I wonder, should I take great pains to create an essay or just blog my feelings on this whole womanhood thing? The fact that I’m starting out with that question should give you the answer. I’m in the mood to spill my feelings, not organize them all into neat little packets that carefully lead the reader through the point I want to make.

When I was very little, I thought the question had been answered. Now, a woman was barred from no job she wanted. Any dream I had, I could pursue thanks to those who went before me. I even had no idea just how much had been fought for and won. Nor did I realize how complicated it was.

It is way more than one group of people giving another group of people some rights and/or recognition that everyone should have.

It’s about our bodies. Being mothers or wanting to be, and being physically weaker than men though more emotionally and socially aware. And having brains that explore beyond our nurturing, mother goddess nature.

Apart from any conflict in society, we are conflicted within ourselves. Both desires, for many of us women, exist. Wanting to be excellent at both is part of it.

And that’s a big part of why it sometimes feels unfair no matter what society does. Because society can’t overcome our biology. A lot of tried, by denying the fact that men and women are different. But the data is obvious. We are different. We are wired to want to nurture. To cuddle and nurse babies. To comfort. We are more necessary to a very young child than a man is. So when a man is doing the right thing, making a living for his family, if he has played the game right he can be following his career dreams while being a good father. But a woman must give up some of her motherhood – let some other woman take care of her child – to do the same thing unless it involves staying at home. But even then, balancing career and motherhood generally requires more work than career and fatherhood. Though, of course both men or women could fail at the balance.

It just isn’t fair and there is nothing that even the most sensitive and thoughtful man can do about it.

So it really isn’t worth getting angry at men for that. It isn’t worth getting angry at each other.

Anyway, so I get conflicted sometimes. And irritated about it sometimes. And very grateful that my natural inclinations have lead me to writing.

Maybe some solutions: Stop thinking that 20 years old is too young to marry and have children. Because it isn’t. I have no regrets about my “early” marriage. Put children chronologically ahead of career and the biological clock stops being an issue. Younger mothers are less prone to health issues of middle age, easier to get pregnant, have more energy, and closer to childhood so that we can remember what we were thinking when we were very young. Also, though we might make a lighter class load, we can usually combine young motherhood with school since the actual hours away from home are few and can be flexible. By the time the children are all in school a still young woman can get a job. Having children young does not have to equal lack of education, being a mistake, or anything like that.

Be more open to children being in the workplace when it’s possible and try to make it possible.

So, anyway… just a few of my one sided ramblings on the subject. My husband says that in fact, men are forced to work outside of the home or else they’re considered lazy.

On a more interesting note, I recently finished an article for a magazine and am working on another one. And then on the book. Plus, there are short stories to be edited and a couple of them in my head wanting to be written. Heard a really cool name on the radio that fits one of the characters in a story I’m going to rewrite.

Oh yes, and of the four I submitted I’ve gotten two rejections. Sent some back out, gotten a couple of others. A personal rejection with a send more, and a couple from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (hardest market to break into) that indicate the stories were fully read. Rejections, but positive. And so to forge onward.