Gomezticator
October 31st, 2005, 09:19 PM
Some of you may have read this, but feminists either love or hate this weekend article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine/30feminism.html) (bypass registration here (http://www.bugmenot.com)) by NYT columnist Maureen Dowd, where she delves into the retrogression of feminists.
I personally think that all the commentary on this article has missed the boat on one major reason feminism is dying. I've discussed this elsewhere and will repost my point here.
Traditional marriage, the archaic perception of marriage and children as a perfunctory goal, rather than as a personal life decision, has cut off the non-traditional movement known as feminism at the knees.
Women historically learned to see marriage and kids as a goal in life. However, back in the day women had few options at best for life. You weren't allowed to work in high-level positions. You were expected to stay home, bat your eyes and look pretty enough for some guy to marry you so that you could do his cooking and cleaning (and with certain guys, take their beatings) for the rest of your life. Hell, until 1919 you weren't allowed to vote. Women were taught to pursue marriage because there was no other life for them.
So we get feminism, a push for equality among women. However, one thing was forgotten: if a woman goes to work 40-60 hours a week and climbs the corporate ladder, she's not going to be able to stay at home and raise the kids. No one's home to do the cooking. No one's home to do the laundry. Man's got to do some of the cooking. He's got to do some of the housekeeping and laundry. Not everyone can afford a maid. And say what you will about the benefits of daycare: it's expensive, your child grows up under someone else's watch and once they become self-sufficient enough to come home from school on their own, there's the chance of abandonment issues, detachment issues and other emotional conflicts to come into play during adolescence, stuff you really couldn't control because you couldn't be home because you had a career to attend to.
I'm not faulting women. It's just that you can't do both: you cannot be a full time housewife and mom, and be a career woman at the same time. The time investment required to do one competently, let alone well, won't allow it. You have to choose one or the other. This is why professional women don't breed, not some shit about men fearing women from Harvard.
Of course, the Harvard Argument comes into play when trying to get into a relationship... but that leads to another question: why are both sides trying so hard to get into a relationship? Oh yeah, because in 2005 we're still taught to pursue marriage, a religious tradition where man plays the superior and woman the inferior. I don't think man would be intimidated by woman if they were just causally seeing each other, but it changes once the prospect of spending the rest of your lives together comes into play.
The continued perception of marriage as a life goal, rather than seeing marriage as a mutual life decision that happens to make sense for both particular parties, is where American Feminism fails.
You're taking the square block of marriage and trying to cram it into the round hole of feminism. Marriage is not a necessary goal anymore, because women today can go to school, develop their careers and live a professionally fruitful life on their own. But women today are still taught, intuitively via peer pressure and the media, to see marriage as a goal. This is where the identity confusion that Maureen Dowd mentioned in her article comes from. Feminism never addressed the role of marriage in society.
Marriage is seen as a requirement, like graduating from high school, rather than as a choice, like deciding to move to a city you love. In society, single or unmarried men and women are treated as social failures. The Feminist's movement's failure to address this contradiction and change is perception had led to the decline of feminism, as outlined in Dowd's lengthy article.
I personally think that all the commentary on this article has missed the boat on one major reason feminism is dying. I've discussed this elsewhere and will repost my point here.
Traditional marriage, the archaic perception of marriage and children as a perfunctory goal, rather than as a personal life decision, has cut off the non-traditional movement known as feminism at the knees.
Women historically learned to see marriage and kids as a goal in life. However, back in the day women had few options at best for life. You weren't allowed to work in high-level positions. You were expected to stay home, bat your eyes and look pretty enough for some guy to marry you so that you could do his cooking and cleaning (and with certain guys, take their beatings) for the rest of your life. Hell, until 1919 you weren't allowed to vote. Women were taught to pursue marriage because there was no other life for them.
So we get feminism, a push for equality among women. However, one thing was forgotten: if a woman goes to work 40-60 hours a week and climbs the corporate ladder, she's not going to be able to stay at home and raise the kids. No one's home to do the cooking. No one's home to do the laundry. Man's got to do some of the cooking. He's got to do some of the housekeeping and laundry. Not everyone can afford a maid. And say what you will about the benefits of daycare: it's expensive, your child grows up under someone else's watch and once they become self-sufficient enough to come home from school on their own, there's the chance of abandonment issues, detachment issues and other emotional conflicts to come into play during adolescence, stuff you really couldn't control because you couldn't be home because you had a career to attend to.
I'm not faulting women. It's just that you can't do both: you cannot be a full time housewife and mom, and be a career woman at the same time. The time investment required to do one competently, let alone well, won't allow it. You have to choose one or the other. This is why professional women don't breed, not some shit about men fearing women from Harvard.
Of course, the Harvard Argument comes into play when trying to get into a relationship... but that leads to another question: why are both sides trying so hard to get into a relationship? Oh yeah, because in 2005 we're still taught to pursue marriage, a religious tradition where man plays the superior and woman the inferior. I don't think man would be intimidated by woman if they were just causally seeing each other, but it changes once the prospect of spending the rest of your lives together comes into play.
The continued perception of marriage as a life goal, rather than seeing marriage as a mutual life decision that happens to make sense for both particular parties, is where American Feminism fails.
You're taking the square block of marriage and trying to cram it into the round hole of feminism. Marriage is not a necessary goal anymore, because women today can go to school, develop their careers and live a professionally fruitful life on their own. But women today are still taught, intuitively via peer pressure and the media, to see marriage as a goal. This is where the identity confusion that Maureen Dowd mentioned in her article comes from. Feminism never addressed the role of marriage in society.
Marriage is seen as a requirement, like graduating from high school, rather than as a choice, like deciding to move to a city you love. In society, single or unmarried men and women are treated as social failures. The Feminist's movement's failure to address this contradiction and change is perception had led to the decline of feminism, as outlined in Dowd's lengthy article.