Hand Wringing Women

   C and I were invited over to Tim and Karen's house for dinner. We had a wonderful time at the table talking with them and their four children.
  After dinner we sat in the living room to chat. Karen is an avid reader like I am. One of her favourite novelists is Jane Austen. She asked me if I liked any of her books. I told her that I really didn't like them as I'm not into hand-wringing women. (Those are female characters that do nothing but wring their hands and wait for a man to help them.) I also said that they all seem to be about the same topic. Karen was a little taken aback, but she made an innocuous comment and then continued the conversation.
  It wasn't until the next day that I realised I had committed a real faux pas. It's not polite to insult your hostess. It was especially rude as Karen does not know me that well. She could have easily taken serious offense to what I said. Fortunately for me, she didn't.
  The first thing I did was write a quick note of explanation and apology. It seemed like the right thing to do. The thought nagged at me all day. Where did this come from? Why did I think like that?
   Both my parents worked when I was young. Since this was in the days before daycare, my parents were able to arrange their schedules so that one of them was at home at all times. I didn't realise until I was in junior high that this was unusual. The concept of a woman that worked inside the home only was foreign to me. When I lived with my grandparents it was the same thing. They farmed and both of them worked on the farm and also had jobs. My grandfather worked hauling feed and my grandmother cooked at a local Italian restaurant.
  There was some division of work. There were some things that my dad did, like change the oil in the car, that my mother never did. My grandfather never cooked or cleaned. On the whole though I wasn't raised with the notion of "men's work" and "women's work". Everything got done by the person who needed to or liked to do it. My mother hated to grocery shop so my dad did it. While my grandmother cooked breakfast, Grandpa would milk the cows.
  My mother raised my sister and I to be able to take care of ourselves. She didn't care if we married or not, she just wanted us to be able to support ourselves no matter what.
  I definitely took my mother's message to heart. Since I looked more like Thelma from Scooby Doo when everyone seemed to prefer the more Daphne-like girls, I decided that I was going live my life on the assumption that I was not going to date or get involved with guys. While the other girls were reading about fashion and make-up, I was reading about Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie. While other girls were going to dances and Rec Night. I was studying so I could have good enough grades to get into college. I was determined that I would never allow myself to become dependent on anyone for anything.
  This explains my scornful response. The problem with it is that is that it is more than a little intolerant. I'm making the assumption that female characters in books like Jane Austen's are weak and dependent which makes them uninteresting to me.
   The fact of the matter is that I've only read one Jane Austen book. I read " Sense and Sensibility". While some of the females are hand-wringing women, not all of them are. It really isn't fair for me to make a judgement like that based on one book. So as penance for my rudeness to Karen I'm going to read a Jane Austen book. I'm thinking about either "Persuasion" or "Pride and Prejudice". Anyone have any thoughts?