So Now What?: Feminism Alive and Not So Well

As most anyone who knows me already knows, I was let go from my job when my employer found out I was pregnant. My job ended in late December, but I’m not due until March. It has now been almost two months since I’ve received any income. As you can imagine, losing that much of your income without the hope of being able to replace it is not just an adjustment, it’s downright scary. The reality is that employers don’t hire largely pregnant women. I’m out of hope for work until after I have the baby. Unfortunately that is the time all moms take time off work to be with their newborns, not necessarily before. I was given no choice in the matter so the income-less crunch has hit us hard and long before it should have.

Today, I’m scared. Like most people, we look at our finances and make decisions about expenses, but now that my unemployment money has run out (my former employer didn’t pay in, so there is no money for me to take out now), we are forced to face the harsh reality that we just don’t make enough. We just got a house, but other than that our expenses aren’t that much greater than they’ve been in the past. With the baby coming very soon, we are looking at increased expenses that simply cannot be cut. Do you have a knot in your stomach, yet? I sure do.

So the search has begun. Perhaps it should have begun a while ago, but now I can delay no longer—I must find work! Unlike every American mother I will not be “entitled” to maternity leave—that is essentially what my former employer was protecting himself from. Way to go you puritanical asshole! I can’t go to a job interview, I can’t find a normal job—who would have me like this? Hell, I wouldn’t even hire me. I have to think creatively. How can I make a certain amount of income every month without having to go to work? What can I do and how can I do it? Talk about overwhelming.
It’s amazing to me that in this day and age that issues like this are still plaguing young women. Gloria Steinem was right, we have made progress, yes, but women are still engaged in a battle for their rights. Things look better, but perhaps these female prejudices just come later; perhaps they are now restricted to mothers more than women in general. You’d be shocked how much regression takes place in the mouths of modern thinking people just because you’re having a baby.

The impulse to tell a woman what she should do is seemingly uncontrollable, and the unconscious change in feelings towards a woman who’s having a baby is perhaps imperceptible to everyone except the newly isolated mother-to-be. It sucks. You probably wouldn’t even flinch to know the amount of times people react to the employment injustice I’ve had to face with words like, “well, at least you can stay at home with the baby now.” Wow. To be honest, my boss said that as well. As if, they even knew our minds on the subject in the first place. We didn’t even know our minds on the subject yet—we never got the chance before someone else’s opinions were imposed upon us—before our autonomy was violated in this fashion.

Long story and ranting cut short… what am I going to do? I’m open to almost any option that doesn’t involve selling my body :) or baby, or settling for someone else’s stupidly backward and automatic answers.

Do You Know What It Means?

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
I miss it both night and day
I know that it's wrong... this feeling's gettin' stronger
The longer, I stay away
Miss them moss covered vines...the tall sugar pines
Where mockin' birds used to sing
And I'd like to see that lazy Mississippi...hurryin' into spring
The moonlight on the bayou.......a Creole tune.... that fills the airI dream... of Magnolias in bloom...and soon I'm wishin'that you were there
Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And that's where I left my heart

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans by Louis Armstrong
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Yes, Louis. I do know what it means.

Even the idea of the New Orleans inspires a profound sense of loss within me. New Orleans was the purveyor of so many special experiences for me—my first strawberry daiquiri, the first time my husband told me he loved me in the middle of Jackson Square, my first wedding crash, my first win at a gambling table, and a few other wonderfully seedy, but pleasant experiences I won’t go into here.

Every once in a while I feel the call of other places on my spirit. Often I feel the call of home—South Africa has a distinct and powerful pull over her children. And sometimes the need to see places I’ve never witnessed is so overwhelming that I can barely breathe—lately it’s been Germany, Italy and Switzerland. For the past month, however, the humid, spicy spirit of New Orleans has sung its sad song to me. Many times, I’ve caught myself daydreaming about searching for airfare quotes to the Big Easy (always my first step towards an imminent trip); only to realize that the city I’ve come to both fear and love is no more. All those once in a lifetime experiences can never really be relived.

When Louis Armstrong first sang that song, do you think he ever imagined a day when just missing New Orleans because he couldn’t get there just then would be a fond memory? Today, the lazy Mississippi he spoke of has seemingly changed directions, those Creole tunes are sadly silent, and those ancient Magnolia trees are broken and splintered.

When New Orleans is resurrected, and I’m sure it will be, will it simply be a modern concrete homage or a Disneyland version of the thick aired, fragrant New Orleans of days past? Will the beignets ever taste quite the same in a rebuilt Café Du Monde? Call me pessimistic, but somehow I don’t think anything will ever be quite the same. Maybe that’ll be a good thing, so for me, a sense of privilege now dwells with those memories. In my mind, New Orleans isn’t just a city that met destruction—the moonlight on the bayou, those Creole tunes, those crawfish etouffee and magnolia smells conjure actual moments for me. Moments I’ll never forget, in a city I’ll never forget.