Today I want to pay homage to the women in the media who inspire me everyday. Warning: if reading this you think it's a bitchy rant against men, you may be a closeted misogynist.
Growing up, I went through a lot of phases. There was the phase where I wanted to be short and petite like the other girls. There was the phase where I probably had an un-diagnosed eating disorder. That was during the phase where I hated my body, and sometimes myself. There was the phase where I hated everything in my wardrobe and couldn't figure out how to dress like the other girls. There was the phase where I thought putting out empowered me as a woman.
Those aren't the sort of phases I want my daughters to go through. I want them to struggle with: should I be a politician or CEO? Or maybe I'd be happier as a kindergarten teacher. On that note, I'm going to be a great mom so maybe I won't want to be a teacher if I have kids to take care of at home...
And that's why I'm glad for so many powerful amazing women who inspire the hell out of me everyday. I'm a little ashamed my path to understanding my femininity in a male-"dominated" (in quotes to remove the power from the word as this is not an essay to disempower my sex) world took so long, but only because I've always known who I was. It just took me a long time to learn how to reconcile who I am with what society expects me to be. And as smart as I am, it's a little sad.
That's why I want to note a few women who I am grateful can be role models for women struggling with this very topic. Let's start with Ellen. It's recently been a point of, well, hilarity, that nearly every time I receive a text after dinner that starts: "what are you doing?" my answer involves "Ellen...You Tube...."
Here is a woman who is pretty, funny, rich, powerful, famous, and married to a gorgeous specimen of a woman. She also happens to be openly gay, smart, kind, and inspiring. When she came out she lost her job and couldn't get work for quite some time. Even today JC Penny's decision to name her their spokeswoman resulted in a ferocious and ignorant backlash from women who feel that as a gay woman she has nothing in common with them and their values. And STILL her message, everyday on her show, is "be kind to each other." Kindness which she demonstrates and inspires in others. With as much as she's worth of course there's no reason she shouldn't be donating to charity, but she gives not just money but also time and goodwill. After everything she went through she has come to the conclusion that kindness is what she wants to stand for. She's a marvelous woman.
Adele? Top of the charts? Not your average blonde pop star running around in underwear. A fully clothed, voluptuous WOMAN in every sense of the word who has not followed an already paved road but trampled her way into the music scene with a sound that stands out from the din of the crowd. She's not filling our head with mind numbing beats and ridiculous tabloids. She's gotten to where she is because she's talented and smart and because she taps into our very souls with her words and her sounds. She's not selling us sex and club beats, nor I believe is she wrecking her life with drug and alcohol abuse. She's offering us an understanding into something we couldn't quite put words to before. My students request Adele all the time. I happily oblige.
When I saw Pina I was amazed by some of her female dancers, old enough to be my mother, sometimes topless, still moving with more grace and beauty then I can ever hope to possess. And they looked phenomenal onscreen. Their bodies were the bodies of women who hadn't pumped steroids or silicone into their skin. They were pure beauty.
Millions of women around the world everyday do what these women do. I mean, we could start with Michele Obama (mom-extraordinaire, first lady, gorgeous, annnnd MUSCLES.) Kathryn Bigelow- first woman to receive an academy award for best director. (I don't care if she won "because James Cameron pushed for her." She won. And she's a chick. Suck it.) Uhh...Gabrielle Giffords? The name alone shows the strength our gender possesses. We could also talk about teachers, artists, managers, doctors, directors, producers....my point is: there are women topping the internet who aren't Snookie. And they didn't get there by following trends. They got there by being themselves, knowing themselves, being strong, and NOT succumbing to to the role men (and often other women) have relegated them to.
Recently, women's rights seem to be a topic of conversation again. It infuriated me for quite a bit. I mean, it will infuriate me forever. I'm enraged and horrified by the front row seat abortion takes. Or less controversially yet still at the forefront- BIRTH CONTROL???? Or women in the military...(le sigh.) We don't need to talk about my political opinions. It doesn't matter. What matters? So many other important issues should be on our agendas. There are so many things going on in the world, in our country, in our cities, and even in our neighborhoods that need our attention. And this is what we're wasting our time on? A panel of men sitting around telling women what their rights are. Why? Why, when so many phenomenal women are rocking the world, and so many horrible problems deserve our attention, is this an issue?
In college I was deeply upset that as a female dancer in a female dominated field, men still held a disproportionate number of power positions. Just like today, many women are infuriated and saddened that men are still trying to overturn Roe V. Wade, and limit our access to necessary services provided at places like Planned Parenthood.
You know what ladies, I think we're overreacting. (I mean, of course we're not! The last thing we should do is let men undo centuries of feminist work! But hear me out.)
