I was full-time wife and mom supporting my husband's demanding military career for two decades. Post divorce, I've struggled to make ends meet the entire time, in spite of having six years of college and still receiving alimony to this day, more than a decade later. This includes a stint of nearly six years of homelessness.
I also have a serious medical condition, so you can't blame it entirely on my gender. But I'm quite confident my gender is a significant factor in my intractable poverty.
My sons are incredibly loyal to me. They still live with me and tell me every single day "You're an awesome mom and I'm so glad you raised me."
I certainly don't regret raising them. But I'm extremely tired of being poor and also tired of listening to bullshit about how it's somehow not actually due to sexism.
Being told I'm being dismissive of the value of the work I lovingly devoted myself to for leaving a supportive comment about some other woman's writing is ...wow. I don't even have the words for this.
Like I said, women are damned if they do, damned if they don't. And I hope other people here see your reply as evidence of the kind of uphill battle I'm talking about.
It's quite the rarity these days for an American woman of my age who is college educated to have spent two decades as a homemaker. If I can't comment on the pitfalls involved in that without being attacked as disrespecting women, who the hell can?
Oh, I know: no one. Because the entire point is to make it impossible to escape the trap. The entire point of societal sexism is to keep women "barefoot and pregnant."