In too many places, baby-making is still all women are considered good for. The Handmaid’s Tale didn’t just come from the mind of Margaret Atwood. Women have been regarded this way throughout history and continue to be, all across the globe. My mom has been reading the book Searching for Sappho. In it, the author talks about how in Ancient Greek society, women would usually be married off by 12 years old and have their first child shortly thereafter. They believed that the older a woman got, the more likely she was to die in childbirth or suffer other complications.

In reality, these girls’ bodies were too underdeveloped to carry and give birth to children. They were still children themselves. The men, however, weren’t expected to get married until they were in their late 20s or early 30s. This, too, was for practical reasons: it gave the men a chance to build a foundation with which to support a family. But it also gave them a chance to live their lives and figure things out — an opportunity which too often is still not granted to women.

Raised in the Patriarchy

My family and I often talk about the degree to which men are allowed to take up all the time and space they need to find and be themselves. Starting at a young age, boys are allowed to play and explore while girls are expected to stay inside and at home, helping their mothers with chores. As boys grow up, they expect this kind of freedom to be sustained. And as their hormones kick in, this energy can turn destructive quickly, if not tempered with guidance.

My mom and I just watched the 1986 Rob Reiner film Stand By Me, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novella The Body. In it, four young boys approaching junior high venture off to look for the body of a missing teen presumed dead, after inadvertently overhearing a tip from one of the boys’ older brother. As they trek the 20 miles to the location, they learn a lot about themselves and each other (and take a lot of unnecessary risks along the way). The relationship between two of the boys in particular, Chris (River Phoenix) and Gordie (Wil Wheaton) is very moving. There is genuine care and camaraderie between them — love, really — which is rarely depicted among men.

Contrasting that is the gang of older boys, who seem to exist only to wreak havoc among themselves and amidst the town at large. They drive along an empty road, smashing mailboxes with a baseball bat, play chicken with a truck full of lumber, and bully the younger boys mercilessly. There is no care there — no regard, even, for basic human decency. This is the dark side of male “freedom”: entitlement, cruelty, and destruction.

The Dichotomy of Womanhood

Whenever we watch a movie like this, that focuses so heavily on the narrative of men, we remark (time after time) how few stories like this exist of women and girls. Part of the reason is that we haven’t been given the chance to live that same kind of life. Our stories often start and end in the home, being passed from father to husband, assuming the role of only daughter, wife, or mother. We seem to have no identity beyond that, unless we decide to be a “career woman.”

At almost 26, as I think about how I want my life to unfold, this societally-prescribed dichotomy relentlessly crops up in my periphery. I can’t help it. I do perceive myself as a strong, independent woman. I understand the history of women’s oppression, and I see the rippling effects of it on my family to this day. Women are not free. We may have more rights, but they are always in danger of being snatched away. The idea of a woman’s true sovereignty over her own body is younger than my mom. Here are a few “strides” made between then and now in the United States:

1973: The case of Roe v. Wade grants women the choice to get an abortion without government interference.

1974: The Equal Credit Opportunity Act grants women the right to have credit in their own name.

1993: Marital exemptions from rape cases are removed in all 50 states (meaning it was declared unconstitutional to differentiate between marital and non-marital rape).

2020: We elected the first female Vice President, Kamala Harris.

The Fragility of Women’s Rights

As we are seeing specifically with the case of Roe v. Wade, it is frighteningly easy for these “privileges” to be taken away when enough people (specifically men) in power oppose them. This is exactly what happened in the “fictional” world of The Handmaid’s Tale.

For those unfamiliar with the book and/or series, The Handmaid’s Tale follows the story of June Osbourne who is one of thousands of women taken captive in a religion-driven siege of the United States. The founders of what comes to be known as Gilead are concerned by the plummeting birth rates in the United States, and so take it upon themselves to ensure breeding remains sustained. They achieve this by taking healthy, fertile women captive and enslaving them as “Handmaids” within the household of one of the founding couples (known as Commanders and Wives) to be used as breeding mares via rape by the Commander. The babies they conceive and carry are ripped away from them, along with any children they already had, who are assigned to new homes to be raised in the ways of Gilead. It is a horrifying examination of the way women are viewed and treated by society, and a fierce refutal of the idea that “it can’t happen here.”

It can and it has.

While not enforced this harshly across the board, this is largely how mothers are treated in nearly every society. Any sense of self is given up once you’ve given birth, and it is demanded that you be thoroughly present for your child — or if not, hand them over to someone who can care for them while you pursue your career, assuming you have the financial bandwidth to do so. These shouldn’t be the only options.

I envision a world where our systems are so interwoven and our relationships so interdependent that mothers don’t have to struggle on their own so much of the time, just to make ends meet.

Moving Towards Interdependence

When my family and I talk about me eventually having children (which I do intend to do when the time is right), we talk about us raising them collectively. My mom has always had it in her mind that she would be there to help, and I know that not everyone is so lucky. Too many are simply kicked out of the nest and expected to learn how to fly mid-fall. Or didn’t have a nest to begin with. Or were so eager to leave the nest that they didn’t allow themselves to develop fully before taking flight.

This American ideal of “independence” at all costs — it almost echos the cry of, “Give me liberty or give me death!” — is such an unnatural concept. Why should we suffer on our own, endlessly “pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps,” when we could invest in communities that support one another? This is one of the biggest holes in American society and American logic, and something that Courtney E. Martin addresses beautifully in her book, The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream.

We have this idea that this country was built on liberty and freedom, but in actuality it was the antithesis of that. The settlers that came here from Europe strategically killed and displaced the Native people, forcibly removed and enslaved people from Africa, and instituted their puritanical ideals as law, eventually going so far as to burn “witches” who dissented from their assigned roles in society.

We were never free.

