I’m looking after an elderly aunt who was recently diagnosed with late-stage cancer. She wasn’t feeling unwell, so it’s been a shock for her (and us) to face the likelihood that she will die soon. We’ve always been very close, all my life. Though she was a fun, flamboyant figure in my childhood, I can now see she led a very respectable life, not rebellious or ever questioning patriarchal conventions etc.
She took in lodgers to help her husband study for a professional qualification. He got a good job and dumped her for a younger woman. She didn't fight for a decent divorce settlement in case he took it out on the children. Instead she worked two jobs to support them and continued to care for her XMIL.
The children were the centre of her life so she refused to marry again while they were at home. Later boyfriends sponged off her or strung her along or turned out to be married.
Yet she never blamed men or questioned the system that favoured them. Only the “scheming” women who seduced them. Or the ambitious female colleagues who pushed for better jobs. Or the mothers who brought up their sons to be selfish layabouts. And she never failed to do her duty as a ‘support human’ to men.
Now she’s alone, living on a pittance, facing sickness and death. And suddenly the bitterness is pouring out of her. She’s drowning in negativity, resentment and anger at the world. The only people helping her are almost all women (doctors, other healthcare practitioners, relatives) and she turns her unhappiness on them —I think partly because they all seem to have a better deal than the life she accepted.
Sorry to bang on at this length. She is still the wonderful caring person I love, though I often have to bite my tongue now. Feminism, female solidarity, could have done so much for her, but she remained obedient to the patriarchy and never questioned it.
Now she’s sleeping and I’m musing on how the world treats women and how really the best thing we’ve got is each other.
Wishing all Mumsnetters, especially the vipers of FWR, a better year than this last one.