"Welcome home Honey! How was your day? Can I take your jacket? Let me get you a scotch...dinner will be ready in a few! Me? Oh I'm fine now that you're here! Yes, the kids...well they're washed up and in bed. Oh is that what you want? Okay...In the bedroom? The kitchen? Oh! Right here? Okay...let me get a pillow for my knees..."
You have just read my synopsis of what it seems everyman fantasizes about at one time or another: The Perfect Woman. You know who I'm talking about: a splash of Claire Huxtable, a little Florida Evans, and a whole lot of Vanessa Del Rio.
As a dating woman approaching thirty, I often ask myself: does this woman really exist? In my early twenties, I have to admit, I had dreams of becoming this woman. I wanted to be everything my man wanted from me and more. What I got was forty extra pounds of worry, isolation, and fear. In my mid twenties, while I was getting a graduate degree, I did my best to play the part only to be involved with a man who always wanted more.
As I approach 30, I'm letting that woman live where she belongs: in T.V.Land.
Were these images created to prevent normal working women from asking to be protected, cared, and provided for? Have we, as a nation, ruled by technology and television insisted on the "fantasy" of the perfect woman rather than the real thing? I wonder....
I am a woman. Bonified. Emotional. Resilient. Fragile. Verbose. Sensual. Graceful. Soft. Unpredictable. Spiritual.
I am also this woman: Assertive. Proud. Arrogant. Egotistical. Demanding.
How does a girl reconcile the two?
How, when the dating pool is flooded with folks who'd rather stick to old school pretentions about women, absent of new school traits, does a new school gal get a man?
You know, the woman Neo's talking about...Miss Independent. Notice, though, she isn't Mrs. Indpendent. So that begs the question...Is all the hoopla about independent women only a facade? Do men actually want to be with a woman who is demure, quiet, and who sticks to the old school gender roles?
Before you answer or jump to conclusions, just remember, the old school gal had nothing on the house or the car note. She wasn't able to help you strategize your way up the corporate latter, and no, she didn't feel comfortable letting the freak out....it was against her religion.
Come on...weigh in...New School Woman or Old School Gender Roles?
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