maintenance is defined as the process of maintaining, the state of maintaining, care or upkeep of property. "high maintenance" is a supposed to be a term of insult in reference to some women created some decades ago when women were technically still "property". it meant a woman who's man had to spend a lot of money on her upkeep generally. surprisingly, it doesn't refer to gold diggers or women that simply are looking for a man for upkeep anymore. the words have come to refer to any woman that expects to be treated with respect, or women that are intelligent, or women that can take of themselves--which in all honesty, confuses the hell out of me. the term maintenance implies property--women are not, even if they are stay at home moms, "property". in the midst of the last 3 decades--the 80s, 90s and the first decade of the new millenium--i've had the privilege to observe, and participate, as we have continued to evolve to more independent, more free thinking, more opinionated, more successful, more educated, more everything. we have become what every suffrogette dreamed of us to become. women are no longer "property", so no woman is "high maintenance".
"high maintenance" is simply to insult to the women that continue to evolve--educated, opinionated, well read, military, self-sufficient, independent, complex, smart--any of these or similar terms can be associated with women that are accused of being "high maintenance". those of us that have ever been referred to as "high maintenance" can profess confusion. if we take care of ourselves and certainly do not view ourselves as "property" (and can't be in the least definition of the word) can most certainly not be high maintenance. hell, when we think about those words that one would use to define "high maintenance", well, any and every woman on the planet could be called "high maintenance" depending on the day of the week, who she's talking to, and what in that moment she decides to say or do. still, it does tend to define the most independent of us all the most often. the irony that the most independent women are associated with this property tag term illustrates the lackluster of intellect of anyone willing to use this idiocy.
in comparison, some of my male friends "bitch" that all the women they meet are looking for money, wanting a wallet, or are gold diggers (yes, people i realize these are all the same thing). so here's a simple question from a complex woman's point of view: technically, aren't these women looking to be "maintained" and therefore the "high maintenance" ones?
i know crazy, right? but take it one step further...perhaps the reason men avoid the independent women is because we do expect more. we generally expect to be treated with respect and we aren't going to be pleased with just an expensive meal. no, in fact, most independent women are not looking at the price tags so much as the man in front of us. like my grams used to say "quality, not quantity". those that are actually the maintenance types are almost always exclusively looking at the price tags, and easily tickled pink (early on). "smarter" women can have their stupid conversations about random gossip and minutia with their friends. however, none of them are interested in having those random minute conversations day in, day out--in the morning, over dinner, hanging out. obviously the more intellectual we are, the more likely we are going to challenge and need to be challenged (not to be confused with arguing--although i do realize that some simple minds see any challenge to their ideas as arguing rather than a healthy debate, an exchange of concepts, or a potential to learn and grow as a person). challenged can simply be talking about patton's leadership in comparison to bradley's (ok, admittedly i'm an odd duck--stay with me here). or traveling to historical monuments or discussing books or philosophy or weather movements. (no, i'm not interested in talking about weather movements other than in relation to where i'm riding to.) the point is really just this--"high maintenance" is almost all women anymore since any self-sufficient woman with an opinion are the ones most cursed with the term "high maintenance". (and yes, i know i'm more so than others, because of course, i'm admittedly an oddity (or commodity) but certainly a little bit outside of the norm.)
so what's my overall point? property tags are for objects, not human beings. "high maintenance" may be someone that wants to be property--is looking to be maintained, but not free-thinking, independent, intelligent, self-sufficient women. ah well, off my soap box.
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