Exceptionalism

I've noticed that in some cases, ignorance is bliss, but in quite a few other cases, ignorance makes you do or say really absurd things with absolute conviction.The ignorance might be self imposed, mind you.
With all the technological advances of today,knowledge is literally at your finger tips.Type in something,anything on Google and a few thousand pages pop up with relevant information.So if you intentionally withhold yourself from availing of that cornucopia,then you have no one else to blame!
My,"Am I as tall as you now?" son is a vehicle watcher-I mean anything with wheels-it can fly or ride along roads(I think the navy doesn't impress him-except for the aircraft carriers!).We once conceived of a truck watching game while driving on I-5, where we would each guess the make of the 18 wheeler and once we overtook it,we would see if we won or lost. He still likes to play that game and has now started noticing that these vehicles are sometimes driven by women! It causes him great wonder and to me it is amusing to see that an american kid finds it novel to see a woman driving an 18 wheeler.
As much as women haven't shattered the glass ceiling yet,even here in the US, this is a far more liberating and open minded place for women to thrive in.Considering what is going on in India right now,this is heaven!!Yesterday I was explaining to him that women can do almost anything men can-maybe not the heavy lifting because physically they are not built like men-but pretty much anything else.And women have the unique capacity to carry a child and that becomes a boon and a bane to women and that single fact can make or break a woman's path in life.
I read an article on Yahoo about a White House reporter and her difficulty in pumping breast milk for her child while at work- and her inability to find  a place to do it in peace and without any embarrassment.
A friend sent me an article written by Chetan Bhagat in the Times of India,extorting Indian women to slow down and not run an imaginary race in their heads.
We have stereotypes and to break that mold is considered very rebellious and no one wants to do it alone.Whenever I hear about women who are hesitant about leaving their kids and going to work, I always wonder, short of that job ensuring their next meal, do they really have to go? Ignorance on my part right?
Why should a job be just a source of income?Why  not a source of pride, fulfillment and comradeship?Why is the comfort and happiness of the child the responsibility of the mother alone?We do have dads pitching in a lot these days,but still .....While I have to concede that total and absolute equality is unattainable(until men become seahorses!!),one can aim for something close to that.The gender lines are blurring dramatically and I think people like Sheryl Sandberg are paving the way for that to happen.Women have always given in and moved aside when the choice had to be made, and now, I think it is our turn to expect the favor to be returned.
But there will always be people who in their quest to be taken seriously,end up damaging the cause.
Case in point:
This woman who wrote an article for yahoo titled"10 Mildly Shallow Reasons to Breastfeed"-in a parenting section nonetheless!
The article was crude,crass and so tasteless that La Leche League will have to spend millions to repair the mess.
She had really valid points,but verbalized so vulgarly that anyone reading it will end up formula feeding their babies-just to get the horrible images she implies out of their minds!Without going into great detail,I can tell you that she in a weird way objectified the whole process in such a vulgar way that perverts out there could have a field day with it.The child-birthing process,the physical changes following that,the  resumption of the ovulation process-nothing was left untainted.The irony was that every one of her points made sense-but put forth the way they were,felt invalidated.The link was removed the very next day-someone has sense I see,but the damage was done.
And this whole process of demonstrating naked just to imply that women should be safe to walk around anyway they want in a crappy neighbourhood in the middle of the night?Really?I don't think they end up convincing anyone-in actuality they end up riling more people and making it worse for every woman.
And then there is the shocker:
Former Lehman Brothers CFO Erin Callan has written about regretting putting her career ahead of her personal life-she had her marriage break up on her,no kids and in general seems to feel that her prioritizing her career over her life has not been worth it.
So which one is better?Can we have it all?
I am getting a headache just thinking about it.Maybe a couple of generations down the line,labor on the homefront will be more equally distributed,but for now-women face this dilemma everyday-and plod on-in the hope that what they do might make a difference in another woman or girl's life.