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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Gina Barreca

Ranting About Feminism: Not That I'm Bitter (Part I)

I worry about the next generation of young women.

A few years ago I was telling a story about growing up and listening to such high-self-esteem songs on the radio as “Love Has No Pride” or “I Will Follow Him.” At one point, a young woman in the back of the room raised her hand and pointed out that “two full generations have passed since you were growing up.” (I thanked her for sharing and then told her, gently, that she failed the class.) But I decided to go and listen to some new music.

That week it so happened that on the cover of Time magazine there was a singer-songwriter named Jewel. Her hit song was called “You Were Meant for Me.” I don’t know whether it’s actually been identified as the theme song for clinical depression, but I think it should be. It goes something like, “I get up in the morning and you’re not here, even though you were meant for me. I make one egg but I don’t clean the pan. I go to the movies but I leave early because you were meant for me. I go home, I cook the other egg in the dirty pan because you were meant for me,” etc. This is what’s happened after 40 years of the women’s movement.

At least with “I Will Follow Him,” we got off our asses. Not that I’m bitter.

Yet these are women who pay their own bills, write their own papers, and fight their own ideological battles. They bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, etc., just as the song has it. They are busy revising the rules, not bending to them.

Speaking of the rules: In 1996, I appeared on Oprah debating with two “girls” who had written a book titled The Rules (I call them “girls” because that’s what they called themselves. They are exactly my age. We all graduated from high school in 1975 and even if women are still, at least according to the ex-president of Harvard, deficient in math skills, every woman can still figure out how old another woman is. We can also figure out each other’s weight as if we were running a booth at a state fair.)

On Oprah’s stage I faced a blonde and a brunette; the brunette did not speak. And I don’t want to sound nasty, but the blonde was as blond as I am. We argued on television like a bunch of women from the Bronx yelling at each other through tenement windows and over clotheslines. They wanted to know, as the blond put it, “why you have such a problem with our book, Dr. Barreca.” (She made the word “doctor” sound like “vampire.”) I replied, “I have a problem with your book because it assumes that men are morons and that women are capable of infinite manipulation; you tell women that the only way to get a man to marry them is to withhold sex as long as possible. You say, and I quote, ‘Never laugh out loud in front of a man. Save the laughter for your girlfriends.’ And ‘No matter how hot the sex gets, you must remain cool.’ What I want to know is, if you can’t laugh out loud, and you can’t have hot sex, why on earth would you want a husband?”

Why, in other words, should any of us do battle with these stereotypes? The victory is insignificant, we wouldn’t have to get our hands dirty, and we’d never be late for work. Oh, right, we probably wouldn’t be going out to work, either.

Hmmm….

Oh, right: because when you cave, you are buying, however subtly, into the idea that it is easier to please the master than to learn mastery — that you are getting what you need by the privilege of your sex rather than by the right of your humanity. You have to be nice to the guy who pumps your gas, checks your oil, or buys you a house and pays your bills. You literally can’t afford not to be. He’s “providing” for you because he’s happy with your company. If he becomes unhappy with you, he has every right to kick you out of his house and refuse to pay your bills. You are there, not by right, but by privilege.

Not that feminism has everything neatly sorted, as the Brits would say; there’s still a lot of work to be done.

The Onion had maybe the best response to the crisis of feminism: A 2003 headline blared “Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does.” “Acts of empowerment include gossiping about the sexual proclivities of male acquaintances, lunching with other women in small groups, taking calcium-rich antacid tablets, and reading The Nanny Diaries.” The Onion purports to quote a women’s-studies professor as saying, “From midnight cheesecake noshers to Moms who don’t fool around with pain, feminist achievement covers a broad spectrum. … It is great to be a female athlete, senator, or physician. But we must not overlook the homemaker who uses a mop equipped with convenient, throwaway towellettes, the college co-ed who chooses to abstain from sex, and the college co-ed who chooses to have a lot of sex. Only by lauding every single thing a woman does, no matter how ordinary, can you truly go, girls.”

Okay, I’ll stop now. I know I’m ranting. Any thoughts on the subjects raised, my dears?

Posted at 02:24:02 PM on June 25, 2008 | All postings by Gina Barreca

Comments

  1. And the relevance of all this to higher education is . . . ?

    — BeenThereDoneThat · Jun 25, 03:01 PM · #

  2. I heard that at least one of “The Rules” authors is now divorced. Guess somebody didn’t have all the answers…

    — EG · Jun 25, 03:20 PM · #

  3. I don’t know about it’s relevance to HE, but I sure sent it on to my wife and daughter.

    — gl · Jun 25, 03:22 PM · #

  4. Have you really been here and done this, #1? Coincidence is an amazing thing!! I bet the rest of Brainstorm’s readers will regard the relevance as obvious. Many of us believe the lives of young women and older women, whatever that is defined as, are not outside the realm of interest to those in higher education. Maybe you have been too long on your planet of administrators and/or researchers to remember that life and HE intersect in a number of ways.

