I haven’t written much about the so-called Gender Wars. This may seem odd, given that I am obviously a feminist. I frequently drive, for example, when my husband is also in the car. Also, I kept my maiden name after getting married. And sometimes, I actually just call it, “my name.”
As it turns out, though, feminism in America is on the decline. According to a recent study, most women today no longer identify as feminists. And most men don’t either so –no change there.
Women’s reasons for rejecting the feminist label are
mysterious – at least to me. This is especially true because the same
women who reject feminism apparently do believe in
equality. When I first saw that, I thought: Hmmm. Maybe some
of these gals just don’t really know what feminism means. Because
their friends have never posted it – in the form of a kissy face picture --
on Instagram. But the fact is, most people – including the people
who did the survey – define feminism roughly as believing in equality.
So how does feminism differ for them? Do they
think it’s outdated? Old fashioned? Too threatening, and
aggressive? Historically, feminism has been coupled with
the word movement, which suggests moving. And change. Believing in equality does sound a lot
nicer. And less demanding. And possibly even more feminine. It’s confusing for me because at the age of 40 something,
I’m already a bit of a feminist dinosaur. (As an aside, if I were a
dinosaur, I’d totally be an Ankylosaurus. Those lizards had bony tail
clubs, and were threatening and aggressive.)
But as a feminist, I’m a diehard believer. In
college, I did a consciousness-raising group (sans mirrors). I always
planned to keep “my name.” And hello –corsets? I can’t
even wear an underwire bra without feeling like my civil rights have been a
little bit violated. Yes, I believe in feminism. And
everything it stands for. With the possible exception of my hairy armpits
in college, which probably weren’t as critical to the cause of women’s lib as I
once believed.
I still think about women's issues a lot because -- you
know -- that was a steep hill of sexist shit our foremothers started to climb. Today, there are reasons to feel really encouraged
about the progress of women. Sometimes, I think we’ve almost
arrived. And then, my 8-year old daughter does a simple internet
search, on the subject of peaches. And instead of learning about fruit, Google turns
up a hundred porn sites. With really nasty images. Not one of
which she can ever remove from her brain. And I think – nope. We aren’t even near the
top yet.
So what does feminism mean to women today, such that they
can't identify with it? They must know that our foremothers gave us equal
opportunities, basic protections, nominal legal rights. Women are increasingly
part of the boy’s club. We can have a job, we can run our own
companies. Theoretically, at least, we can even work as professional
athletes, and get a degree in math or science.
And yet, it's also clear that inequalities remain.
And often times, the ones that remain seem more protracted, and complex, and
divisive than ever. So I wonder: now that the civil rights movement has
long passed, and the word feminist is no longer associated
with a visible movement, and the challenges we face are only growing more complicated
every day, do the majority of women really feel that feminism is no longer
necessary? Or is it possible that they don't work for feminism
because they think it's no longer working, for them?
Take the sexual culture. Speaking as an old school
feminist, I used to think the Miss America pageant was pretty sexist.
Grown women, standing in bikinis and high heels, showcasing their
talents? But now, we have toddlers in tiaras. American
Apparel ads. Pedophilic Halloween costumes. And what should feminists do about the
proliferation of -- let's call it what it is -- rapey internet porn? Caitlin Moran wrote a genius essay about stuff like that in her
book, How To Be a Woman. You should read that, because
she’s smart. She basically advocates not against porn, but for
more female-friendly porn. But not all women will agree with her,
either. And she’s a feminist. So, I mean, it’s a slippery issue. No pun
intended.
If some feminist issues seem very difficult, others seem a
little stalled. Periodically, for example, you read an article about how
women still do most of the housework. This inequality not only
leads to a lot of frustration, and marital argument, but it significantly
impacts the choices some women make about how much to work. Privately, many women will probably say that their
standards are higher. They see the dirty
countertops and their husbands don’t. Ok. But, I can't really blame women for feeling like
giving up. It’s been more than 40 years since second-wave feminism. Why are we still doing all the laundry?
It’s weird because, in so many areas of human
achievement, men are so capable. They’re obviously capable of doing the
following series of simple tasks, in repetitive sequence.
Get
basket.
Fill it
with dirty clothes.
Go
downstairs.
Start
machine.
And yet, I know very few women whose husbands do the
family laundry. Is that because laundry is a chore that involves
clothing, and the menfolk can’t relate to that? Does the laundry repel
them because it’s so different from, say, trash? I get that. Garbage goes from one bin to
another, and then it’s done. Whereas laundry requires us to collect a
variety of fabrics -- from various locations throughout the house, some of
which are bins and some of which are tables and hooks -- and then do a whole
bunch of other things to them. Or is it simply that -- more often than not -- doing the
laundry involves getting up and down from the couch several times at night --
that special time of the day when the only people in the house still
getting up and down from the couch are women?
Laundry? Right now? So much
standing up! What does permanent press even mean? Wait -- people
clean tablecloths?
Apart from domestic equality, there are other issues that could
be clouding the feminist mission for modern women, and making it hard for them
to stake out a position. If you don’t believe me, just watch two women –
from different walks of life, or career perspectives -- debate breastfeeding. Feminists taught us that breast milk was healthier for
babies than commercial formula. Particularly that kind of formula that’s
made in China, and is flavored with turpentine.
