Apt. 11D

The Problem With Lipstick Feminism

Elizabeth Wurtzel's essay in the Atlantic last week was a typical Wurtzel piece. She told us that she still looks good even though she's 45 and gave us her recipe for looking great in her trademark uncomfortable way. It's full of bitterness and jealousy and name-dropping and sadness and rambling digressions and the occasional, interesting turn of phrase. 

The reactions to her piece runs the gamet from train-wreck to a huge train-wreck. I feel too bad for her to add to the pile on. She doesn't seem happy, despite her insistence that she is happy. 

My first reaction to her piece was to show it to my nieces and tell them, this is what happens when your identity is too tied up with your appearance. Beauty is a short period of our lives. After 35, you gain weight. Gravity takes its toll; your neck, eyebrows, boobs all head south. If you have put a lot of stock in your looks, it's a depressing, downhill battle. 

In recent years, feminist critics have concentrated their efforts on getting more women in the workplace and in the executive office. Wurtzel herself has told us that a real feminist is not even married. Today, I'm missing the old school feminists with their sensible shoes and unshaven legs. I think a real feminist takes value in her brains, kindness, unique talents, hardwork, and not on the fact that she still looks good in a mini-skirt in her mid-40's. 

There is nothing wrong with looking nice. A pair of skinny jeans and Lenny's fabulous hair cut makes me feel wonderful. But I'm grateful that I was never beautiful, because aging has no effect on me. I'm going from young and quirky to old and quirky. I'm not ordering Cindy Crawford's face creams on the HSN or sculpting my abs in Pilate's classes. I do the basics, but I don't care that much. 

In some ways, I understand Wurtzel's frustration. Society does have a way of casting off middle aged women in their Lands End swim suits and Clarks loafers. But the way to get attention isn't to insist on fitting into tight clothes. It's by saying smart things. 

Are You Tired of Beef Straganoff Yet?

If not, then check out Amy Davidson. 

 

Cleaning the House Wars

Last week, the chattering class moved on from talking about Sandberg and leaning in to talking about division of house cleaning chores. (See Jessica Grose, Jonathan Chait, and Stella Bugbee.) I didn't weigh in, because we've dealt with that topic so many times on this blog. A sloppy search of my archives pulled up dozens of posts. However, I've been getting nudged to write a post about it, so here goes...

Having a tidy house isn't totally worthless as Bugbee makes out. If the kids have clean socks in a designated drawer, it is easier to get out them of the house in the morning. It's easier to throw some waffles in the toaster, if the counter isn't strewn with the remains of the previous night's dinner party. There are obvious benefits from having the cabinet under the sink stocked with rolls of toilet paper. 

I speak from experience here, because right now Jonah's clean clothes are stacked in front of his dresser and are not actually in his drawers. The kitchen counters are piled high with a mix of clean and unclean platters and bowls from last night's dinner party. And the upstairs bathroom does not have any toilet paper. 

Having a clean house is a nice thing. But making it clean is super boring, and in our spoiled Western world, we have so many better things to do with our time. 

Steve and I used to quarrel more about the housework than we do now. In some ways, quarreling over housework is a young person problem. By the time that you've been married for a million years, an equilibrium develops and standards change. I have learned to ignore the chaos on the top of Steve's night stand and desk. And he's recognized that it's actually gross to have a kitchen so dirty that you can see a dead cockroach in the digital display of the microwave. 

Like Chait, I do more of the housework, because I'm home. But I do not accept that housecleaning is my job. I do more, but I consider it a temporary situation and a low priority task. I got a headpiece for the phone, so I tidy up, while chatting with my mom. I watch dumb TV shows, during those rare moments when I try to squeeze the mountain of folded laundry into our cramped, hand-me down, paint-encrusted dressers. (I do think that if we ever invest money in proper furniture, the house will be tidier.)

When Steve's home, he does a fair share of a certain type of housework. During the week, he cleans up after dinner and throws in one load of laundry. As long as we have a mutually agreed upon priority list for the weekend, we're conflict-free. It would be nice if there was some recognition that the workload for the house was not evenly distributed, but we'll let that one go for the moment. He does many chores around the house that I don't touch, including the bill paying. 

Not only is housecleaning is a worthless task, but quarreling about the housework is also a complete waste of time. After fifteen years of marriage, we have nearly reached an equilibrium point. It took a long time for each of us to make adjustments in expectations and to arrive at certain patterns. I'm glad we're at this point, because there are so many better things to do with your time. Keeping score about the house cleaning is just as boring as putting away the platters from the dinner party and keeping the bathroom stocked with toilet paper. 

