Double Consciousness

W.E.B. Dubois speaks of the double consciousness that black Americans go through. The plaguing question if one can be truly both black and American. Given the history of black people in this country that is a valid question and one that I myself have struggled with. Even more so after my visit in Ghana, West Africa. As a woman though there is another double consciousness that I feel impacts my life (quadruple consciousness?).

Can I be both the housewife and the independent woman?

These two categories seem to contradict one another. The housewife lives her life based on her husbands merit alone. Her husband is her provider, and her hero. She is submissive to his will because he is the controlling factor in the household. This is not a bad scenario to me, having a man that can and does provide for myself and children is a wonderful fantasy amongst today's status quo of deadbeat fathers and lazy men. The thought of providing three square meals a day, being available for my husband and children at anytime, and not being caught up in the madness that can be the outside workforce is quite appealing, heck the housewives on tv make it look like a ton-o-fun.

 But I grew up on Beyonce not Betty Crocker.

I am a daughter of the age of female liberation. I didn't go to college to get a husband, my mother never made being a good wife one of the life lessons I learned. Marriage in itself is strange to me, a foreign concept, I like most women of my era are starting to view marriage like men. Do I really want to be locked down to one man? I have men friends now, and each one of them is special to me because he fulfills a different need. Being the wife of one means I'll have to "forsake all others." No thank you. I don't want to live my life at my husband's discretion. If I want to shop, I want to pick up the platinum Visa with my name on it and go shop. If I want to jump up and go to Tahiti with my girls, I don't want to have to clear it with my husband and make preparations for the Kinky jrs. to be taken care of. 

Obviously there is a balance that can be reached if one has a loving husband to share the load with, but in my fragile just barely out of my teens mind it doesn't seem like an attainable goal for me. On the bright side I don't have a man or any prospects right now anyway, I'm sure I have time to think this out.

P.S Follow me on twitter. @coiette18.