LOST GENERATION – ESSAY ON EQUALITY

LOST GENERATION:  

While women director’s still only comprise 6% of the top 250 Hollywood Films I am going to tell you something very shocking… More shocking than the pathetically low percentage of women DPs, directors, editors, and writers.  You might want to sit down for this one.  Let me start by saying I am a woman director and editor.  I’ve owned my own production company and am passionate about my work.  I am in great debt to every woman that came before me to fight for her rights and mine.  I would never change how hard women have fought for so many things that absolutely needed to be altered.  I’m grateful to my mom who was on the front lines of the women’s lib movement while carrying me in her baby carrier on her back.  She didn’t burn bras – she just wanted freedom from oppression.  She wanted equal pay, equal opportunity in the workplace. I will always admire her in every way.   

Yes, there is a but coming.  But, there’s one very serious problem with women’s lib  - I am from a lost generation of women now all in their 30’s and early 40’s – all single.  The word marriage makes us cringe.  The words mopping and cooking send shivers down our spine.  You see, our mothers were on the front lines even if they were only watching Miss America in Suburbia, USA.  Images came to their TV screen of women’s liberation protesters with signs saying “cattle auction” and “cattle parade is demeaning to human beings” and other wonderful slogans that were all very powerful.   They saw women protesting being objectified.  For many women in the US, this was the first real sign that things were boiling to the surface.  This needed to happen.  It was about time it happened.  In some ways it hasn’t happened enough.  

Inside many homes during this era women were finding ways of taking the protest to their front lines, but in many ways our mothers felt it was too late for them.  My mom still cooks every meal for my father to this day.  She irons for him, cleans for him, plans the calendar for him to complain about it – all while she’s still working at her job.  In my house my mom bought up all of the women’s press books she could find for little girls.  I loved those books.  Girls can build boxes too!  Girls have imaginations.  Girls can become anything.  It was so empowering!  But there was a negative side to it also. It came through comments and snickering about “never working for the man”.  I held my mom up high and never questioned the logic behind her angry venting words, “Don’t let a man treat you like his slave.  Don’t cook for him – make him make it himself.”  

I was too little to know she was just venting.  She kept it up my whole life so how could I know the difference?  Even newspapers had articles with women fighting hard for their right to work and “Mr. Mom” was a funny look at the role-reversal supposedly happening across America.  So we thought…. 

It’s only now, now that I’m single and 36 years old, that I realize all of my amazingly beautiful women friends are all single with me.  We have each other, but we all know it isn’t enough.  We want to have a relationship, care for a family and  keep our great careers.  We want it all.  We were told we could have it all.  We were taught that if we worked hard enough that we could have it ALL. 

Let me illustrate the point a bit better.  This past week I’ve been hosting a lovely, intelligent, and amazing woman from Italy.  She came to clear her mind of a man she loved and lived with for 9 years.  He left her for a woman he met through an Internet dating site.  Only six months after the break-up her ex-mate is getting married.  Did my amazing woman-friend really pale in comparison?  Well, as we got to the heart of the matter it turns out her mother taught her the exact same valuable lessons as mine.  ”You don’t need a man to make you happy”.  BUT between the street protests and the front lines inside our homes we got the message all mixed and it’s been taken too far.  In fact, we’ve been doing what our mothers said.  ”Your fine on your own – you don’t need a man.” and “Let him work for it if he wants to be with you.”  But while we were getting these messages our male counterparts were not.  Sure, they may come from Single Mother Households, but their mommy still did everything for them.  Okay, sure there are exceptions, but as a general rule the men our age did not jump many generations of ideology.  They saw mom doing everything.  When did that change?  To them it did not.  

For example, my Italian friend protested cooking for a man – just like me.  Which ultimately means she, like me, refused to cook period.  The scars run deep – our mothers across the globe from one another can’t understand how we’re still single and where did WE go wrong?  And suddenly it hit me – I wasn’t raised to be an equal partner.  I was raised to loathe anything that felt like, smelled like, tasted like, and was housework – “the woman’s place”.  My lost generation was taught that men should do their own laundry, their own cooking, their own cleaning.  Where is the partnership in that?  Is this the reason my friend is now single?  

The fact is that we are all single for many reasons and these are only a part of those reasons, but it does make me wonder how deep this goes.  One of my 41-year old friends was crying recently that none of her relationships pan out. When I suggested she make the call or bring him something nice she flat refused and defiantly said, “I would NEVER be the first to call” or “Why doesn’t he bring me something first?”.  I did the same in my past 3 failed relationships.  I put my career first and foremost (as I should).  BUT I stood my ground with no cooking, ironing, or doing his clothes.  No foot rubs when he comes home from work and if he got a back rub I’d ask where mine was.  It’s just as bad as having a cleaning house-chart when there are no kids.   That’s not equality.  Refusing to bring pleasure to a partner based on principle alone is a type of grandstanding which I now see has no place in a relationship.  

I’m not suggesting we throw feminist ideologies away.  Far from it.  And I’m certainly not suggesting that I wait on someone or become their maid.  But true equality means that I am happy and willing to pull my share with cooking, cleaning, ironing, etc.  We’re a team right?? If I don’t start acting like I’m a team in my next relationship then I’ll be right where I am right now – single, except older.  My ex-mate gave me great insight into this today.  He said, “You’re so independent in every other aspect of your life, but when it comes to personal life you can’t even take good care of yourself.  Think how much healthier you’d be if you cooked your own meals.”  

I was raised on frozen meals and take-out, but now that times are leaner and my health much more frail I need to learn how to cook for ME.  I need to know how to save a penny around the house for ME.  I need to throw out all of those underhanded remarks my mom made about housework and understand she was mad as hell and she didn’t want to take it anymore.  But my lost generation has gone to far – we’ve swung completely the opposite direction in protest of what we saw our mothers doing for our fathers.  I’ll never give up my passion for my work, but I now understand that if I learn how to cook I’m not giving up anything.  I’m just saying I want to be a team and I actually do like the idea of marriage, thank you very much mom.

But Mama, I love you so much and I am so grateful you’ve helped me to become ME.  I do not regret a single word you said.  I listened to everything and took it all in.  I only wish that I learned this lesson a bit sooner.  

Written by Tara Veneruso.  August 16th, 2009.