    — secret oprah fan at elite college · Jun 25, 03:56 PM · #

  5. > “every woman can still figure out how old another woman is. We can also figure out each other’s weight as if we were running a booth at a state fair”

    Thank heaven for feminism! Women used to be shallow and air-headed. But not anymore!

    — bored · Jun 25, 04:42 PM · #

  6. It seems as though what we’ve done is move to the extremes. Some women do, as the Onion suggests, celebrate every possible thing. Others ignore the idea of feminism. Neither one seems like it truly works in the best interests of women (or men, for that matter).

    — Jenny · Jun 25, 05:27 PM · #

  7. As teachers we need to be in touch with contemporary culture, so researching trends in popular music allows us to engage a different generation. Perhaps we are ignoring the obvious: as much as we want to separate women from their feelings, we continue to deal with depression and love (and its loss). What part of “empowered” means that we stop feeling? The most we can hope for is to stand on our own even when our emotions are not providing the image of “strength.” My biggest concern is the denial of feminism as a whole, as if it’s a disease. The very students who say they are not feminist admit that they want equal pay for equal work and don’t want to be “dissed” merely for being a woman. Where did they get these ideas? Historical ignorance is not a trait that we value in any student. Why the denial of feminism? Could it be related to the rise of fundamentalism?

    — Pirata · Jun 25, 05:53 PM · #

  8. My women students in women’s studies classes claim to be liberated and to rarely deal with sexism! They claim this while they wear “slut” shirts and “porn star” tube tops (and when I say “tube” I’m being generous). They claim that their third wave feminism means they can “wear their pearls and still be feminists” only these aren’t pearls. They are using the very tools, it would seem, of the master to keep them locked inside the masters house, only they are now convinced it’s their choice. And perhaps in many cases it is….but….seems more like a slick backlash assisted by our women who truly support feminism. They get very upset if you bring this up in discussion with them too. As Gina said on Oprah “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks”. (Of course this was a brilliant reply to the girls’ misquoting it.)

    — Gina Fan #1 · Jun 25, 07:21 PM · #

  9. Was this whole post written in 1996, with the five-year-old paragraph about the Onion article tacked on to make it “current”? I won’t argue about whether Dr. Barreca’s arguments are valid or not, because they were probably valid when she first wrote this during Bill Clinton’s first term. My question is: is she being paid to post her decade-old observations here?

    — JD · Jun 25, 07:32 PM · #

  10. What utter trash both sides utter! Women are either here to be exploited by men or to use their wiles to exploit men. In my day, and I am of a certain age, I ruled the roost with a firm hand and laid down the law whether it be to my niece or one of her suitors. And just what, may I ask, is wrong with decade-old observations? As I once said, “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” I should think that by now all of the fuss about various aspects of so-called feminism, and the attention or lack of attention that women may pay to its “principles,” might be a thing of the past. People should be people and should, unless like me they hold a position of some importance, should treat each other as equals. Who really cares who wears what, how the household chores are divided, what some “average” female earns, or what Professors of either sex have to say about the ways of the world?

    — Lady Augusta Bracknell · Jun 25, 08:05 PM · #

  11. Ah, Lady Bracknell, why weren’t you invited to write for BRAINSTORM? Still, I am contented to know you are a fan of Prof. Barreca’s, as are we all. But I would like to suggest, dear lady, that we are indeed all people of some importance. Those of us who earn our daily bread, dear lady, deserve a place at the table, do we not? I, for one, would love to be seated next to Professor Barreca.

    — ann · Jun 25, 08:13 PM · #

  12. Young women do not have to walk down the street sans bra in black shirts with pink writing declaring ‘I’m a Feminist’ to prove to anyone that they actually are a feminist; nor do they have to follow “The Rules” to prove that they’re actually feminine. It’s perfectly all right to laugh out loud at a man’s joke, bare some teeth even, and more power to you if you have the witty comeback. In the vein, it’s perfectly all right to say ‘no thank you’ to the potential employer who offers you a salary he wouldn’t dare offer a man rather than take the job and grumble about it later. Academia is the perfect place to discuss such things because even in 2008 young women need to be taught that it’s okay to be a feminine feminist. It’s okay to want equal pay, equal opportunity, and equal say. It’s okay to wear the pearls, and it’s okay to spar with the big boys. Basically, it’s okay to be yourselves – your smart, funny, sporty, beautiful, feminine selves. And it’s okay to be proud of it, too. It’s possible to teach all of these things. Just ask anyone who took one of Gina’s classes.

