“I Wish I Were a Man”
We watched “Queen Victoria” last night and soon after she found out she was pregnant with her second child, just months after giving birth to her first child, she said, “There are times that I wish I were a man.” There’s another woman in the show who is a brilliant mathematician who has three children and said the same exact thing to Queen Victoria a short time later.
Both of these women wished they were men because they didn’t like the inconvenience of having children. The children got in the way of what they wanted to do. Queen Victoria was much more interested in running her country and the mathematician was much more interested in inventing things than having children but back in those days there was no birth control so women could not prevent having children.
This show is based on a true story and from history we know that Queen Victoria had nine children. From the show, at least, she’s certainly not excited about having children. She spends little time with them because running the country is so much more important even though she’s married to a very capable man. This situation makes it tough, too, because she knows she’s supposed to submit to her husband but she’s queen. Oh, the pain of being a woman!
One can easily see how feminism took off so rapidly. I am sure these two women weren’t alone in feeling that they wish they were men. So once birth control came on the scene, women were no longer burdened with having children. They could prevent having babies but if by chance they got pregnant, they could have them murdered in their womb. Now, they could go out into the world and pursue their own goals and dreams just.like.a.man.
I have never wanted to be a man in my entire life! I love being a woman. I loved the fact that I could have children, that they “interfered” with my life, and I was able to stay home full time and be the one to raise them. There’s nothing else I would rather do. I have no interest in running a country, inventing anything, or being at a job in submission to a boss for eight hours a day. I love being home!
A woman being in leadership positions, as the Queen was, made for a lot of contention in her marriage. Since she knew she was supposed to submit to her husband, she had no idea how she was supposed to be Queen over him and it caused a lot of strife in their marriage.
All throughout the Bible, God had men in leadership positions. It’s impossible for a Queen to run a country and live in submission to her husband at the same time, especially when her husband has some different ideas on how to run the country. A woman is just as capable as a man to run a country, yet God knew that it’s best for men to be the ones in authority, especially since most women would be mothers IF it weren’t for birth control and the preventing of having children.
Enjoy being a woman, women. Count your children as a “sacrifice and a blessing” as one woman told Queen Victoria. God created us to have babies and be home with them. It’s His perfect will for us. He made men with their role and women with their role. Don’t rebel against it but be thankful because it is good.
But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Mark 10:6
17 thoughts on ““I Wish I Were a Man””
Are you sure this isn’t Hollywood brainwashing?
My bet this is make-believe and the Queen and the Mathematician felt no such thing. I’m sure they are screaming right now from heaven saying ‘That is not what I said or how I felt!’
I think I’m a highly intelligent woman and I think that most highly intelligent women come to the conclusion that…
Men Do it Better.
My husband is better than me at everything…everything except one thing…female intuition. That’s why we are the men’s helpmeets because then we can use our female intuition to help the men when they need it.
There are many articles about her not liking being pregnant and having children. “Daisy Goodwin’s ITV drama is true to life. Despite her huge family, it seems the Queen was not all that keen on pregnancy or babies, and she did not take easily to motherhood. Babies were the unwelcome result of her active sex life with Albert, the “shadow side” of marriage – and a major distraction from the more important business of being queen.”
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2018-01-12/did-queen-victoria-really-hate-being-pregnant-and-what-was-she-like-as-a-mother/
There are many other articles that basically say the same thing but we know this must have been a prevalent thought among many women or feminism wouldn’t haven’t been able to take a hold of so many women so quickly and is still going strong. This is why God instructs older women to teach the young women to love their husbands and children, to be keepers at home and to marry, bear children, and guide the home . It’s not a natural instinct for many women. They want to rebel against God’s plan for them just as Eve did.
I’m pretty sure they got it right, for Queen Victoria, at least. I’ve read quite a bit about QV and about her marriage to Prince Albert. She didn’t like being pregnant, nor did she really like babies or children, but they were the “byproduct” of their very passionate sex life, so she had her heir and quite a few spares. 😉
The current queen is quite different. Like Victoria, she was not born to be queen. She well and truly probably would have preferred to be a wife and mother, but because her uncle abdicated, she was then made first in line. I’ve always felt sorry for her, in this regard.