We have always been under the thumb of the patriarchy, and we have to find a way to lift it off. Part of what’s kept women down for so long — specifically mothers — is that we are less able to mobilize due to our positions in society. There have been several attempts made, however, over the last couple of decades, with momentum building around the #MeToo movement and the 2016 election in the United States.

The most notable example of women’s powerful, strategic mobilization was on October 24, 1975, when 90% of women in Iceland participated in a “Women’s Day Off” to protest unequal pay and demonstrate their invaluable contribution to society. Ultimately, equal pay was granted by Iceland’s parliament, and it sparked further such movements internationally. This is great progress, but what we really need is an overhaul of the systems that keep women “in their place,” because otherwise we end up right back at square one, as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated.

The Great Power Imbalance

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, between February and April of 2020, 8.8 million women became unemployed, compared to 7.45 million men. And while that may not seem like a huge difference, there is a disproportionate burden placed on women to fulfill household responsibilities and care for children and/or elderly parents, taking them out of the job market for longer stretches of time, sometimes even permanently. And without that foundation, it’s easy for the rug to be pulled right out from under them and send them tumbling back to where they started — at the bottom.

Economic inequality is the biggest knot in the tangled mess that is gender inequity. Since women were not allowed to own property in their own names until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1848, and couldn’t build credit in their own names until 1974, it’s no wonder that we lag so far behind men when it comes to financial stability. Add to that the lack of opportunity to even make our own money in a career until the 1970s, as well as the family obligations that have held us back for generation after generation, and you’ve got a web of ensnarements that is painstaking to sort out.

What I want to see is more balanced responsibility among men and women, especially as it relates to raising children. For decades — centuries, even — among heterosexual couples, it has been assumed that the women would stay home and raise the children, while the men went off to make the money or otherwise support the family. It’s become increasingly clear that this creates a massive power imbalance that leaves women at a significant disadvantage if they find themselves in an abusive situation, or if they or their partner decide to get a divorce.

63% of single mothers in the United States are living in poverty.

Poverty is Life-Sucking

The Netflix show Maid addresses these dangers in a palpable and heart-wrenching way, as we follow our protagonist, Alex, trying to raise her daughter after fleeing an abusive marriage. She leaves her trailer home with next to nothing, and we watch her debate every purchase she must make before it is deducted from her remaining cash balance on the side of the screen.

Everyone in my family has known this feeling, especially my mom.

That painful realization that you can’t do all you wish you could do for your children, or your family, or simply yourself. The scraping and saving when you barely have enough to get by, or the overdraft fees you accrue because you weren’t paying attention to your bank balance. The fatigue you endure because you’re juggling multiple jobs, or balancing work and school, or going to school and raising kids. That visceral rush of relief when your food stamp balance is increased, and the subsequent ache because you know it just means you’re making less than before. The rushing to the food bank in your “free time” so you can feed your family, and then hauling the bags home alone. The fear and anger that flood in because you no longer qualify for low income benefits by a meager $100. The loss of hope for the future as your savings dwindle because you have to pay your rent, or utilities, or student loans, or medical bills, or car payment, or for gas, groceries, or toilet paper.

It is all of these mental gymnastics — physics calculated as you fly through the air — that leave single mothers strung out and shattered and unable to find their way out. For those without a nest egg or a community to support them, it is impossibly lonely. But even for those with a partner, it can still feel lonely when you’re the one expected to do all of the emotional labor, not only in relation to your child, but to your partner, as well.

It is the organizing meals and schedules, planning appointments, planning shopping trips, making brownies for the bake sale, going to the PTA meetings, navigating after school care, helping with homework, doing all of the networking and communication between parents so your kids can make friends, buying gifts for birthday parties, researching schools so your kid doesn’t just get lost in the system (if you’re privileged enough to even have that option) — all of the relational aspects of raising a child that go unpaid and unappreciated.

What We Need

We need more accountability among men. We need men to see what is needed before being asked. We need active and engaged partners, rather than the “fun uncle” just along for the ride or the workaholic who’s never home. We need a whole systems approach to the art of raising children, so that both parents can be both present and financially stable in their own right. This takes compromise and communication, and an understanding of the poisonous systems we are all fighting against.

Because it isn’t just women that the patriarchy harms — it’s men, too. It’s not getting to know your children because you were taught that your sole job was to “bring home the bacon.” It’s not feeling safe to express your feelings because you were bullied for crying by your father or “friends.” It’s bottling up these emotions until they explode and destroy your relationships with your family. It’s being in a constant state of comparison with the hot-shot who has the job, wife, house, salary that you think you deserve.

But these are not the things that make us happy, in the end. In her book, Ms. Martin talks about how the number one regret of those on their death bed is that they didn’t spend enough time with the people that mattered most. That they prioritized material objects over their relationships. I don’t want that to be my fate.

I want to build a life that is whole, where I am not just surrounded by, but connected to, my loved ones. Where I can be a part of my children’s lives, while also pursuing the career that brings me the most joy. Where I have a mutually beneficial partnership, and we support and affirm each others’ dreams, goals, and aspirations. Where I am constantly challenged to think, grow, and be the best version of myself that I can be, and feel safe to challenge my community in the same way. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

The Way Through

The way through is together, not each man on his own, ignoring the woman lugging their children paces behind him. I know it sounds idealistic, but I truly believe that we will find our way if we invest in each other and take the time to look behind to make sure the whole pack is there. We do not each belong on our own, but among a community. One that honors our independence, as well as our place among the group. One that encourages us to follow our dreams, even if it means providing stability for one another, each in turn. We are stronger not just in numbers, but in intention and a recognition of the strengths that each of us has to offer. We have the ability to overthrow the dominance and submission model touted by the patriarchy, and it will happen through conscious care and a commitment to the well-being of all people. And so it is.