Mona Lisa Rarely Smiles
When I first came across Julia Roberts's early 2000s outing, Mona Lisa Smile, I was still quite young and not fully exposed to the vagaries of womanhood that come with age. So, years later when I was about to hit 30 in less than a year, my rewatch list needed a visit from the retro movie set in 1950’s USA. While some of the scenes remained etched in my memory — one that I got a refresher on was the conversation about marriage and dreams. Newly married Betty(a Spiderman fame Kirsten Dunst essaying another douchey character), and her best friend Joan (a stellar Julia Stiles), awe over a washing machine and dryer. The exchange made me pause the movie and come here to air my grievances openly. The underlying allusion was that marrying and setting up a household constitutes the end goal of every woman. No woman worth her salt can pursue anything else. Almost 70 years later, I know women who are still doing the same.
Now, before you preach to me how being a true feminist is about supporting different choices, I will stop you and state that I am not someone who prescribes to every brand of feminism out there. As I grew older and understood the nuances of different waves of feminism, I slowly developed a keener empathy with women who take unconventional life approaches. And that also includes not choosing to work post-marriage as much as it includes being an anti-natalist. By the same logic, I also empathize with the woman who chooses to work and seek financial independence. A recent post by a respected Muslimah whom I follow on social media, also made me stop and ponder for a good half an hour about the consequences of not engaging in paid labor. I say paid labor because being a homemaker is also a job — a job without any recognition or remuneration. A lot of detractors will state that the husband is the provider or even the father and the brother. My opposing stance to that is your provider may not always be there for you. No one is immortal — if I may be so bleak as to imply your male family member will pop off — leaving you in dire straits. But that’s not all that is possible, is it? Men abandon their spouses all the time. Brothers have their own families to take care of. And a motley of combinations that could affect the lives of dependent women if their provider suddenly disappears or disbands his responsibilities.
Additionally, think about how property struggles are tearing apart families in the South Asian diaspora. Incompetent men with spouses and children are inevitably at the mercy of their more successful siblings or even elderly parents. While I appreciate the importance of communal support for families and sharing one’s privileges with relatives, it's undoubtedly a no-brainer that the provider is being abused while the provider’s legitimate claimants and dependents are the ones being deprived.
Not having a job also impairs one’s social capital. In our society, paid labor is revered as wealth dictates one’s status. Women confined to kitchens or rather willingly managing housework are looked down upon. A lot of supporters of house-making females purport the importance of child-bearing and child-rearing even so much as to say that women are little more than child-makers. Some of course deify motherhood and allude to the sacrosanct duty of any woman to abide by her divine role of procreation. This is a point I wholly disagree with as both parents are needed for the child’s healthy growth and development. In a similar vein, it also makes sense to have both parents bearing the child’s duties as well as earning bread. Now, some women complain that they have no one to help them raise their children. To them I say, the father is the one who should be there to help you. After all, it takes a village to raise a child. Not just a mother.
And finally, I will spin the feminist yarn and talk about how its a waste of potential for the mother to throw away her whole life. The children never do grow up appreciating as it is. It also helps the child become a better individual when he or she empathizes with their working mother from a young age. Not only that, the sons of such mothers grow up better with more balanced understanding of gender roles and expectations. The flipside is also true, poorly raised sons are the results of bad mothers.
With all my rambling, I can say that women who still choose to find wisdom in engaging in unpaid labor have my respect but perhaps never my comprehension as to why they would do so. In today’s increasingly capitalistic and selfish world, it is every woman for herself. Hence, Mona Lisa rarely smiles, if at all. After all, a man painted her and we all know men just like well behaved women.
