Stop doing those things, women! Do these other things!
Erica Jong wrote an article called Mother Madness about attachment style parenting. It was published in the Wall Street Journal. She said, “Aspiring to be perfect parents seems like a pathetic attempt to control what we can while ignoring problems that seem beyond our reach.” She was reacting against what she perceives as a suffocating trend. A rapidly spreading horde of self-proclaimed expert mommies armed with recycled diaper bags full of toxic organic diapers. She writes about the popular breastfeeding wars, refutes the idea that being with your kid a lot is inherently good for her/him, and generally doesn’t say anything that hasn’t already been said ad nauseam, in every other piece about womanhood, for years. I was bored by the second paragraph.
So instead I read some entertaining fluff. An article about beauty in Psychology Today. It contained such gems as: “Now, before you brand me a traitor to my gender, let me say that I’m all for women having the vote, and I think a woman with a mustache should make the same money as a man with a mustache. But you don’t help that woman by advising her, ‘No need to wax that lip fringe or work off that beer belly!’ (Because the road to female empowerment is…looking just like a hairy old man?)”
Writer Amy Alkon was on a crusade to prove that women need to care about being pretty. Women need to stop buying the nonsense Naomi Wolf and her clan of wailing, griping feminists propagated. Stuff about beauty standards being oppressive and harmful. That’s just whiny. Put on some damn makeup and get a boob job, ladies! Because you know you want a man. And there’s no other way to get one.
(a diaper bag for the fashionable, trend-resistant mother. source)
So I picked up the New York Times, which was intently telling the tale of Priscilla Shirer, an influential evangelical leader who specializes in women’s ministries. She instructs women to give up feminism and accept that their husband is the king of his castle and the lord of the TV remote and the pharaoh of choosing vacation destinations and the tzar of deciding what toppings you’re getting on the pizza. She also adds that a failed diet is often “a direct sign that we have not submitted ourselves completely to the Lord.”
Priscilla is the money earner of her family. Her husband serves as a sort of glorified secretary, managing her calendar of speaking gigs. Women are willing to pay a lot to be told to submit to their men and stick to their diets. It’s not really clear in what traditional way Priscilla submits to her husband (though she did let him choose their son’s name, against her wishes), but she definitely talks about submitting a lot. Just like scores of popular, powerful evangelical women have before her.
It kinda drives me crazy. These articles pop up constantly. They’re exploding off the internet and hitting me in the face when I open my laptop. They’re enthusiastically sprinkled through newspapers. They’re written by very educated, very put-together people and people like Alkon, who are babbling wrecks. Or maybe Alkon is very put-together. Honestly, sometimes it’s hard to tell, because the points are always pretty much the same. The points are:
- Something big is happening with women
- The feminists are probably behind it
- They want me to do it too, but I won’t
- I come bearing the truth that I alone have seen
As in the case of Erica Jong, they often identify a relatively small trend, which they describe as taking over the world. The green movement’s warring stay-at-home dads, who are destroying masculinity for all men. That kind of thing. Attachment style parenting is not really sweeping the nation. It might be sweeping San Francisco and parts of Brooklyn and a small corner of the Upper West Side, but there’s a lot more America out there (most of which can afford neither a nanny or to keep one parent at home full time).
To Priscilla: Women haven’t stopped letting men have their way with remotes in living rooms across the country. A specific, often biblically based interpretation of gender that asserts that women and men are designed for completely different social roles based on their bodies is still the most common understanding of gender.
And Amy: most American women would probably heartily agree that looking good is important. Hell, we can’t seem to escape that reality for the twenty seconds it takes to scoff down a slice of chocolate cake. So what are we arguing about? And why are we always arguing about what women should or shouldn’t do with their bodies and their children?
I get tired just thinking about having a child. Or having a body. No matter what I do, it’s going to be a political statement. I’m going to be taking sides. And women will be writing articles and preaching to paying audiences about all the people in the group I accidentally affiliated with, and how they’re trying to take over the country. And how they are smothering women everywhere. And how they hate justice. And shun reality. And have giant pimples on their faces.
I don’t know how to answer my own questions. I don’t know why we’re going in circles when we talk about womanhood. Maybe it’s familiar. Maybe it’s easy. Maybe people still have a hard time imagining women as a group made up of individuals, and are surprised and offended and confused when we do things differently from one another. Maybe there’s some kind of latent fear about gender roles crumpling and chaos reigning. Or maybe we want to talk about what it means to be a woman, but we don’t have the words. We just have this tired old vocabulary that was given to us ages ago. And so we use it, again and again, to try to express that we feel like something might be happening to us, just because we’re women. Even if we don’t quite understand what it is.
