{"id":7872,"date":"2008-12-14T13:00:30","date_gmt":"2008-12-14T18:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=7872"},"modified":"2008-12-14T22:32:36","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T03:32:36","slug":"your-own-24-hour-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/your-own-24-hour-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Own 24-hour Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader,<\/p>\n

Did you ever hear that phrase, “a woman’s work is never done?” It’s part of an English proverb, and it’s a pretty depressing thought, harking back to times when heterosexual gender roles were far more rigid (I’m talking about the Western world here) and wives and mothers were expected to manage all the household and child rearing duties. Most of our grandfathers had no idea how to change a diaper.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An open invitation to prove your love to your sweetie by winning them a giant stuffed Pooh. By Danielle Voirin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some places find the shift towards equal gender roles to be harrowing: in Ireland, for example, the switch to modernity was more like ripping off a band-aid than the waves and swells we experienced in the US. This quick switch has left a lot of young men on unsure footing; they lost the macho, breadwinning, “get your father his slippers, he’s had a long day” role that so many grew up with. And they’re killing themselves<\/a> over it.<\/p>\n

On our side of the pond, though, men have had a little more time to stew on the low burner. I have two degrees in gender studies, so I’m trained to fight the inequality in favor of a 50-50 partnership. Part of the reason I love being gay so much is because the roles aren’t prescribed; things tend to parcel out based on who you are, what you’re good at, what you absolutely hate doing: not the sex you were born with.<\/p>\n

At the same time, there seems to be a problem with the idea of halfsies. Part of the reason why the change happened is economics: most households are unable to sustain themselves on a single salary, so wifey is out working too. And, as far as we’ve come, studies still show that, in a heterosexual cohabiting situation, women still do the majority of the housework.<\/p>\n

So what you’re left with is a woman, during the third wave of feminism, doing more work than she’s ever done before, and a man doing more work as well, because now he has to do the vacuuming. But who’s saying “thank you?” We’re all so exhausted, it becomes hard to dish out any acknowledgments, a lot of the time we’re just sitting around waiting to get some for ourselves. And this seems to be particularly true for men, because they’re entitled<\/em> to that loss. If they were born 80 years earlier, it would be praise all the way.\u0412\u00a0Back then, we couldn’t survive without their contribution. Now they’ve got more work and an “equal” partner.<\/p>\n

From this perspective emerges a woman you never have to say thank you to. She’s got the perfect body, silicone breasts and feminine features. She never eats, she’ll do light housework, she’ll do your taxes, she speaks two languages. And she never has to sleep. Her name is Aiko<\/a>, she’s an android, and\u0412\u00a0Inventor Le Trung, 33,\u0412\u00a0in Canada has spent his life savings building her. In the video available at the above link, it is demonstrated that she doesn’t like it when you grab her breasts.<\/p>\n

What does it mean when a partner is reduced to their technical attributes? It’s like the Neil Young song, “A Man Needs A Maid.<\/a>” Is it more important to have someone, or something, cook for you or clean your house? You can get a robot to hug you, to respond to a program and say “I love you too,” if that’s what you want. You can make a thing that would be perfect for you. But there’s an inherent emptiness in that, isn’t there?<\/p>\n

I was talking to my friend last night, he’s in his mid-twenties and he’s never been in a relationship. He told me he just doesn’t want to compromise his lifestyle for a girl; he doesn’t want to be with someone who isn’t into what he’s into, who won’t understand what he’s all about — he’s really into computers, programming, online gaming, that kind of thing. But, while we may scoff and think an android would be perfect for him, I have to say I disagree. We need people in our lives; the real ones, with flesh, and inconvenient timing and irrational love. And dealing with this, and getting frustrated when things don’t work out, elated when it all fits perfectly — that’s the essence of being human.<\/p>\n

The imbalance of work in the home, the struggle of having to share the role as breadwinner or getting home after a long day at work and having to clean up the garbage that the dog knocked over; that’s part of our modern day world. We could live in houses like it’s Ray Bradbury’s There Will Come Soft Rains<\/em>, but it continues on whether you’re dead or alive. Just something to think about.<\/p>\n

So I’d like to propose that we don’t need a maid, or an anatomically-perfect robot. We just need each other.<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,<\/p>\n

Rachel Asher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader, Did you ever hear that phrase, “a woman’s work is never done?” It’s part of an English proverb, and it’s a pretty depressing thought, harking back to times when heterosexual gender roles were far more rigid (I’m talking about the Western world here) and wives and mothers were expected to manage … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[800,36,52,801,117,187,186,131],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}