After all the commotion caused by the feminist revolution, we, postmodern women, who dispense with rebellious attitudes such as that of burning brassieres in public squares, since we can now let them lie placidly at the bottom of the drawer, have been living a spell of existential anguish. With our little breasts free under our t-shirt and contraceptive pills in our pocket, the invasion we have undertaken into the traditionally male territory is no longer a shocking attitude, and making things happen is no longer the current word of command. The big issue now is how to manage our achievements and, more than that, the losses that the feminist revolution has inflicted upon us. What now? Plucking up courage and strength to record our gains and losses, the present moment demands that we resort to the much heard-of emotional education, so that in one nook we can patiently straighten the rubble of the old standards and in another nook we can lay the foundations of new standards; i! n other words, separate the rubbish from the bricks that can still be used, and give both a coherent destination.

The task looks formidable and revealing as we notice that we are more prepared for life outside and less fit for life inside, that dealing with softwares, hardwares, financial investments, purchasing cars and real estate is easier than looking after the family. The situation becomes still more discouraging when, in the opposite direction, we notice that we have unlearned how to cook, how to raise our children, how to tell them stories and how to give them advice.

Home has lost its original semantic meaning, which used to be place where, in the past, at the dawn of civilization, families would gather around the fire to get warmed up. In the so-called civilized world each one has dinner when they are hungry. We, women, now give birth at a later age. We have become heavy smokers, heavy drinkers and have been affected with heart diseases. We have absorbed the worst male characteristics and have become liberal, forgetting that the body which says ‘pleased to meet’ you to a number of unknown men will one day shelter the longed-for child. So many incongruous things, difficult to reconcile... Then, heartbroken, we see that at each step we climb towards progress, we find ammunition to support us in the professional arena and, paradoxically, become more vulnerable in the emotional arena.

Naively led to believe that the so-called equal rights would grant us subsidies for all fields of life, we started shaping moulds which could provide us with parameters, and give us notions of limit and freedom. Still with the mixture in the oven, we started realizing that everything was too full for us to fit in – as a matter of fact, unbearable. And, at the very end, the mixture started to rise more than it should and the cake pan could not hold the surplus. The outcome: the mixture overflowed and, given no other choice, we would then have to swallow it and serve it to our descendants.

Once the cooking process was over, we carefully placed the pan on the sink and watched the final product suspiciously. What to do with all that? We had primarily wanted a hot and tasty dish but we ended up by having something far from being nourishing. We made a mistake in the combination of the ingredients and now have to admit it. We turned chauvinism inside out in the name of feminism and thought it was great. We did everything necessary to keep the label ‘successful and independent’ in place. Has all the radicalism been worth the trouble?

Nowadays most women work to support themselves and to help in the domestic budget. This has been a significant achievement. However, in days of menstrual pain, they need some aspirin and have to put up with the daily grind without showing any sign of suffering or exasperation. After all, what are make-up and tranquilizers for? This has been a bad consequence. Besides, women are not allowed to let their emotions overflow when they get a promotion, nor shed a furtive tear at hearing bad news during working hours: first and foremost, we are professionals shaped from male standards – well, ‘let them cry after 5:30 then’, they say. And from repression to repression, we keep plodding along God knows where, eating up media-imposed concepts, reprimanding and being repressed. We are our own major executioners. We give birth when the companies gives us permission to do it; we leave the upbringing of our children in the hands of Providence and in the hands of our maids.

And, looking back a while, not long ago, we notice that one day, with a feeling of relief and cheerfulness we got rid of our Father’s vigilance, of our husband’s domineering claws, and let out our cry for freedom, unaware that we were about to fall into the alluring web of the media imposing on us the current patterns of behaviour.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, we begin to live under the present and unquestionable rule that demands the replacement of mamary glands for silicone, the liposuction of the surplus, and forbids aging. The space for the genuine human being has been shrinking more and more. There is no longer time for life to follow its natural unfoldings. The delicious and freshly baked cakes of Sunday afternoons have been replaced by industrialized doughnuts bought at the bakery round the corner; chats between mother and daughter have been replaced by chats with some stranger in the computer screen, because the little time that counts is not the real one; it’s the virtual one. We, postmodern women, demand the best of everything and from everyone, and men, at their most insecure, are lost in the bewildering tangle of new values: well, Viagra will help them restrain the impetuosity of women in their relentless pursuit of results. Thus, the key word is ‘function, present satisfactory! solutions’. How to get there does not matter; what counts are the solutions – and they have to be provided quickly. Have you got them?