I read part of an article from Vogue here on The Huffington Post UK about Carla Bruni and her thoughts on feminism. And all I could think was YES YES YES! I applaud her for being one of the few who dares to be honest about loving to be a wife and a mother, being honest about not feeling the need to be a feminist.
She says, "We don't need to be feminist in my generation. There are pioneers who opened the breach. I'm not at all an active feminist. On the contrary, I'm a bourgeois. I love family life, I love doing the same thing every day." I 100% agree!
Now, before the feminists have a hissy fit over my ungrateful ways, in no way am I saying that what the feminists did for all women of today wasn't important or necessary. Of course it was and I thank them. I enjoy my right to be equal to men politically, economically and socially and if we didn't have those rights today, I would be out there fighting for them, that's for sure.
But now I also reserve the right to declare that, in my opinion, the feminists fight is over... the hard part is done and it's time to find a balance rather than claim our women's rights at any cost! Because there is a cost. The price of feminism is that family life takes a backseat and this is a price I'm not willing to pay. I understand that some women may happily pay this price to get ahead fast in business, but I think many pay the price because they feel they have to, not because it is their first choice.
I am a traditional sort of woman AND a business woman, in that order. I think women CAN be both, we just need to apply a bit of flexibility and if we're wives/partners and mothers first and business women second, we may not get to the top as fast as a single woman do, but we're rewarded with the gift that is a well rounded family life... and, dare I add, I think we're better business women for it.
My husband works six days a week - he normally has one day off midweek and he works shifts so he either gets up at 5.30am and comes home at 3.30pm, or he leaves the house at 2.30pm and comes home just before midnight. I work from home - I started my own business (which actually includes an online magazine the celebrates all things women, The Women Online) because one of us needs to be there for the children to make sure they're well looked after, dropped off and picked up from school, taken to after school activities, play dates, etc.
So with my husband's many and odd working hours, there's no way I would ever expect him to cook, clean, do the shopping or drive the kids around on a regular basis, that just wouldn't be fair on him, and certainly not if the reason I asked him to do those things, was to preserve my rights to equality.
So no "Ms" for me and no burning bras here. I put my family first in everything I do and I'm proud to be a wife and mother. My family matters more to me than anything and I'll do whatever's necessary to make my family life work, even if it means letting my husband go out to work to bring home the bacon while I'm doing all the domestic chores and the bringing up of our children and only putting on the business woman's cap between cooking, cleaning, homework, children's activities and other domestic duties.
Frankly, as long as all the jobs in our home and our family life get done, I don't really care which one of us do them... and that's equality, in my humble opinion.