I wonder what the queen’s up bringing was from her mother and father. I know when I was younger I was not taught to be a mother. I do not want to disgrace my mother but she taught me nothing. She was always shewing us away watching soap opera on tv. She was always mad at dad and acted like a baby going to her room and not speaking. I love my mother but she was not motherly to us children. My dad had encouraged me to get a job and go to school.
Long story short for me when I did become a mother and stay home it was hard at first because I had always worked and was going to college that was all I knew. I really did not know how. I did have a love and a natural instinct to care for my child but I was use to my routine looking back probably (Selfishness). I was saved at 26 and have 6 children and 1 grandchild and 1 on the way. The Lord has helped me so much with motherhood.He gave me a great love I was missing in my life!
I wonder if the queen’s daughters turned out like her? Did she ever come to know Christ?
Thanks those are just some of my thoughts.
Have a blessed day!
Nothing can compare to being a wife and mother, no, not even being a queen. It seems so out of women’s comfort zone to have to rule over men. Thank you, Angela.
Here is a summary of what became of her children, Karla.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2018-01-12/did-queen-victoria-really-hate-being-pregnant-and-what-was-she-like-as-a-mother/
I don’t believe many women were given great examples of being wives and mothers by their mothers when they were growing up and this is why the Lord commands that older women teach them these things in Titus 2:3-5.
Thank you for teaching this to young women and helping me in my marriage.
God Bless You
Perhaps she disliked childbirth because it was so dangerous back then? So many women died. What do you think?
You’re welcome, Karla.
Nothing alluded to this in anything I read, Patty. It simply interfered with her job as queen.
Regarding her father, QV’s father died when she was a baby.
How sad for them. Learning contentment in our circumstances is such a blessing of peace. I’ve experienced keen discontent in my life because of past infertility and dissatisfaction can truly alter the souls that were to be made in His image to not resemble Him at all. Discontent can grow and turn a beautiful woman ugly. I know it had really taken root in me and was turning me bitter. These discontent and bitter women are very much to be pitied as it is pitiful.
Being content is not a natural human response, M, and this is why we’ve been told that “godliness with contentment is great gain!”
Thanks for sharing this. I just wanted to exclaim how happy I am to be a woman!! In reading a quote from Nancy Campbell she said, “God has given honor to women. Christianity does not put women down, but raises her to a place of honor and dignity. We are not inferior as a serving wife, mother, and homemaker. These are the greatest privileges God has given to women.”
Proverbs 11:16 : “ A gracious woman retaineth honor.”
I have read numerous places that say Queen was not a “child person”. One quote: You will find as your children grow up that as a rule your children are a bitter disappointment – their greatest object being to do precisely what their parents do not wish and have anxiously tried to prevent”.
But at the same time, she was a single mother for 40 years, mourned deeply the loss of her husband, and bore 9 children, often suffering from depression afterwards. Having suffered from post-natal depression myself, I know how horrible this is.
Also bear in mind that her letters were heavily edited, and nearly all of her correspondence with other women, where she spoke of her children, was cut out, because the male editors found women’s letters tiresome. So we’re not given the full story. She may well have thought more highly of her children than what we think.
She also said that a core part of a child’s upbringing was to spend as much time with their parents as possible, and her ladies-in-waiting commented on how often she saw her new babies. Of course there is no way she would have spent the same amount of time with her children that the rest of us who are not royalty and don’t have staff, do, but at least she acknowledged that it was important.
So personally, I think Queen Victoria was between a rock and a hard place. As far as I know, she did not choose to become queen, but she was; and she had no choice but to make the best of it. Maybe she didn’t do a very good job, but she was human, just like us.
As for the second comment: Men Do It Better – I disagree!! I also consider myself to be a highly intelligent woman, and in my experience, there are PLENTY of things that I, and women in general, can do better than men. There are plenty of things men can do better than women (in general) too, of course, but in general, no men can not do *everything* better. As a rule, women are better at womanly stuff and men are better at manly stuff.
She did say that being pregnant made her feel like a cow. She definitely did not like breastfeeding. And she also suffered post-natal depression. I have also read she was obsessed with her husband sexually and children were an unfortunate by-product, and got in the way, of that.
In some sense i get it. No one LOVES labour. But most of us certainly LOVE babies. If i could avoid the pain of labour, i would. But alas, it is apart of a womans life. So i suck it up and deal with it. I love being a woman and im glad i dont have the same responsibilities as my husband. Although there are some women who seem to be almost repulsed by their childrens presence. And thats really sad. ?