Come See the Violence Inherent in the System!

If there are any young 'uns out there reading this, the book I'm about to recommend will seem like science fiction.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates was written in 1961 but is set in 1955. Ten years later, it was just as true.

It's set in a brand-new Levittown-like housing subdivision in Connecticut. The anti-heroine is more than a frustrated housewife. There have been only a few shining moments when men have paid positive attention to her. She met her husband in New York when he was fresh out of the Army and drifting from job to job, from longshoreman to cashier in a cafeteria. She trained to be an actress although she knew she would never follow through with it and the deal was sealed when she found herself pregnant.

There followed a hasty marriage with no one around to object. She considered a self-induced abortion since abortion was an illegal and dangerous business then.

I can't say that the portrayal of the men in this book is accurate, but if it is, just want to say, these guys were complete pricks. One guy intimidates a secretary into sleeping with him. Another guy craves the Grace Kelly-like femininity of the anti-heroine.

Even though there are broad swaths of this to be seen at Unnamed Co. - ironic, since our CEO is a woman - there are still female vice-presidents and directors at the company, which would have been unthinkable and alien in 1955.

An abortion is legal now. Birth control has advanced to the point where it's caught up to my dreams. (One or four periods a year? Astounding!) Divorce is no longer a sin. Domestic violence is actually prosecuted. Women decide every year to live on their own. Although some of this individually might make me shudder, seeing a world without it, being reminded about it, is shaking.

My grandmother was trapped in a loveless marriage where she was tormented and the undeserved love she had for my grandfather was mocked and rebuffed. After years of being stepped on and abused, she saw no way out of it but death. She didn't commit suicide, but if you can will yourself to die, she did.

So the next time you take a pill, put on a patch, go to your doctor for whatever injection for birth control, the next time you see your paycheck deposited in your own bank account, just take a second and be grateful that this is the life you get to lead.

I don't think my grandmother was weak. I think she was brainwashed and abused to the point where she had no choice but to carry on as she was.

Those days aren't entirely over, but that time is getting closer and closer.