Movie Quote about Being a Woman

Through Netflix, Mc and I are watching some old classic movies that I've wanted to watch for a while. One of them was the 1950 movie "All About Eve" and the main woman said something that's stuck with me ever since we watched it. Her character has been a very well-known stage actress for many years, but she's 40 years old now and she is coming to grips with the fact that in 10 years or so her career will be over and she's wondering what will be left when that's over. Here's what she said:

"At best let's say I've been oversensitive to, well, to the fact that she's so young, so feminine and so helpless; so many things I want to be for Bill. Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. That's one career all females have in common, whether we like it or not: being a woman. Sooner or later we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted. And in the last analysis nothing's any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed and there he is. Without that you're not a woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings; but you're not a woman."

Feminists would hate that quote, I'm sure: the thought of needing a man to make yourself feel like a woman and that your career means nothing... at least that's how they would interpret it. But that's not what she's saying. What she's saying is that your title doesn't make you who you are; you might be a senior executive or a manager of a company, but you're still a woman, and you need to work at that too. If you look across the table or roll over in bed and your husband isn't happy, or isn't there, you're not doing your job as a woman; you haven't worked at it enough. We are supposed to be a "helpmeet" for our husband, and if we've failed at that, it doesn't matter what success we've had in our other careers.

Granted, this movie was made in 1950. Some people might say, "That was over 60 years ago; things are different now." They're right, things are different now... and look at the divorce rate in our country. Look at the number of children growing up in broken homes. This is going to sound harsh, but unless the man is a jerk or a scumbag, the fault of this is on the woman. Good men who are happy at home don't go looking for happiness elsewhere or with someone else. We're in the feminazi era where as a woman it's all about your own career, your own goals and desires, and any man or children who get in the way or want you to be more of a "traditional" woman or mother can take a flying leap off a bridge (while it's awesome to have goals, we shouldn't sacrifice our marriage or family to accomplish them). We're pressured to be competitive and to want the jobs that men typically have, to "pull our own weight" by adding to the family income. "Nurturing" as a feminine trait has been reduced to the equivalent of a four-letter word. Staying home to raise your children is considered old-fashioned, or worse, unnecessary. Working to have a happy marriage and doing things to make your husband happy are low on the priority list.

I'm not suggesting we as women need to adopt the "Leave it to Beaver" wife/mother image; the woman who said the quote above was far from being like that. But she understood the need to embrace what it is to be a woman, to be feminine, to let our man be the man of the house and to do what we can to make him happy. Some men are not worth keeping; that's up to your judgment. But if your man is worth keeping, keep him happy and he'll stay; it's that simple. All couples have problems here and there-- that's unavoidable-- but if you work on yourself and at the marriage, you can work through problems before they become big stumbling blocks. Being a woman, with all the complexity that this entails, is worth exploring and embracing.