These issues are on the table because we're winning. A male friend recently informed me that because of some "crisis of masculinity" women shouldn't be in powerful positions in the church. Apparently powerful women are some sort of threat for men? (Original. Really.) I'm not going to deny the validity of said "crisis." I deny that your crisis is going to be solved by cutting us back down. We have some very powerful voices out there who are demonstrating for us what a woman can be. She can be an involved mom and a first-lady. She can be gay. She can be smart. She can direct men onscreen and earn respect doing it. She can dance like a pro 4 months pregnant in an (albeit plagiarized) chart-topping music video. She can run a solid presidential campaign and serve as Secretary of State even after her husband's very public infidelity. She can dance until the day she dies, whether on a small stage in Wuppertaul or at the Superbowl.
I posit that we shouldn't be afraid of these men. The fact is they are afraid of us. And that's why they're fighting so hard to hold onto this issue. They need to control something. The fact is we're not scared. We're angry. And we have a lot to offer the world. (And, just in case we need back-up, we have a lot of angry men on our side too.)
Today, I'm grateful that I've learned what it means to be a woman. Really learned that my gender has no determination on my worth in the world. And I don't just know it because someone told me, or kind of know it and then still dress specifically to find a husband. I know it because I feel it in every ounce of my body. I'm so proud of the strong women around me. And I'm proud that my daughters can grow up with such phenomenal role models.
Bring it boys. We're happy to play ball. There's still a long way for us to go but you may as well give up. Because frankly, we're going to win.
Brava, Brava, Brava. You've said this so eloquently and elegantly, as elegant and understated, yet supremely effective, as I imagine your dance forms to be- you mention anger, but don't resort to cheap shots. Class, class, class.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, count me in as one of the angry men on your side. Women perform 2/3 of the world's labor, produce 50% of the world's food, yet in return get only 10% of the income and 1% of the property and are still massively underrepresented in politics. Most of the world's poor and illiterate people are women, so any attempt to create a fairer, more equal, and more just society must involve women.
As a man I'd also like to point out that patriarchal structures oppress men, too. Certainly not as pervasively as they do women, and in a different way, but.. there was a time when, if a white male DIDN'T participate in the oppression of women and minorities, he wasn't considered a "real man" by his peers. I am troubled to see that image re-emerging.. Our modern society has created spaces for heterosexual men to display affection to each other and enjoy traditionally "feminine" pastimes like cooking and art, which are now declining. I worry... I just worry about what the stigmatization of all affection between men as "gay" is going to do to our society in the long run. I worry about what it has already done. If the only socially acceptable emotion for men to express to each other is aggression and violence, won't that lead to permanently aggressive and violent societies?
To end on a positive note, hurrah! Keep being a strong woman. And let me join you in your quest. Yay for strong role models, down with ALL forms of gender tyranny!
Hunter-gatherer cultures, which, of course, human beings have inhabited for most of our cultural and evolutionary existence, had relative gender equality. Everyone worked to obtain food, so everyone was important, and no surpluses could be built up, so equality was maintained. If a would-be despot arose, you could quite simply exile the crazy person by shoving him outside the settlement, locking your gate and literally leaving him to the wolves. These hunter-gatherer societies gave women a fairly high status and were largely matriarchal/matrilineal. And critically, population was controlled. There wasn't a lot of stuff to use as baby food- fruits and vegetables were fibrous, and meats needed strong teeth to chew. Also, the migratory lifestyle meant that women could carry only one baby at a time, generally. It's a little hard to tote five children up and down a mountain range, for instance! So they tended to space out births by marrying late and having extremely long nursing periods, which acted as a deterrent to ovulation. There is also some evidence they used herbal contraceptives, which added further to their autonomy and independence.
ReplyDeleteThe agricultural revolution changes this paradigm by creating surpluses, creating lots of stuff to use as baby food, creating (generally) male-dominated hierarchies to distribute the surplus, since men do the majority of the field labor. In the new society, men have a lot to gain from disempowering women, and they do it by keeping women weak, worn-out and dependent, with constant childbearing and childcare. If you look into the histories of the male-dominant Abrahamic religions and even the pagan religion of ancient Sumeria, all of them gender the desert as hostile female space and water- plus the Bringer of Water- as male. The same sexism takes root in North Indian Hinduism and Chinese philosophies, for much the same reasons.
Here is my 21st century hypothesis to all this anthropology- the Pill came along! And because of the Pill, women now have the ability to control their fertility as never before. Because women can control their fertility, men cannot keep women dependent by relegating them to constant childbearing. The Pill has broken patriarchy's back! And it may just reinstate what is essentially a functional matriarchy. Of course patriarchal men are freaked out about it. Those of us who are wise, however, hope that the "new order" for women has better possibilities for all- as I articulate in my former comment.
Sorry it has taken me so long to read this! Well said. I can't agree more. A lot of men from certain corners of America ARE scared of the power women are obtaining. We are not man-haters and we are not trying to take anything from men. All we are doing is getting the education we want (close to 60% of college students are female!), the jobs we want, and the families we want, when we want them. This is scary to some men (and shockingly some women) so they are going after contraception to try and curb these changes. Well, they're 40 years too late. There are too many educated, successful women (and men) in this country to let us regress so much. I am confident come next election we will show them how much power we truly have! (this is also my attempt at a PSA to please vote in November)
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