Female Myths Revealed

I grew up listening to my mom rant defensively about how she was sick of being told her decision to stay home and raise children was a bad choice. Nowhere near the daughter of a feminist, I still have delusions of equality dancing in my head.

When I hear how far women have come when comparing my grandmother’s generation to my own, I want to say, “So, half a pile of shit is better than none at all?” Trying to articulate that persistent inequity has been difficult until now.

Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe columnist, shared her experience of this “sucks less than it used to” view  that articulates this point better than I could ever craft — see my story on her recent appearance in Cincinnati, "Beating the Bitch."

“Women try to gain access to the best of the old male role, we want equality, but not necessarily on male terms,” Goodman said to an audience of almost 1,000 women and men. “And we don’t want to lose the best of the old female roles. One way to think about these past decades of change is to think about the myths by which we judge our own lives, not the realities. In my own life, the myths have changed enormously. We went from the 1950s to the 1980s — we went from the myth of ‘Super Mom’ to the myth of ‘Super Woman.’

“Super Mom was the one who always sent her children to school with pumpkin-shaped sandwiches with raisin eyes and carrot teeth, and her children always had homemade Halloween costumes and she always had something lovin’ in the oven. She wasn’t, in short, the women my generation carried around in our heads just to for the guilt of it.

“Well, no sooner did we put her to one side than we came up with a new, improved creature that we have all been familiar with called Super Woman. For many years I tried to describe Super Woman as she was presented to all of us, as a ‘viable role model.’ The best I’ve been able to do is to come up with a day-in-the-life of Super Woman as she is still presented to you by the media.

“Super Woman gets up in the morning and wakes her 2.3 children. She then goes downstairs where she feeds them a grade-A nutritious breakfast, which they eat. Her children go off to school forgetting nothing and she goes upstairs and gets into her $1,200 Armani suit and goes off to her $100,00 a year job, which is creative but socially useful. After work, and of course, her six-mile run, she comes home to spend a wonderful hour interacting with the children because haven’t we all been told — it isn’t the quantity of time, it’s the quality of time. After that hour she goes into the kitchen where she creates a Martha Stuart gourmet dinner. The family sits around the dining room table discussing the checks and balances of the United States government system. Her children then go to bed, and she and her husband have time for their meaningful relationship, whereupon they too go to bed where she is multi-orgasmic until midnight. Of course, tomorrow is another day.”

Yeah, women are sooooooooooo much better off today than we were 50 years ago....

I don’t know a single woman who owns a $1,200 suit (at least not one that would admit to it if she does), has a corner office (unless a corner of the basement counts) or has been multi-orgasmic until midnight (and I know enough women who would brag about that!). All the women I know are too smart to place any of that stuff at the top of that priority list, and that means they aren’t “super?” I disagree.

When we get to be ourselves, accepted as valuable in that capacity as opposed to what we “could” be “if only” we would and paid the same amount of money for our work as our male counterparts, that will be success.

— Margo Pierce

Comments

[The Dean of Cincinnati]

I remember reading, a few years back, the the buying power of a family today is rather like a family in the 20's -- with only one parent (which was the man) working.

Feminism has brought corporate America double the work force for half the pay.

[gerard]

To paraphrase Stephen Colbert:

"Feminism was great! Now they're earning money, and they *still* do all the cooking and cleaning!"

[jane when i order coffee]

great comment by the dean -- it wasn't imperialism, an unmitigated growth-machine version of capitalism, or any other arrangement of factors that intersect to bring about the current economic situation. it was feminism! all by itself!

i'm sorry there's not more underscoring that the current illustration of the modern 'super-woman' is also white on top of being a high wage earner and 'responsible' consumer (organic breakfast, please), and this is overdue for some hearty critique. i'm also sorry that the dean is not alone in being condescending and divisive -- there's nothing less productive to social movements than excluding one another for extended identity politics*, and yet it seems so popular. what to do?

*this doesn't mean negating the significance of identity -- white people, please learn to talk about whiteness critically. you'll have to go a bit further than 'i have black friends' or 'i think stuffwhitepeoplelike.com is funny'.

[Margo Pierce]

No, Dean - feminism did not accomplish that particular brand of bullshit. That came from unyielding stereotypes, male-dominated corporate management and resistance to real social change mean women work even harder.

I would argue that profits dominate over all in this country, including overcoming the –isms: sexism, racism, egocentrism. People matter less than profit/money to corporations/individuals (generally speaking) this stuff becomes a tool and that's just sad.