I wear the scarlet A

So one of the movies I watched this weekend was "Mona Lisa Smile"- a movie about a "free thinking" art history professor at Wellesley College in 1953. The plot was pretty weak, but I appreciate what the film was trying to bring to light. Many of the depictions were probably pretty accurate. Here were the most intelligent women of their day, and the college served as no more than a finishing school. Every tradition, every course was designed to train women to be the perfect (stepford) wives.

I thought about this after the film ended. As some of you know, I once subscribed to a Catholic dating site. While a member of the site, I was horrified to find that many of the women seeking men on the site were still locked into this 1953 way of thinking- that their worth must come from being a wife and mother. This mode of thinking was on the way out even back then. I'm not condemning the desire to be a wife and mother by any means- It's a noble goal and one of the hardest jobs out there. However, I think if it hasn't happened for you by the time you are in your mid-30s...or if you've been divorced almost seven years.... Then it might be time to buck up and make your own way. Women who look for validity through men are often disappointed.

Needless to say, I was a pariah on that site, but I'm not ashamed of that. Mostly I feel sorry for the women on there who are still clinging to an ideal that no longer exists. I feel sorry for the men they're chasing- They will never fulfill the June Cleaver fantasies. They will still have to do their own thinking, live their own lives, and make their own way...with or without a husband. Many of them will have to learn the hard way- like one of the movie's characters- that having a husband doesn't equal happiness. I'm sure that it could equal happiness, but there's no guarantee, you know.

I wish I could have gone to Wellesley....