    — Niamh · Jun 25, 08:34 PM · #

  13. That was YOU on Oprah??!!?!?

    You go, girrrrrrrrl!

    And I am shocked someone actually doesn’t see how this is relevant to higher ed.

    A few years ago a young woman was speaking during a class and a group of young men got rowdy and interrupted her. I asked her to wait a moment while I told them to shut it. She then, without missing a beat, stated that what she had to say wasn’t important. I encouraged her to continue because she was actually speaking about something remarkably on-target for the class, demonstrating a leap in learning few in that section had demonstrated before. She demurred and got embarrassed.

    I wasn’t sure who to yell at…her for not recognizing she was worth listening to…or those jackass guys who thought their side-conversation was more important than listening to a [female] classmate. Needless to say, those guys were trouble all semester.

    — TM · Jun 26, 01:56 AM · #

  14. I wonder if the anti-feminist trend (meaning, in part, the refusal to self-identify as a “feminist”) is part of a greater neo-conservativism among generation XYZ; to quote from Absolutely Fabulous, proudly, is it all “neo-puritanism”?…a, quoting Pirata above, home-grown “fundamentalism”?

    — C · Jun 26, 08:58 AM · #

  15. Lighten up ladies! Wear what you want and act as you will whether it is to please yourself, or others of any and all genders. Life is too short to worry about what motivates you, or how others may perceive you. I’ve learned from long experience that others have to accept me as I am. Or else!

    — Tony · Jun 26, 09:07 AM · #

  16. Help! As an innocent teen-age girl, who is into fashion, I am confused. I don’t wear slogans, or issue invitations, on or with what I wear. But I love to love what I wear, read what I read, and act as I feel like acting. Am I wrong?

    — Sweet Sixteen · Jun 26, 09:15 AM · #

  17. This is wonderfully funny. So I feel a bit like a killjoy to write an unfunny response, but I don’t think this is a feminist issue at all in an important way: Despite our students’ privilege of living in a feminist-inflected world (and the benefits go to male as well as female students), the problems of finding intimacy with others remain problems because intimacy is just so bloody difficult. The “girls” who wrote THE RULES are grown-adolescents writing to other grown-adolescents. Adolescence has been revised but not obviated by the freedoms that feminism offers to everyone. Today’s generation of students still have basic growing up to do—that’s their job. And I generally trust that they’ll find their way. (Feminism has certainly changed “the rules” for everyone in that particularly painful process, and it’s made the process a slightly more balanced one, gender-wise, but still not a clear and uncomplicated one.)

    — upside · Jun 26, 09:40 AM · #

  18. I hated Sex and the City… yet I am enraged when men refuse to see it yet feel perfectly comfortable ridiculing it in loud voices in shoe departments and women have to see the worlds most boring movies and make them box office hits by going on that all important first weekend and try to seem interested… if they are on a date

    — La Ranter · Jun 26, 09:42 AM · #

  19. Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m old enough that when I got married they cancelled my credit cards, because his credit score was now to be mine. I should have paid more attention but I didn’t.

    What I don’t understand is why women my daughter’s age (several of whom are graduates of 7 sister schools) are channeling the past by still believing masculine approval is essential to be considered whole.

    So they agree to be defined as a cheesy slogan, measure their lives in ounces or panic that they’ve hit 25 without the Official Guy stamp of approval.
    Having that which was not ours even 40 years ago too many young women still measure success in a fraction; being 1/2 of a couple.

    They’ve confused allowing themselves to be sexually exploited and denigrated with acceptance and equality. They have what women of the 1960’s wanted; freedom of choice, some progress, (but not total) job/pay equality, more seats in college and a greater share of the GNP. Yet, they’re not buying into the belief that a woman can be fully realized without having to check in the middle of the night to see if the toilet seat is down.

    Maybe the failure of the first wave of feminists was accepting the male notion that it’s not possible to be equal and feminine. That you can’t have parity and a party dress, so pick one, but if you pick wrong, you’ll wind up childless and shunned.

    We thought we did right by turning our backs on what we did best and tried to squeeze our gifts into crappy three piece suits, which by the way nobody really wants anymore.

    We don’t like ourselves and we don’t like each other but we continue to climb towards some unattainable goal, having abandoned the best of what it means to be a woman. I fear this has somehow, in some ways, this cost us much more than what we have gained.