But choosing to breastfeed – or not – has never been easy.
Women who work outside the home full-time have to carry around a breast
pump the size of a small artillery projectile in their handbags. And it’s
not necessarily any easier for women who don’t. Personally, I had
so many health problems from breastfeeding that I sometimes forced my poor
husband to go – in my stead -- to a store called The Upper Breast
Side, for special clothing, pads, and creams. And really, let’s be honest. The name of
that store alone could turn an entire generation of women against feminism.
The most intractable issue of all might be the dreaded
“work/family balance.” This is an issue that we never stop discussing, or
disagreeing about. And yet somehow, it changes so little. Unlike the laundry, however, we can’t just hire someone
else to do it. Once a year, there’s a new book or article, a panel of qualified
experts, and a tough female TV anchor – in a very short skirt, with a TV camera
pointed right at her, um, knees -- moderating the conversation from the middle.
Wherever that is.
And you know, the fact that educated, career-minded women are
still having this conversation about balancing career and family is itself a
measure of progress. We’re not defending the location of our uterus
anymore, after all, or how it’s disrupting our humors. And it must be said: a short skirt is not a
corset. That whale bone was tight, bitches.
It took like an hour to tie. Don’t start.
Still, if someone asked me my feminist position on how to juggle
work and family, I’d probably say: Um. Make it up on the fly, however you can? Or maybe I’m just saying that because that’s what happened to me.
When I was getting my PhD, I never thought about how I’d juggle it
all. Somehow, I just hoped it would work out. But when
I got my first job, my spouse also had a really busy job. In another
city. And instead of having that “easy baby” who would thrive in day
care, I got one who cried and cried. And who literally never napped for
longer than 33 minutes. (As an aside, 33 minutes is a surprisingly difficult
interval of time in which to accomplish personal goals. I couldn’t even
get to the Upper Breast Side and back in that time frame.)
Having choices at all is obviously a
privilege. But for most women, decisions about work and family are still
made with conflicted feelings. And a lot of anxiety. And maybe not
enough information. And at the last minute. In my case, that meant somewhere between when the head crowned,
and when I was legally contracted to show up for work. So when I asked my
new employer about working a flexible schedule, the conversation went roughly
like this:
Part time?
No.
Then I left my
job.
To me, being a feminist means going to work full-time,
raising kids full-time, or working a flexible schedule that allows for
both. But some women may not see it that way. It’s a complex
issue, with a lot of potential contradictions. And the frustrating fact is, feminists have been debating this
issue forever. Virginia Woolf wrote about it – 80 years ago –
in A Room of One’s Own. And what she basically said there was: The monks
didn't plan for this nonsense. Modern work routines and standards
were not established with linen tablecloths and achy breasts -- or, as a matter
of fact, women -- in mind. Most monks probably didn’t even have
kids. Not legitimate ones, anyway. They certainly
didn’t have to take care of them. Or be around after school to protect
them from pornography on the internet.
Here is a short list of some other things that monks
probably didn’t do:
Leave diaper rash
instructions for the nanny.
Make triangular
pb&j sandwiches for the lunches.
Fill out the
yearbook forms.
Try to mend the
ballet tights and eventually get new ones.
Call the cable guy,
and wait all day for him. twice.
Measure the amount
of vegetarian protein in the dinner.
Take the cat to the
vet.
Take the vacuum
cleaner to the repair store.
Clean up the
cloisters for their mothers-in-law,
In fact, I’m pretty sure all the monks had to do – apart
from wearing cool rope belts, and trying really hard not to catch Bubonic
Plague – was to write their books.
So Virginia Wolf knew this was a problem. Why then,
80 years later, is it still a problem? And how does it relate to women’s
ambivalence about feminism? Well, I'm not sure. But I do know a cool quote by Karl
Marx:
People make choices, but they don’t make choices within
circumstances of their choosing.
Karl Marx wasn’t talking about educated western women who have
financial means, or take Pilates, or drive minivans. But I thought of
this quotation in regards to feminism because --while the feminist goal of
giving us the choice to work was clear and winnable -- the
broader social circumstances in which we make those hard-won
choices still seem very complicated. And possibly even harder than ever
to solve.
So we have choices. Some women want to raise their kids
full time, and don’t even care if their husbands can’t do laundry. Some
women are leaners, and only want to talk about merit hiring, competitive packages,
and equal pay. Some want something in between -- with on-site child care,
family leave, and periodic and part time employment with benefits.
Some (like me) just want science to figure out how to make
a safe version of Ambien for infants, a hormone that allows men to breastfeed,
and another one to curb the maternal instinct. Those women might just prefer to be men. I guess we’ll never
know. But my point is simply this: Is feminism today speaking to all of
these women simultaneously, and still working for all of
them? I’m not really sure. And I’m a feminist.
I’ll always be a feminist. I think “believing in
equality” sounds wishy-washy. And we still need a word that means we’re
actively climbing the hill. But that is not, apparently, how most women see it.
I don't know how they see it, but we should probably look into it. Maybe those women think
feminism is no longer needed, because we have arrived. Or maybe feminism
-- one of the greatest inventions in human history – has won many of the
battles but ultimately, lost the war.
