Women Are Not Checklists

Question #1:

Using any combination of these four words, how would you describe a women?

• Women
• Are
• Not
• Checklists

If this simple, one question test was given out to everyone in the United States in the 1970s, an overwhelming majority of men would have checked only three items on this list: women, are, and checklists. You see, this majority saw women as objects to fulfill their desires -  objects that would comply to all of their wants and needs. In the words of the question, they saw them as checklists. Will this women wash my clothes for me? Check. Will this women make sure my kids don't get sick? Check. Will this women cook for me? Check. If a women checked all the boxes in a man’s “things-I-want-done-for-me-so-I-can-just-focus-on-doing-the-things-I-like¨ list, then the man would consider making her his wife. However, once she became unable to fulfill these tasks, the man would simply move onto another wife who was able to complete them.

This mentality is disgusting.

It comes as no surprise that this exact thought was racing through the minds of feminist writers in the 1970s. In her hit essay I Want A Wife, Judy Brady harshly attacked this stereotype by calling out the numerous wants that men call for in women. It's impossible to not admire this strikingly bold move. In a time when she was the clear minority, Brady was not afraid to speak up with passion and vigor on a topic that was dividing the nation. Her essay presents her viewpoint in an intensely ironic fashion, as she is speaking as if she holds the same mentality as the men she is criticizing. The essay itself is incredibly empowering. I imagine that women across the nation felt more confident in themselves and in their rights after reading it, and men who realized they did not share this mentality grew closer to their wives or joined the fight against those who thought this way.

Although the story takes place many, many years before the 1970s, Medea can be classified as a woman who is wed to a man who subscribes to this mentality. For example, once Jason feels like Medea isn’t checking all of his boxes - one of which is “be a princess” - he moves onto a different wife, fully expecting that Medea will continue to take care of her current children without Jason's help. While Medea felt compelled to speak out about this, just as Judy Brady did, she did not know how to manifest this passion. Therefore she jumps to the extreme, murdering her children and the wife of Jason in the name of "broken love".