    — Sarah O. Jewett · Jun 26, 10:10 AM · #

  20. I think, sister, that we do like ourselves and each other, most of the time, anyway. Girls will seeks approval of whatever sexual partners they choose (other girls, sometimes, fall into this category) and break their hearts because that’s what girls and even boys do. It’s what you do in your twenties. I like your parity/party dress duality and think it is a sign that feminism is both working and growing because the thought that both these parts of life can be combined is fairly new and fairly dangerous at least to those who would have us women choose either barren spinsterhooded success or lively funtime selfhood. Choice means not having to choose.

    — Sarah's little sister · Jun 26, 10:31 AM · #

  21. Of course this has to do with higher education. I think you have to know what your students listen to and I also think it doesn’t hurt to submit some of that to critical analysis. Gina on Oprah was doing that in her own inimitable way. And the very fact that she took on the “girls” on Oprah tells us something: that pop culture is what shapes both women and men. Given the force of the culture, and especially the music of the culture, we should not be surprised to see women submitting again to rules that we abhor. Liberation is not a phase, it’s an ongoing struggle and we are not as skilled now as we once were in making the case for resistance against the forces of commerce that treat men and women as commodities rather than as individuals who have absolute rights of their own.

    — Dr. J · Jun 26, 12:13 PM · #

  22. I raise this question—having no inclination to either side of the answer—just to cause trouble and get Gina another 100 comments:

    Could it possibly be that there’s a bit of nature at work here, too? That is, after every burst of a feminist liberation struggle, there’s a drift back to women living to attract the right male. It’s always assumed the cause is the younger generation’s being spoiled, some backlash from anti-feminists or with competing schools of feminism, fatigue with the neverending struggle, etc., and undoubtedly all of them are among the causes. But for all the independent and high-achieving women in any and all fields, what if it’s hard-wired that women, very generally speaking, will try to attract a male rather than pursue one, while men are just about the reverse?

    — Just Passing Through · Jun 26, 01:05 PM · #

  23. Just Passing Through – What you are suggesting is that humans might behave in the same fashion as all other sorts of mammals, animal mammals!

    We wear pants good sir, nature has nothing to do with us!

    — Victor · Jun 26, 01:16 PM · #

  24. Okay, the song by Jewel is ten years old, and during that time we have been exposed to strong, no-bullshit female songwriters such as Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jenny Lewis, Feist, M.I.A., and Santogold. And in that time we have also clenched our jaws to men—like the guy from Plain White Ts, Nick Lachey, and James Blunt—whining on pop-radio about the girls they were meant to be with leaving them, and how boo hoo hoo, life is just so empty without them. So shouldn’t pathetic song lyrics be attributed more towards whether or not the singer has all her or his eggs in one basket, rather than gender itself? Or am I just making a good point?
    I say this with a straight face: Feminism will never make shitty songs disappear. Jewel will never turn into Patti Smith. And likewise, Clay Aiken will never turn into Bruce Springsteen. It’s the nature of pop, not gender. But continuously bringing feminism into these matters seems to diminish its value.
    College courses will contain a few ditzy girls who think their boyfriends’ needs come before their own. This is fine. This is the nature of ditzy girls. For each one of these I saw in college, I saw a ditzy boy who did whatever his girlfriend told him to, whether it was to carry her purse or saunter into oncoming traffic. Feminism cannot help everyone. You have to account for the intelligence of individuals. Some people are just not cut out to accept feminism, or to follow its tenets, but this does not mean that feminism is waning or on the decline. It just means that some girls are dumb.
    Yes, I just said that.
    Some girls are dumb. Some boys are dumb. On equal levels, human beings have the capacity to live absurd lives, whether absurd female lives or absurd male lives. I guess if there was a peak that feminism has been striving to hit, this is it.
    I rally for the cause, believe me, but when do we sit back and take in everything that has changed for the better over the past few generations, rather than, I don’t know, pick apart pop songs? If feminists are still waiting around for world domination, they are no more sure of themselves than Jewel.
    In short, welcome to the playing field. Try to enjoy the music.

    — She Hulk · Jun 26, 04:31 PM · #

  25. Just Passing Through: You have 98 more comments to go before reaching your quota (noted with all due respect). And, yes, what’s so bad about mammals? On the other side though, isn’t it almost always the man-imal/animal that sports the colorful plumage, so as to “attract” the female? (as in CP Gilman’s Women and Economics). Gilman says that human culture has reversed this; maybe so, but maybe not: maybe all the material accoutrements end up being, for all of us sadly, so much ornamentalism.

    — C · Jun 26, 06:35 PM · #

  26. Take a look at ‘I’m With Stupid’, a book by Gene Wiengarten of the Washington Post that Bareca coauthored. They talk about the whole plumage thing in a chapter about why ‘fouls fall in love’ .

