Human sacrifice in modern times

Yes, in this case the "human sacrifice" I'm referring to is symbolic. But it's a sacrifice all the same.

In her book, Slaying the Mermaid: Women and the Culture of Sacrifice, Stephanie Golden outlines the famous fairy tale of how a mermaid fell in love with a human. She gives up her voice and her immortality for legs and the chance for life with him.

In all of the mythology of fairy tales, there isn't a male version. As the author explores, in depth, sacrifice is a female trait.

Unwitting, not unwilling

In the "siren song" myth, she has all the power. It's a myth.

It's not framed that way, of course. Women are praised for giving things up for love.

It is considered both a part of their nature and a willing expression of their devotion.

What kind of mother are you to not do your utmost for your baby?

What kind of wife are you to not let your career get put on hold for pregnancy or your husband's prospects?

What kind of daughter are you to not do anything asked of you by your aging parents?

What kind of employee are you to not agree to take on that extra work the boss needs right away?

The deceptive ease of saying "no"

The classic response is to claim that women could just say "No" to these things. No one is making them do this!

It's not a literal gunpoint situation. But in a way their life is at stake. Of course they can say "No." And buck a lifetime of social programming that says if we do, we'll be considered a selfish, uncaring, woman not worthy of love.

In the many many times I have posed this question, I have never had a woman respond with "Just say No!" Because women know it's not that simple. It is men who say such things, because they have their own social programming; the one that says, A man does whatever he wants to do.

Of course, that gets them into trouble, too. It's just not the same trouble.

When I say, "Women are expected to sacrifice," it has a starkness that prompts denial in the listener, be they man or woman. But if I phrase it as, "A mother should do everything for her baby," it's approving nods all around.

Because if we want to do it, it's not a sacrifice! Which is the very trap women fall into with their eyes wide open. Love is a very powerful emotion, and in Western culture, one that women are allowed to feel, freely and openly.

But how they can express it turns out to be full of fences.

Sacrifice and stress

At its most extreme, as in the patriarchal Quiverfull movement, women are allowed some autonomy in the domestic sphere only. She can run a home-based business, but only under the permission and "headship" of her husband, father, or other male guardian. She is responsible for child raising, but with male children being encouraged to reinforce her subservient position when still quite young. It is a highly stressful situation of low control and high responsibility.

With such a stark example, it's easy to dismiss lesser forms of coercion. Especially since 21st century fathers are far more likely to share household chores and childcare, with increasing marital satisfaction as a result.

Over all, the evidence shows that the shifts within marriages — men taking on more housework and women earning more outside the home — have had a positive effect, contributing to lower divorce rates and happier unions.

But for women who are dealing with menopause now, that probably wasn't the case. Our teen years roughly coincided with the rise of second-wave feminism. The controversial fact that "women were people" clashed, sometimes roughly, with the kinds of prevailing attitudes that were so shocking when depicted on Mad Men. When I was a child, women were not allowed their own credit cards, to keep their job if they were pregnant, get a no-fault divorce, or call sexual harassment what it was.

I had to flee 1,200 miles to settle in a place that encouraged more egalitarian marriage structures. I had to make that a priority and be willing to uproot myself to find better soil for my ambitions. I was also a computer professional from the time there were computers in common office use, and so I avoided more traditional views of women in more established professions. And it still wasn't easy.

Prior to women's liberation, a woman was supposed to willingly put herself last every day in order to take care of her husband and family. Love is what drove them to do so. And it is genuine love.

I'm just not sure about the "willing" part. Because the women who signed up for this in their teens and very early adulthood didn't realize what was truly being asked of them.

The short straw

Not every woman reaches her mid-years with a sense of being cheated, just as 25% of women seem to sail through their menopause with no symptoms. Yet that leaves a very large number of women who confide the un-discussed dilemma of any woman who devoted her entire self to her family:

Now that the kids are growing up, they don't have time for me any more. And now that the kids aren't around, my husband acts like I don't have any purpose in the family, and he resents giving me any money that isn't for groceries. I don't have any job skills, I never had any time to get into a hobby, and now I just keep house for room and board?

I really liked my job, and I wanted to see what I could do. But my husband had to move to help his career, and it paid more, and so I worked part-time, and mommy tracks, and didn't keep up with my schooling. I'm twenty years out of date and he seems to resent that I'm not making nearly as much as he is. All that cleaning and cooking and child care is in the past and now it just doesn't matter?

My girls want to get married and have babies with me taking care of them while they work, and I see the whole thing starting all over again. How can I tell my daughters that they will just come home to another work shift if they don't marry with better expectations than I did? How can I tell my family that it's time for me to have my own life? I don't even know what that is.

Even acknowledging such feelings cuts sharply against the grain of how much love a woman can genuinely feel for her family. With the best intentions in the world, she devoted herself to them, creating the happy, independent, lives they now enjoy.

So it hurts very deeply to discover they don't seem to understand what she did for them. They can be alternately clueless and defensive. Didn't she want to do it?

What she wanted was to love and care for her family. But if the only way to do that is to become everyone's servant, without any outlets for her own ambitions and interests... how many women sign up for that, knowingly?

When the deal is put out there this truthfully... not many.

Women are retreating from marriage as they go into the workplace. That's partly because, for a woman, being both employed and married is tough in Asia. Women there are the primary caregivers for husbands, children and, often, for ageing parents; and even when in full-time employment, they are expected to continue to play this role. This is true elsewhere in the world, but the burden that Asian women carry is particularly heavy. Japanese women, who typically work 40 hours a week in the office, then do, on average, another 30 hours of housework. Their husbands, on average, do three hours. And Asian women who give up work to look after children find it hard to return when the offspring are grown. Not surprisingly, Asian women have an unusually pessimistic view of marriage. According to a survey carried out this year, many fewer Japanese women felt positive about their marriage than did Japanese men, or American women or men.

Unless one was there, in the late 20th century, it might be difficult to understand how women were denigrated for showing an interest in feminism and equal rights. My own circumstances pushed me out to the cutting edge.

Women without clear talents in open professions, women who had trouble finding any liberated men to date, women whose relatives and hometowns and religions were extremely negative about stepping outside of their domestic role; such women felt that if they wanted a good marriage and a happy family, they had to do so in a "traditional way."

They thought they were choosing the old order, where they were supposed to be revered for devoting themselves to family and motherhood, only to discover that by the time they hit mid-life, new expectations were in operation. These women are supposed to act as though their lives are their own responsibility now.

A whole generation of women got ground up in a giant culture shift. That wasn't supposed to be the deal.