Tag Archives: Fiction

Respect Dis-Respects | We Have to Pay the Piper

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 13 – People often think that giving to these rules is respect for the elderly. Forgetting there’s a price for it. A quicker decline for the elderly. And a frustration that affects personal relationships between the home manager and her family – especially her husband.

Poem: We Have To Pay The Piper

We have to pay the piper for all that we have got
if we don’t pay up when it’s due it’s gonna cost a lot.
He’s the one who sees the things we hide – the one who keeps the score
and when he thinks our payment’s due he’ll knock our every door.

Expectations of Love | Wanna

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 12 – MM realized then, that her husband had a very sub-conscious idea of love that was based on his upbringing. Where his mother had served and fetched as an expression of motherly love. These ideas went deep and created expectations that were in direct conflict with his desire to see his wife rest when she needed.

Poem: Wanna

I don’t wanna be the woman behind the man
let my dreams flow down the sink as I wash the pots and pans.
I don’t wanna be the woman who’s burning up inside
and sees dirt in the smile of her sisters eyes.

Home Organization | How To Be A Relaxed Housekeeper

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 11 – Better work-flow management in the kitchen reduced the number of dishes used when cooking. And she learned two important things that many of her friends didn’t yet know, or rather, didn’t completely have the skills to implement.

Bedtime Stories | Silver Line

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 10 – It was a childhood very different from families where motherhood is about complex meals and women are stuck in the kitchen with heavy cleaning after dinner. Or those where gender roles might keep men away from they joys of hand-on parenting and childcare. Or times like the current time, when the tremendous busy, the long working hours, and long commutes eat into family time and leave children lonely.

Secrets | The Colour of Gold

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 9 – To know that he treated her well only because her family had money, or were able to keep up a pretense of wealth. Loved because her family gave in to demands for gifts. Loved only because she finally had a boy child after two daughters. A woman remembers these things even when she pretends they don’t matter.

The New Woman | Paint the Town RED

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 6 – There were some digs and criticism that hurt. She learned it was okay to be childless as long as you were deeply unhappy about it. To accept what the God’s gave you and change your dreams accordingly, and be grateful and not ask for more? That, wasn’t acceptable she realized. One had to have children, or be miserable that one didn’t have children. There was no other acceptable option to some.

The Mother Wound | This Gift

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 5 – And because of the glorification of the mother that was so much a part of her family culture, she would feel deep guilt and self-recrimination. She would forget that being a mother doesn’t raise one to God-like perfection and take away one’s humanity – one’s fallibility.

Meet Microwave Madam’s Husband | The Keeper

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 4 – MM’s husband was a forward thinking man who lacked the skills needed to make his ideas on equality a daily reality. Two things in particular that made housework and endless task for MM with no weekly off – food habits and disorganization.

Equality at Home | A Wonderful Woman

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 3 – Gender equality within the larger family was another story. There differences with food and a hierarchy that decided who got offered the best. She was last on the list – a woman in a family where men ranked first, as well as a woman new to the family.