I used to control everything

Now I can’t control anything, except my own behavior

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

When I grew up it was perfectly normal to tell a little boy that he’d grow up to be a real man. A strong, fearless, head of household — King of his castle.

The reinforcement of these gender role expectations began for me in kindergarten where boys played with trucks and girls with dolls. It was nearly unheard of for a woman to become a doctor or a lawyer….or any profession other than teacher, nurse, or homemaker….and I’m not talking 1955…I’m talking about the early 70s.

True, Marlo Thomas’s, Free To Be You and Me — now 50 years old — began to chip away at overt misogyny and the expectation women would devote their lives to being good mothers and home keepers while their husbands went to work to support them, began to crack. And modern feminism was born.

Just to state what we see with our own eyes, women now achieve advanced degrees in higher numbers than men, and while things are not perfectly equal, they can do just fine in life financially, emotionally, and….sexually (damn those technologically advanced sex toys,) without relying on a man.

I can’t remember the exact age I realized most women were smarter than me…