I agreed with Erica at the end of her piece, when she said, “We need someone to say: Do the best you can. There are no rules.” So stop it with the rules, already. Or invent some new words and use them. Because we need a new way to talk about being women.
(whoever controls this controls the world. source)
* * * *
Un-roast: Today I love that I am exactly average height. This has often struck me as boring, as though the fates were getting to the end of their shift when I was created, and just glanced at a chart and picked the number in the middle. But it’s really pretty versatile.
P.S. It seems like everyone gets to define feminism as something else. It’s really annoying.
P.P.S. New post on un-schooled, with some similar themes to this one. Yes! Official second day of running two blogs, and I am working it like a champ. I feel weird about that phrase, which probably doesn’t even exist in real life.
P.P.P.S This post also appears on Huffpo, here.
Kate on November 18th 2010 in Uncategorized
Christin@purplebirdblog responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 11:35 am #
“Something big is happening with women
The feminists are probably behind it
They want me to do it too, but I won’t
I come bearing the truth that I alone have seen”
I’m too sleep deprived to come up with some witty commentary, but I wanted to say this article is incredible, and that list practically made me choke on my overnight oats I was laughing so hard. I love it.
Kate responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 11:53 am #
Don’t worry, you’re witty plenty of the time.
And I’m really glad I made you laugh 🙂
Greta responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 12:34 pm #
Thank you for sharing both of those articles! My favorite part: “We need someone to say: Do the best you can. There are no rules.” I think YOU are saying just that, every time you write, and that’s what brings me back day after day.
Side note: I made the mistake of clicking on the Psychology Today link to try and find a place to comment or submit my thoughts about Amy’s piece – and then found other gems like “Honesty and Marraige Cannot Co-Exist” (a cautionary tale against matrimony and the “women who stray.”) – if I find a place to voice my dishonesty, I’ll share.
Alii Silverwing responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 12:56 pm #
I always want to tell women insisting that we, as women, must submit to men because it’s right and proper that it’s _not my kink_ and to stop projecting.
Society isn’t better for it and you (undirected plurals incoming!) have no evidence. You may feel fulfilled doing the whole submission thing and more power to you. There are millions of people who want to know the ‘surrender’ of love, just as you do.
I simply know that I, personally, would feel trapped and resentful. I don’t sekritly want to hand over my life strings, my wallet, or my decision-making capabilities. It always feels to me like that’s what these speakers are suggesting. That I – buried beneath my neurosis – would love it, even though those nasty feminists have convinced me otherwise. No, I’m pretty sure I’d know if that was the case. In my heart of hearts that’s really not what I want to be doing.
I guess I just feel like these women are projecting submissive personalities onto people of all personality orientations and that just strikes me as wrong.
Suzanne responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 6:40 pm #
That was an awesome article! Myself? I am so over the discussion about what a woman needs to do to be viable in any role. And I am sick to death of the topic of motherhood. I have four children. I am female. I am done listening to how I should dress, cut my hair, walk, act, etc. My only true credos are: do my best and be good to others. the end. anything else is just not worth it. I am not any less of a woman b/c I don’t bake, wear makeup everyday, weigh 92 lbs soaking wet, have big boobs, and on and on….As a friend of mine once said, “The only expectation I have is that I will be tired at the end of every day b/c I work darn hard to take care of my kids, work on my relationship with my spouse, and being a good person”. Bravo! 🙂
Lucy responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 7:32 pm #
Wholeheartedly agree with Greta – thank goodness for your hilarious, sane, balanced blog or we’d all be swinging wildly between booking boobs jobs and sitting around stroking our ‘beer bellies’.
Doing the best we can with what we’ve got sounds like the most rational option, and while we’re figuring out new, original ways to talk about being women, let’s eat cake x
Lisa responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 7:53 pm #
I don’t need help with being a woman; I think I’m doing a fine job of it all on my own. So instead of following the helpful links you provided and reading things that I know will just piss me off, I’m going to go into my kitchen and bake a Devil’s food cake. And you can guess what I’m going to do when the cake is cooled and frosted. Oh, yes, and I shall do it in the most womanly way possible. Because, what with the being a woman and all, everything I do is done in the most womanly way possible.
Rebecca responded on 18 Nov 2010 at 11:08 pm #
Do what works for you and your partner.
(and if that means going along the lines of “traditional” roles, why the hell not, if they work for you?)
That’s what it all boils down to for me–there’s no one size fits all, clothing or living, oui?
