Unsolicited Advice for Half the Earth

Can I ask a question of the fairer sex? Is it exhausting, as a woman, to read the onslaught of advice about how you should live your life when most of the advice involves things that are nobody else’s business?

I keep reading all these articles about when women should get married, whether they should work outside the home after having kids, how they should advance in their careers, etc. It’s exhausting for me to see all this blabber and I’m a man. I don’t understand how people can offer blanket advice to 3 billion people.

I recently read a point-counterpoint on whether women should marry young. Two women shared their own vantage points of marrying young or older and advised others on this. The answer to this conundrum is, “Get married when you find someone you want to settle down with and only marry if it’s what you want and you’re ready for it.” How obnoxious that people presume there’s an easy answer for women who want different things.

I can’t understand the whole debate on working outside the home after you become a mother. There has been so much commentary on whether mothers should be in the workforce and the answer is just to do what works for your life and your child. Who the hell is anyone else to advise you on that, especially in such a way that they throw a blanket over people they have never met? Some women make some choices and some make others. All these articles I read about women working or not working seem to ignore the obvious: Some mothers need jobs outside the home because they have to pay the mortgage. Nobody, parent or not, to punches a time clock for their health. Do whatever is right for your situation. I don’t really care what you choose.

Some people were saying the advice Sheryl Sandberg gave to women in her book Lean In was not applicable to all women, particularly those in the lower reaches of corporate life. Then, I guess, don’t follow her advice? It makes no sense to expect the writings of one woman to apply to hundreds of millions of other women but maybe there’s still a grain of truth for you in what Sandberg said. I just hear all this chatter about this book and I think, “Christ, either listen to her or move on to something else.”

I just have never understood the idea of lumping all women, the largest possible demographic group, into a monolith and assuming they all want the same thing.