Dear Kristina,
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Thank you so much for your short interesting post!
The following may help you understand why more and more often most successful women are single.
A few years ago, I bought a copy of this little-known book:
"Le corset invisible, Manifeste pour une nouvelle femme francaise", 2007, par Eliette Abecassis et Caroline Beaugrand
("The Invisible Corset, Manifesto for a new French Woman", 2007, by Eliette Abecassis and Caroline Beaugrand)
(It unfortunately doesn't seem to have been translated into English.
Not to be confused with at least two other books whose titles trickingly start with "The Invisible Corset".)
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Contents
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First part - The trap of feminism
Second part - Modern slavery
Third part - The invisible corset
Fourth part - Portraits of women
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Beginning
"The woman has changed. Relieved of her petticoats and corset, she now grapples with the multiple roles her new life assigns her. It was not that long ago that she was under the tutelage of her husband. Now she is free, mistress of her choices, single, divorced or remarried, with or without children, projected into an active life which offers her both new possibilities and new responsibilities. All the progress the society has made over the past century seems to have paid off, making a real difference in the life of women. But have they really improved it? The time has come to take stock of the status of women. After the advances desired by feminism and endorsed by law, the time has come to question the real progress made, and to ask the question: Do women now have a better life? More than yesterday, women are misunderstood, devalued. Mothers are exhausted, blamed, defeated at the end of the day. Women do not find their place, no longer have the time, have difficulty reconciling work and family life. More than yesterday, they don't think they are pretty enough, /
they are starved by diets. Terrified by their wrinkles, they live in fear of aging, and withdraw into themselves in the silence of their suffering. We wanted to understand why. Why do divorced women rebuild their lives in 7 years on average when men only need two? Why their career progression follows a lower curve. Why do women who marry in love find themselves on the verge of divorce a few years later, with young children. Why are many beautiful, smart, and professionally successful women alone in life. Why almost all women diet, even when they are thin. This book therefore speaks of women: Of their daily journey, of their expectations, of their aspirations, of their disappointed, and often silent hopes, of their discomfort, of their "mal-être", of their desires, of what makes them happy, of what fills their life, and also of what destroys it, /
day after day. Our ambition has been to reason freely, without ever worrying about political correctness. Our method borrows from psychology as well as sociology, economics, philosophy, demography, biology, or anthropology. But it is based, above all, on the testimonies of women, anonymous or not, whom we have welcomed and collected. Women who confided in us in sincerity, simplicity, without practicing cant, waffle, who trusted us. Throughout our investigations, our meetings, our interviews and our research, a multitude of questions arose. And one observation: The liberation of woman did not liberate her, on the contrary it enslaved her. We all remember Scarlett O’Hara who had to stop breathing when her nanny tightened her corset, so that she had the slimmest waist in the county. The corset, with the advent of feminism, has disappeared from our wardrobes.
Today our belly and our movements are free, and we can breathe. But our body and our mind are locked, compressed, atrophied in a corset more insidious than that of previous centuries, because it cannot be seen. Today we are in a corset, but an invisible corset. Today's female body is actually controlled by task exhaustion, diets and new beauty standards. Her mind, supposedly free from male domination, is in the grip of society at large, which seems to be conspiring against her. All these rules and norms are internalized. More than an accomplice in her own enslavement, the woman submits to it in a ruthless way: She has become her own executioner. In a society where no one dares no more to say anything, where women cannot find a place or time to be heard, we have decided to delve into the female discomfort to discover not only the symptoms, but also the causes."
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End
"The end of the invisible corset?
If feminism has been an indisputable progress for the condition of women, it has had perverse effects which plunge the woman into a historically unprecedented and unlivable situation. Society imposes on her the daily challenge of being the perfect woman, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect body. Nothing is forgiven her, everything is asked of her, and reproached. Feminism has not only failed in its attempt to liberate the woman by taking her out of the home, it has broken her knees by imposing the male field on her in addition to the sphere that has traditionally been vested in her, the home. By "liberating the woman", feminism has locked her into a multiplicity of roles which are incompatible with each other, and even contradictory: To work and take care of children, to earn money and to be a wife, to do the housekeeping job and be attractive in the evening, to be pregnant and be slim. Women occupy all roles. But these roles cannot be fulfilled concurrently, or even one after the other. Today, the woman must be a man and be a woman. No one can be two humans at the same time. Why demand it from the woman? We met women trapped, but all admirable for their courage, their will to get out of it, their perseverance, their generosity. Mature women who wonder, women who do not want to resign themselves. The condition of women today is no longer defined by submission and the problem of power, but by the invisible corset that every woman wears within her. Now she has to fight for her survival, to fight to finally be herself, at any age, to fight against herself and against society to get out of the invisible corset. The feminist woman is no more. The woman of today has gone beyond the struggle against the man. She needs the man. Even the seemingly strongest women have told us: They seem like they have it all, but they need the man. The situation of women can change: Not by warlike acts but by a revolution, which must be carried out by two. No, this time it will not be enough to burn the bras. Society needs to be committed to undoing this invisible corset. To liberate women, we must liberate the whole of society - and therefore liberate the man."
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What? You prefer a visible corset? Sigh… (Wink!)
Happy, Meaningful, Reflective, Warm Valentine's Day to you!
Charles