Madam, – It is a truth universally acknowledged that a women in possession of a married man must be yearning to lie around at home until mid-afternoon, according to Sarah Carey’s article (Opinion, July 16th).
Ms Carey writes: “Of course the option of marrying a man with a good job helped broaden the options for women, but that’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to say out loud.”
There are several reasons why one should not say such a thing out loud.
The main one being that such a phrase perpetuates essentialist ideas of gender that social activists, politicians and theorists have been trying to deconstruct for over half a century.
It portrays the public world of the workplace as a scary “macho testosterone-fueled” sphere from which women immediately flee as the male conversation soars over their pretty little oestrogen-filled heads.
They run breathless back to the feminine, domestic sphere of the home where they “swan” around occasionally cleaning, enjoying warm beverages and sending e-mails (a modern day equivalent of feathery Victorian hand-written letters).
However, domestic bliss is destroyed as unemployment grips the country and men are forced to spend time with their brainless wives.
Luckily for them, women thrive in recession times and redundancy does not rattle a hair in their heavily-set perms.
They set up their own friendly mini-companies limited to the service, education and personal development industries.
According to Ms Carey, one such “small business” is her column-writing.
In her eyes, this may be a “low-risk” venture; however what she seems to have missed is that this particular enterprise comes with an overarching responsibility.
By sitting at home and tapping out short-sighted, incoherent columns, under the guise of what women really think, she is taking gender equality and flushing it down the toilet. – Yours, etc,