Things are not great at the moment. The housing and cost-of-living crises have dovetailed together into something we don’t have a word to describe. Omnishambles? Permacrisis?
The threat of artificial intelligence (AI) looms. Rent has gone up. House prices have gone up. Graduates can’t find a job or a place to live. We are up the creek without a paddle, wearing wet socks.
Things are particularly bad for young women. But we cannot let them get so bad that they believe the only solution is marriage. Young people are up against it from every angle. They can’t rent their own place when single rooms in Dublin cost more than €1,000. Entry level jobs seem harder to get. They have to sit through multiple interviews. Suffering “screening” rounds with AI, as if begging for work from a human wasn’t embarrassing enough. Complete “tasks” for the company. For free. For the place that hasn’t even hired them yet.
If they do land a job, it’s likely to be at an entry-level salary that has not gone up with the price of everything else. I found a trainee role offering the same amount I had received a decade ago, back when you could buy a vodka and Red Bull for €3 or get a full set of acrylic nails for €15. Younger generations are doing well to face their predicaments with enough humour to mock millennials and make Heated Rivalry memes.
READ MORE
Slogging away on long commutes from childhood bedrooms into jobs that don’t pay enough to plan a future would wear anyone down. Which probably explains the rise of tradwife and “stay-at-home girlfriend” content on social media as fantasy escapism. “Feminism failed women” is the message of some creators. We did everything feminism told us to do. We got an education. A good job. But we don’t feel free. We don’t have enough money. We can’t buy a house. We’re frazzled and burnt out. There is no village and our working conditions were designed with the presumption that all employees have full-time wives at home. Why else would work go from 8am-6pm but school 9am until 2-3pm? But it is still feminism’s fault.
It is hard to knuckle down and tell ourselves things will get better when they might not. It’s easier to imagine a man is the solution. The TikTok feed is populated with different fantasy futures. The “Pilates Princess” who does classes in the middle of the day in cute co-ordinated Lycra sets. The “Range Rover Mom” who picks her children up from school with a fresh blow dry in a car that’s way too big for suburbia. The aspirational desire to avoid work. No Slacks, Teams or Zooms. No micromanagers or checking emails on the weekend. A life ungoverned by rosters and annual leave requests. No more rushing. Just focusing on family. On cleaning. Getting to do all those little jobs.
I too have fallen into the trap of thinking my best self lives on the other side of unemployment. I was trying to get a TV show to air. Heart hammering. Stressing and sweating into a green suit looking like Elphaba from Wicked if she became a real estate agent. Looking at a group of women enjoying a long lunch in the middle of a work day wearing huge diamonds, and wondering if I’ve stuffed this all up.
But as hard as it gets, I love having the financial means to leave my relationship at any time for any reason. I’m the first woman in my bloodline to experience that freedom and I do not take it lightly. An opinion piece published in another Irish newspaper this week arguing against blanket no-fault divorce suggested our grandparents’ generation may have been happier in their marriages. Yet grandmothers feel the need to warn us to hide money “just in case” and “never tell your husband how much money you have”.
[ The dark side of the tradwife trend that sees women return to ‘domestic bliss’Opens in new window ]
The author suggested couples could subscribe to different levels of marriage, including one “with no possibility of divorce”. While it’s an interesting argument, I’ve spent too long reporting from the courts and witnessing how dangerous it can get for women when they decide to leave but can’t. How drawn out legal proceedings can be weaponised.
I personally cannot afford to take the advice of someone who owns a handbag worth tens of thousands of Euro. Not because her (excellent) taste undermines her as a person. But because I probably do not have her level of financial resources to depend on if things went bad in a marriage and I couldn’t get out.
We know women cannot have it all. But we cannot go back. We cannot lose freedoms chasing a fantasy.
