Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK - Treasure Chest 5/15

Interesting. And to nobody's surprise, I'm on Lois's side.

First, the fact that Lois has been neglecting Clark. In part 4 it said:

That must have been so frustrating for Clark. On the other hand, I think Perry White does the same thing. And I can't think of a single fic where Perry has been actually censored for doing so - by his wife perhaps, but not by the author of the fic. It is all right for a man to spend all his time at work. But it is not all right for a woman to do the same thing.

It is not as if Lois has been holed up in her office for decades, even though Perry may have come close to doing so. Lois has given all her spare time to the Planet for about a year, and she is beginning to feel really bad about it. She concludes that Clark is her first priority, not the Daily Planet. I wonder if Perry has ever come to the conclusion that Alice is more important to him than his job as an Editor in Chief. No, correction - I think Perry may be telling himself that Alice is the most important thing in his life, but that doesn't mean that he can't keep spending all his nights at the Daily Planet all the same. I believe Perry may be telling himself that Alice can still be the most important thing in his life even though he barely sees her.

I think that very many people feel it is okay for a man to spend most of his time away from his wife. A man should work and provide for his family. A man may even prove his love for his wife by being away from her most of the time to make the money he needs to provide for her.

But providing financially for a husband is not a woman's job. She is supposed to be at home and wait for her husband to return from work and to show support and love for him when he comes home. Being away from home is what is not acceptable for a woman.

So if Lois has neglected Clark it is not so much because she has spent her evenings at work, but rather because she has spent her evenings at work even though she is a married woman who should be at home waiting to take care of her husband instead.

It is interesting to see that when Lois realizes that she has been neglecting Clark, she realizes how very much she needs and loves Clark, and how horrible it would be to lose him. She needs him.

Lois wants Clark. She starts planning for a vacation, so that she can get away from work with him and truly show him how she loves him. But what does Clark want?

Yes, Clark wants Lois, but it seems to me that he only wants her if she can have a child. He wants Lois with a child. Lois, on the other hand, wants Clark, whether or not he can give her a child.

When Clark learns that Lois has planned a vacation for the two of them, he turns her down, flatly and coldly. This reminds me of a movie I saw just two days ago. It was about a young couple, and in the beginning of the movie the woman was strong, happy, smiling, grinning and brimming with confidence. The man, however, was rather silent and depressive from the start. As the movie went on, the man dragged the woman down into his own pool of depression. Also, interestingly, whatever the girlfriend suggested the man turned her down. She wanted them to move in together, and he turned her down. She wanted a child, and he turned her down. She wanted them to go out dancing, and he turned her down. She wanted them to go boating with a very nice couple she had met, and he turned her down. She wanted to come with him when he went to town to meet one of his buddies, and he turned her down - he pushed her bodily away from him, jumped into the car and drove away from her, leaving her all alone all night in a big house far away in the country.

Whatever she wanted, whatever she suggested, he turned her down. I thought the man was intolerable and that the woman ought to leave him as quickly as she could. But interestingly, the movie itself was just impassively recording the events. The movie didn't draw any conclusions and didn't apportion blame. I'm sure you could watch the movie and not understand why things went wrong, not unless you were willing to accept that it was the man's fault for treating his girlfriend so badly, and the woman's fault for staying with a man who treated her so badly.

Clark's treatment of Lois in this fic doesn't come close to the boyfriend's treatment of his girlfriend in the movie I saw. And Lois, unlike the girlfriend in the movie, is just so much stronger and so much more able make a life for herself and make the money she needs and get herself the job fulfillment she craves. Clark's and Lois's relationship is just so much more equal than the relationship between the couple in the movie.

Still their relationship is unequal. Because Lois wants Clark, but Clark wants Lois with a child. Lois wants to fight for her relationship with Clark, but Clark is despairing of his ability to give Lois a child, so he wants to divorce her. To Lois Clark is good enough in himself, but to Clark Lois isn't good enough in herself.

Everyone who may read this FDK knows where my sympathies lie. Lois, you are a good Editor in Chief. If you aren't good enough for Clark if you can't give him a child, remember that you are more than good enough for the newspaper that you are the editor of.

Ann