Emily responded on 19 Nov 2010 at 2:38 pm #
I think one thing that people need to remember is that we all have different skills and goals and needs. One amazing thing about marriage and partnership is that you get to divide the labor up accordingly. But why should it be the same division in every situation? not every woman has the same set of skills. My fiance likes to do dishes and I like to cook, I am better at organizing and keeping things on track, he has high energy and likes implementing plans with manual labor. We find our own rhythm and balance every day as we try to combine our individual talents into one symbiotic machine. I think that if people spent less time worrying about gender roles and more time thinking about the ways to make things work in their situation, we would be a lot happier, a lot more functional, and waaaayy less restricted to what someone else has found works for them.
UNROAST: (Because I haven’t seen them in comments lately) Today I love that I have started dressing like a woman. I’m 24 and before this year I was all about looking girly and cute (in my own way) but recently I’ve started aiming for womanly (some of the time) and it’s surprisingly powerful. I feel like a fertility goddess or a wise priestess or something along those lines and it’s pretty damn sexy.
p.s. Kate’s wedding pictures are in! They are beautiful! Please start bugging her for a little peak … NOW!
Tabs responded on 19 Nov 2010 at 5:51 pm #
“I get tired just thinking about having a child. Or having a body. No matter what I do, it’s going to be a political statement. I’m going to be taking sides. And women will be writing articles and preaching to paying audiences about all the people in the group I accidentally affiliated with, and how they’re trying to take over the country. And how they are smothering women everywhere. And how they hate justice. And shun reality. And have giant pimples on their faces.”
It’s a weird contradictory, thin-lined world we lovely ladies live in. There’s not a thing today that won’t be subsumed as part of something you may not have intended. Such are the ills of existing in a world designed by men for men. 🙁
I don’t know how to answer my own questions or what to do either, so I mostly go on doing as I’ve done. You’ve captured the ambivalence and vague imperatives (“do other things!”) poifectly, I think!
Tabs responded on 19 Nov 2010 at 5:52 pm #
p.s. LET’S SEE THE PIXX
And unroast: I was was born with a unibrow. It’ lightened up in the middle and you couldn’t tell unless you were really close to me, but today I’m really liking the shape of my eyebrow(s). They’re snazzy and I like how inward they come.
Kaitlin responded on 20 Nov 2010 at 6:55 pm #
Yes. Ah…finally. That’s what I am! I am sooooo over it! Thanks for the great blog and I enjoyed reading everyone else’s comments.
And what’s an unroast?
Just Josie responded on 20 Nov 2010 at 8:59 pm #
Kaitlin, an unroast is where you say something positive about yourself, rather than engaging in self-abasement! Like, instead of me saying, “I hate my boobs, they’re too small, I just hate them, I wish they were bigger,” I would say, “Today, I love my boobs; they’re small and perky and running doesn’t hurt!” The latter of which is an unroas. 🙂
Anything we, as women, do will be interpreted as a socio-political statement, I quite agree. Therefore, we should simply do whatever feels right for us. That’s the beauty of feminism. Actually, I seem to remember reading a short essay on this (“Untouched Man, Touched Woman”? maybe?). Basically, its thesis is that men can (generally) make whatever choices they please without serious judgement being passed, but no matter what a woman does, there are implications (e.g. if she doesn’t wear any makeup, she’s “not trying hard enough”, but if she *does*, then “she needs to tone down the ‘slut’ factor”). It was quite an interesting read!
Just Josie responded on 20 Nov 2010 at 9:03 pm #
*unroast
Noel responded on 21 Nov 2010 at 10:50 pm #
It never ceases to amaze me that of all the voices criticizing women today, we criticize each other the loudest. The feminist movement will really have its day when you see a high-fashion, high-heeled glamazon giving an unshaven, patchouli-wearing love child a hug and telling her how hot she looks.
Noel responded on 21 Nov 2010 at 10:58 pm #
P.S.
My unroast for today that sort of goes along with this post: I love how my hands looks with a fresh manicure. I hadn’t gotten a manicure since senior prom (aka when dinosaurs roamed the earth), but thanks to Groupon on several convincing girlfriends, I’m now starting lovingly at my very short, blood red fingernails.
I don’t consider myself a manicure type of woman, but was surprised by how much I enjoyed the whole process, and how feminine it made me feel, and how much I liked that feeling. So I think how you define your own womanhood can change often … even on a daily basis if you want it to.
Kate responded on 22 Nov 2010 at 12:33 am #
@Just Josie
I was logging on to write an explanation of an un-roast for Kaitlin, and it turns out that you’ve already responded, with more eloquence than I’m usually capable of. Thank you!
Just Josie responded on 22 Nov 2010 at 5:13 pm #
No problem, Kate! Though I would argue that you’re always capable of quite a bit of eloquence. =)