I affiliate it to, for instance, gold diggers and certain socialite types that climb the ladders of their male partner’s success rather than carving their own path. To women still stuck in social/religious circles that require them to be heard less than they are seen. The unfortunate women in extremist countries that are considered subhuman when compared to a man.
Not every woman has a safe or easy opportunity to carve her own path. Not every woman wants this. To those of good fortune too lazy to be their own person I am ashamed they choose to live life this way, when women in war-torn countries get shot in their face for fighting for women’s education.
Nin’s quote should speak to every woman who feels her rights and her life is worth fighting and standing up for. And to those who don’t.
It may not be easy, but taking the path to “build the world” you want will be infinitely more rewarding. It is “wrong” as she states for the simple fact that, no one should hide behind another nor should a man stand in the way of a woman choosing her path.
It speaks to everyone. We just need to listen.
Princess Gloss 