The goat (Part 2)

Both my mum and her sister finished secondary school, which is somewhat unusual for women of their generation. But I wonder how much of that had to do with my grandad truly believing that they deserved education or the fact that because he was a school headmaster and therefore of a higher social standing, any daughter of his should be distinguished from the 'uneducated peasants'. My maternal grandparents unapologetically favoured their male children - they were never mean or neglectful towards their female ones, but there was never the same sense of pride, hope and expectation showed to their daughters that they showered on their sons.

Bizarrely, my grandmother always put more faith and trust in her sons than her daughters. In fact when things when pear-shaped during my grandad's illness and subsequent death, it was her daughters that sorted her finances, organised and supervised the renovation of her house when my grandad couldn't manage the stairs and the kitchen got eaten by termites. On the other hand, my grandmother is always immensely proud when she sees women driving on their own or when her (very single) granddaughters drive five hours to come and pick her up with no help or supervision from a man. And who can forget my grandad's face streaming with tears of pride when his feckless granddaughter comes home from university with just a mere title of medical student to her name? I wonder what he would have said if he had lived long enough to see me graduate.

Perhaps because my grandparents never expected much from their female progeny that they feel so proud when we achieve what I perceive to be so little. I took it for granted that I would go to university. Both my parents went and I certainly did not lack in brains. Come to think of it, my mother was luckier than most. To finish her sixth-form education she moved three states away to what was then the top boys school in the country. She was one of a handful of girls doing sixth form and she did well enough to go to university. There are many of my mother's generation, not unintelligent women, who would be grateful for the educational oppurtunities that the women today have. Some, still sigh a sigh of regret that they didn't get to do what they, as a youngster, had dreamed of doing. They may not have been successful, but I think they would have liked the oppurtunty to try. Does it make them angry when young women like me whine and moan and throw away our chances?

You can't blame people in generations past for how they managed things can you? After all, when life was tough, you had to have a division of labour in order to get things done. It made sense that the one who wasn't child-bearing and child-rearing go get educated or bring home the metaphorical bacon. Did it mean the one who stayed at home was subservient to the other? How little credit we do give mothers. Ever heard of the phrase 'The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world'?

I don't think women can entirely escape our biological compunction to have children, nor change the essential nature of ourselves. We are always going to be different from men. Women are always going to be the ones that carry and give birth to children. We are always going to need time off from work to do all those things. The burden of childcare is mostly going to fall on the women's shoulders.

Should I have not been educated so highly in the first place if all I was going to do was 'throw it all away' and stay at home and produce kids? Is producing and bringing up kids so menial a task? If it is, we might as well leave it to monkeys. (Though with the way that some human beings bring up their children, the children would have probably been safer with monkeys anyway). As much as I whinge about my mum, I think I am a better person because of what she has taught me. Now, did my mum become a better mother just because she got herself a university degree? That can't be true because lots of people with degrees are jackasses anyway. I think it's because she was allowed to develop. To stretch herself, to test boundaries. To allow herself to be defined in other ways besides just 'woman'. She need not have gone to university to have done that. But it was one way to do it, and my mother was inclined to it. My grandfather may have been a chauvinist but when my mum proved that she could hack it, he gave her the support she needed.

But you know, not everyone has to be a scientist. You don't have to get a shit-ass degree just to prove yourself. You don't have to be married by the time you're 25 to show that you're not an unwanted spinster. You don't have to climb the career ladder while juggling three kids to show that you can have it all. I don't have to aspire to have a million and one publications to prove I'm a good doctor. (Err..but it helps though)

What is the point I'm trying to get at here? I'm not sure. My initial vertigo at the thought that my profession was some form of 21st century dowry has changed into a rather scrambled musing of women's education. So what if some people think that my education was some bizarre way of attracting a husband. So long as I don't go around thinking it. Somebody will always knock your confidence. Somebody will always make you doubt yourself. That senior colleague you have a crush on will always keep calling you kid. Shit happens.

Just don't throw in the towel.