Priorities, priorities

[radegund]

A friend of mine is a successful commercial lawyer, has two university degrees and an ever-lengthening string of diplomas and certificates, regularly presents at conferences, teaches on the professional course for solicitors, writes poetry, has written a novel, sings, is in a long-term relationship with another successful professional, recently sold her first apartment to buy another close to the centre of Dublin, and is a thoroughly interesting, interested, politically aware, intelligent, capable, rounded person.

When this woman's mother goes to the golf club, she is asked, "And how is your unmarried daughter?"

*sigh*

Comments

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

And worse yet, this is the question that this ferociously intelligent and successful woman has entirely internalised. It's truly horrible.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm not sure that it's quite as internalised as you imply. Or if it is, there's a degree of self-awareness about it. (Same as I have about, say, my internalisation of the idea that academic work is the only real kind of work, and anything else is a bit of a sham...)

[ailbhe]

Good god.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Well, quite.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Is that literally what she's asked? Because it seems an unusually oddly phrased question, especially for an Irish golf club.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Reported speech. I didn't hear it myself. Context was a conversation about my friend and her siblings, and what they're all doing now. Started with her older sister, who's married with a child (and is also a successful professional, but as far as I can tell not as high-flying as my friend). So the "unmarried" bit was the one point of contrast between the two that the questioner deemed noteworthy. Not "how's your younger daughter?" or even "how's your other daughter?", but "how's your unmarried daughter?".

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but if a woman's marital status makes such a huge difference to the speaker, I reserve the right to sigh.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. For some reason, I took it that this was a regular thing, rather than a one-time occurence. Depending on the age of the questioner (as a rough guide to the cultural values they were brought up with), that's a valid question. They're not our cultural values, necessarily, but they're easily understood.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I actually don't know if it's a regular thing or a once-off. It was told to me in the present tense, which implies regularity, but it might have been the narrative present.

They're not our cultural values, they are reductive and sexist (in that I don't think "how is your unmarried son?" is at all as likely to be asked), and they make me sigh. That's all.

[londonn7.livejournal.com]

Heh Heh, I don't think they ask that any more. I imagine that now, they just don't mention me at all, since I left on the coffin ship for Eng-er-land (cue Christy Moore song about sleeping under Waterloo Bridge)

Is there a protocol about trawling people's archives and commenting on things a million years after the fact? Spooky that I should happen on this very one, of course...

Sorry to have missed the party.