    — Gadolfir · Jun 26, 11:05 PM · #

  27. There’s a lot of overlap generally with what’s going on in the Weingarten book. I thought perhaps he wrote most of it but the retelling of some stories confirms her authority (for better or worse!) I just noticed that we’re talking in these responses about mammals and birds. What’s up with that anyway?

    — Una · Jun 27, 07:08 AM · #

  28. If you want to know where feminism went to, you have no further to go than this blogger’s rant. It is bitchy, adolescently girly, and nerdy. It sounds like a telephone conversation between two teenage Anais Nin-wannabes without a date on Friday night. She thinks she’s like sooooo smart. Don’t you just totally hate her?

    — Remmy Stof · Jun 27, 10:52 AM · #

  29. oooh, gf, yr jst jlus

    — Remmy'senemy · Jun 27, 10:55 AM · #

  30. Personally, I’m all for laughing out loud AFTER hot sex…

    — barbara · Jun 27, 11:07 AM · #

  31. Hmm. It is empowering to think that everything I do can be considered empowering. I like that logic!

    This post appeals to me since I’m trying to figure out how to live in multiple roles at once. I’ve got daughter, worker, friend down, but am having trouble getting comfortable with the idea of wife & mom. It seems so hard to reconcile with the other roles.

    — AvocadoInParadise · Jun 27, 03:40 PM · #

  32. from a young feminist: i’m worried about my generation/the next too. although women have gained an awful lot, we have regressed (sexually) as well.

    and if you really want to cause some controversy, try talking about the role of pornography in all this!

    — Byrd · Jun 27, 09:34 PM · #

  33. luckily, fashion-wise, and in certain locations, androgyny is in

    — Isabel · Jun 27, 09:37 PM · #

  34. the role of pornography? Good grief, then we’d have to also discuss what is and is not porn and I don’t even know where to begin to draw that line! especially with all these online blogs, myspace and facebook pages which often seem to be personal advertisements for online sex.

    It is also interesting that many women who say they are sexually liberated often express that liberation by conforming to male desire rather than their own personal desire. I mean who really thinks a thong is comfortable or liberating?

    Porn is crazy. My o My. And very interesting for sure!

    — Hannah · Jun 28, 11:01 AM · #

  35. Im lvg prn jst as longas its not scary/vilent.

    — FemGrl · Jun 28, 07:40 PM · #

  36. Here’s a question to stir the pot – why is gender so blasted important? Why is it the first thing we notice about someone we meet? Why do we HAVE to know if a colleague is male or female? Why is gender ambiguity so disconcerting?

    — Catalin Dunnett · Jun 29, 12:59 PM · #

  37. Great column (in spite of all the rude and hostile comments above which show, unsurprisingly, that people have little to no knowledge of feminist theory or history – another example of the point this article attemps to demonstrate). Thank you.

    And your Onion article also reminds me of another I’m amused (and saddened) by, “Man Finally Put in Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement,” http://www.theonion.com/content/news/man_finally_put_in_charge_of?utm_source=EMTF_Onion .

    — J. · Jul 1, 09:43 AM · #

  38. Oh, eff this silly feminism, I am now suddenly reminded of why my attachment to marxism and the Economist remain on an even par. There is no equality between women. Pretty gals still use their pretty butts to pry money out of stupid men, and usually the courts side with them. Nothing changed, after all these years. And pretty gals get the better job offers, to meet the richer men whom they will then take to the cleaners in divorces. All the equality acts in the world have not changed this, and if anything it is worse today than it was in 1970, when I graduated from high school. Feminism and equality among women will continue to be a joke— sad but true.

    But I liked this article, and it certainly has to do with Higher Ed. Fortunately my students, however, are rarely from the USA and have more serious political situations to deal with in their home countries than husband-hunting.

    — molly · Jul 4, 03:59 PM · #

  39. NO 38 it’s “gels” not “gals” as “Lady” Agusta Bracknell will tell you.

    All women are equal too she says, except for her in her imagined importance.

    “Marie Antoinette” would surely have been a better pseudonym!

    — Job's Comforter · Jul 21, 06:48 PM · #

  40. Your ranting is soothing to my spirit! I see young women today as falling into the same ruts out of which us veteran women were trying, sometimes successfully but never completely, to scratch and claw ourselves. Whether it’s called feminism or anything else makes no difference. What it is … is freedom, something we all know is not free, but is laden with responsibility for oneself. Ah, that each of us, male and female alike, were free …

    — Janice · Jul 22, 11:38 AM · #

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