Spring: thoughts on women's needs

Actually I wrote this in 2007 in the Spring, for a Christian website.

I realize that it has been about a month since my patient with ovarian (or actually primary peritoneal) cancer has gone home. This is a lovely thing. She has been keeping in touch with her oncologist; and calls me once a week, to go over how she's doing. I am so happy that she is still eating a little, and not in pain, although her belly is swelling again. She knows the path ahead is narrowing. But she is able to be at home with her family; and her husband is very dear, and the children come round and help, and make her special foods, of which she eats a little.

There is an article in the Nation this week about the problems of the women who are the caretakers in our society. I would say it is also a problem for the husbands, such as the husband of my patient I am telling you about. But women especially need to have social laws which support the caregiving functions. Our laws unlike most of the civilized world, equal Lesotho and Swaziland in absence of paid maternal leave; and almost no progress has been made in helping women to bear the double burden of working outside the home and caretaking within it, since the 70s. Most women need to work outside the home just to help pay the bills. We need guaranteed health care, paid parental leave, high quality child-care, a living wage, job training and education, flexible work hours, more opportunities for part-time employment, community solutions for mass transit and housing, It is interesting to think that if we could put all these structures into place, to help women be better caregivers to meet family needs, that we might be a shining light for other nations in how to do so. We just might break the back of the problems of sexism, and lack of opportunity to shine for half the human race. I just read an article in the New Yorker that said 1 million children worldwide per year are engaged in child prostitution. We have all the problems of women dying of childbirth, and insufficient health care in countries like Afghanistan, where a repressive religionist group is holding women hostage. There was an article in Glamour, of all magazines, which said that 60-80% of women in Afghanistan are "married" off to an older man to pay off a family debt; many are treated like slaves, with abuses: and there has been a terrible escalation of deaths of young women from self-immolation with cooking oil.
In America, 21 million women live below the poverty line. We need so much to help get women stabilized, so the children can be raised in better environments. I personally believe that this sort of governmental policy work will help stabilize marriages. When women are overworked and exhausted, and there is no end in sight, they start feeling it is the fault of their husbands. If we could give families a break, helping mothers to be able to get more rest and "down-time," we would help reduce some of this desperation and inability to bear the daily life "sturm und drang" of modern life.
I was listening to the tapes from my recent retreat with Father Allender, on transcending anger. He says this wonderful line about how scary it is for young couples getting married, to enter a situation that has a greater than 50% failure rate. It carries so much intrinsic stress now; and we have not generally seen that changing the social and legal rules about "the common good" could help to shore up this fragile structure. I see it every day, as women hit the wall, trying to do everything, and suddenly the body is just unable to cope with it all. About the 7th month of pregnancy, women feel like they are running a marathon, and they have the last 3 miles to go. It would be so great if I could say "honey, you go home and put your feet up, and have a cup of tea. Your disability check will help pay the rent until you are up and functioning, a few months after you have your baby, and your milk is coming in, and you are back on your feet again. Just don't worry about it now." I could drop the cortisol levels in my patients so much, if I could say that line. Rich or poor, good job or bad, they all hit that wall. I feel if I could just reach the husbands and fathers, we could have a change of governmental policy-- because as they look at the women they love, they can see this is true.
Well, here's to you. Happy spring again, love, martina


"History may not repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes"
Mark Twain