Is it the end, or just the beginning?
Ye olde End of Men is in the news again; this time, author Stephanie Coontz is weighing in on how the headlines proclaiming "The End of Men" might be a tad premature. It's territory we've covered before, to be sure, but there's a new turf worth tilling. Namely, when she writes:
One thing standing in the way of further progress for many men is the same obstacle that held women back for so long: overinvestment in their gender identity instead of their individual personhood.
Sorry to interrupt, but: DING DING DING!
Men are now experiencing a set of limits -- externally enforced as well as self-imposed -- strikingly similar to the ones Betty Friedan set out to combat in 1963, when she identified a 'feminine mystique' that constrained women's self-image and options.
Clearly, it's no longer 1963, but Coontz hits on something there that I think is still profoundly in evidence, particularly among the women we call "Undecided." Yes, we have options the women who clandestinely passed The Feminine Mystique around may have only dreamed about, but that's but half the story. We write often about how, somewhere along the timeline of women's liberation, the message that we can have it all morphed into an oppressive belief that we should be able to do it all, and, when I read those above words of Coontz's, I thought: Yes, yes and yes.
Because I think, to borrow her words, a certain investment in our gender identity is what keeps us so dearly invested in doing it all. When you read articles about how to take the pressure off, among the tips will invariably be something along the lines of 'ditch the stuff you don't care that much about.' Which is fine advice. (Um, we've probably offered it ourselves.) But it's hard advice to follow. Perhaps you don't give two craps about baking, yet you feel like a bad mother if you send your little one to the bake sale with store-bought (and Crisco frosted) cupcakes. Maybe you don't even want kids, but feel pressure tied to the belief that "real" women are maternal (and bake their own cupcakes). Perhaps you don't care about clothing or makeup, but you feel you must look a certain way to be accepted as a woman. Maybe you'd rather take a stick to the eye than spend a perfectly good Saturday dusting, but you have friends coming over and you just know they'll think a little bit less of you if they see how you really live.
Interestingly, I think that the more successful we are in the not-traditionally-female aspects of our lives (read: our careers), the more intensely we feel we must make sure we measure up on the traditional Lady-o-meter. Just last week, there were a couple of headlines about very successful women -- Katie Couric and Stacy London -- coming out about their struggles with eating disorders; in fact, among women, eating disorders have long been associated with an overachieving personality type. And have you ever noticed how rare it is to see a successful woman who is anything less than impeccably groomed? Not least because when said grooming or style (see: Hillary's pantsuits) falls just a little bit short, the backlash is lethal. Back in the '80s, when I was in grade school, my mom was in grad school "busting my ass," she says. And yet, "I cooked dinner every night, drove the car pool AND was your room mother." It's as though we're willing to push the envelope... but not too far. So we overcompensate, wearing heels that are lethal, killing ourselves to keep a house that'll pass the white-glove test and whipping up organic and healthy -- yet impressively epicurean -- delights for dinner. On a Tuesday.
It's too tricky to offer a simple solution -- and it's made trickier thanks to the judgment women face from other women and society at large, of course -- but surely there's some wisdom in flipping Coontz's equation and consciously putting more investment in our "individual personhood" as opposed to our "gender identity," In worrying less about what it means to be a woman and more about what it means to be our self. Or maybe just thinking a little bit about why you're killing yourself over that dinner... and instituting a new tradition called Take-Out Tuesday.