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Golding's Dark Horse Collage Deb Wiles Deb Wiles is a multidisciplinary visual artist and writer who lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Presently she runs an art school from her home studio, and paints like a mad thing. You may check out her artwork, read press about her work, and / or contact her by visiting her website at www.debwiles.com |
Single Parenting, Gender, Autonomy, & the Real Meaning of Pussy Whipped
Nov. 21, 2008Deb Wiles
Being a single Mom is difficult labor intensive work. Single parenting demands that you think on your feet while multi - tasking past your point of endurance. Single women with no children cannot fathom what havoc single parenting reeks on one's autonomy.
Although some women chose to be single parents (I did), most don't, their marriages break up and most often they unceremoniously (and resentfully?) become a single Mom. Most single women imagine having a man in the picture, their future husband, and although they may imagine many things about who their husband will be, and how he will be, most women don't imagine that he will just be gone, leaving them with the children. Even though statistically this frequently happens to the modern family, for some dysfunctional reason we just can't come to terms with the facts, so continue to delude ourselves with illusions of manicured perfection. Even a whisper of the possibility of single parenting to a young single woman with her eye on the diamond may cause her to run to her bed and hide under the blankets, or at the very least she will cut her eyes at you to tell you that she knows you're just jealous of her brilliant youth and future.
Most single men with no children never bother to entertain the idea being a single parent in the future, the woman is a biological necessity, therefore they imagine her in the picture. When some single men think of having children, they don't consider that it will require them to sacrifice any more of their autonomy than they have to sacrifice to be with a woman. And we know autonomy is not something that men such as these like to sacrifice (and if they think of it at all, will consider it a birthright). The derogatory slang term "pussy whipped", generally slung by ignorant lazy irresponsible men at their opposites, is commonly meant to infer that a man is under the thumb of 'his woman' (the i.l.i. 's maintain the woman should be under the man's control). While in reality "pussy whipped" connotes a man who privileges interpersonal relationships & community, prioritizing the inherent responsibilities of each, above his fight flight singular autonomy.
Although some women chose to be single parents (I did), most don't, their marriages break up and most often they unceremoniously (and resentfully?) become a single Mom. Most single women imagine having a man in the picture, their future husband, and although they may imagine many things about who their husband will be, and how he will be, most women don't imagine that he will just be gone, leaving them with the children. Even though statistically this frequently happens to the modern family, for some dysfunctional reason we just can't come to terms with the facts, so continue to delude ourselves with illusions of manicured perfection. Even a whisper of the possibility of single parenting to a young single woman with her eye on the diamond may cause her to run to her bed and hide under the blankets, or at the very least she will cut her eyes at you to tell you that she knows you're just jealous of her brilliant youth and future.
Most single men with no children never bother to entertain the idea being a single parent in the future, the woman is a biological necessity, therefore they imagine her in the picture. When some single men think of having children, they don't consider that it will require them to sacrifice any more of their autonomy than they have to sacrifice to be with a woman. And we know autonomy is not something that men such as these like to sacrifice (and if they think of it at all, will consider it a birthright). The derogatory slang term "pussy whipped", generally slung by ignorant lazy irresponsible men at their opposites, is commonly meant to infer that a man is under the thumb of 'his woman' (the i.l.i. 's maintain the woman should be under the man's control). While in reality "pussy whipped" connotes a man who privileges interpersonal relationships & community, prioritizing the inherent responsibilities of each, above his fight flight singular autonomy.