Dumb Assed Articles About Women

There is some dumb shit written about women in the press, and then there is the Pulitzer Prize of dumb shit. Who should get that award? Some candidates: 

Women Losing Objects Up Their Vaginas: An Online Literature Review

Why Some Women Choose to Eat Their Placentas 

(More to come. Will accept nominations from the comment gallery. )

Is Leaning Out a Triumph a Wealth and Prosperity?

From Christine Hoff Summers:

In a 2013 national poll on modern parenthood, the Pew Research Center asked mothers and fathers to identify their "ideal" working arrangement. Fifty percent of mothers said they would prefer to work part-time and 11 percent said they would prefer not to work at all. Fathers answered differently: 75 percent preferred full-time work. And the higher the socio-economic status of women, the more likely they were to reject full-time employment. Among women with annual family incomes of $50,000 or higher, only 25 percent identified full-time work as their ideal. Sandberg regards such attitudes as evidence of women's fear of success, double standards, gender bias, sexual harassment, and glass ceilings. But what if they are the triumph of prosperity and opportunity?

The Anti-Sandberg, The Feminist Housewife

From New York Magazine:

But what if all the fighting is just too much? That is, what if a woman isn’t earning Facebook money but the salary of a social worker? Or what if her husband works 80 hours a week, and her kid is acting out at school, and she’s sick of the perpetual disarray in the closets and the endless battles over who’s going to buy the milk and oversee the homework? Maybe most important, what if a woman doesn’t have Sandberg-Slaughter-Mayer-level ambition but a more modest amount that neither drives nor defines her?

Can you be a stay at home mom AND a feminist?

UPDATE: From Megan McArdle, 

Gay couples I know who've adopted children generally report that one parent ends up as "Dad" and one parent as "Mom". One person ends up in charge of the doctors appointments, the playdates and the ballet recitals; the other may help, but only one is the executive. And I gather that it's not just because we have some sort of social expectation that someone will be "Mom"; it's because the costs of sharing the duties outweigh the benefits. If two people are in charge of scheduling playdates and planning birthday parties, then you have to spend an enormous amount of time sharing information about these things. Moreover, you need to spend more time developing a joint policy on playdates and birthday parties: what sort of kids? How many? Who gets struck off the permitted list, and for what offenses? This is not only time consuming, but also, creates opportunities for spousal arguments.

The Name Change Debate

I've been married for 15 years now. I didn't change my name. Actually, I'm not even wearing a wedding ring right now, because I lost mine seven years ago and never got around to replacing it. Without the common last name and the ring, I don't have the usual markers for marriage. This doesn't bother me in the least, though I do like jewelry, so I really should set up a wedding ring date with my husband. 

It does cause some confusion with school officials though, who seem to be the only group of people who need to know my marital status. They don't know what to call me, so they often call Miss McKenna, er... Mrs. Steveslastname, er... . Their discomfort causes me some amusement, so I like to let them flounder around for a while before I rescue them. "Just call me Laura," I say.  

It also bothers Ian a little bit, because he has autism and he has trouble dealing with people who don't follow the rules. I'm sure that it bothers some older relatives, too. Whatever. They've gotten used to it. 

Jill Filipovic added some nice stats this old discussion. 

Ten percent of the American public still thinks that keeping your name means you aren't dedicated to your marriage. And a full 50% of Americans think you should be legally required to take your husband's name. Somewhere upwards of 90% of women do change their names when they get married.

She thinks that to get around this, men should change their last names. 

I think there shouldn't be any "shoulds" in this debate. I very much like the fact that I didn't change my name. I also like that I don't have a huge rock and matching band on my left finger. I also like wearing all black and big boots to PTA meetings. But not everybody is like me. 

My only suggestion is that young couples pause and think before they follow this tradition (or, really, any other tradition). You don't have to do anything just to please old grandmothers or school officials. 

Pregnant in Grad School

I wrote way too much today and got tied up in some insider gossip about freelance writers, so I really should walk away from the Internet. But first I wanted to point to a blog post in the New York Times about maternity policies (or lack thereof) in graduate and medical schools. KJ asked what provisions and policies exist for pregnant parents in graduate programs. 

Jonah was a grad school baby. Both Steve and I were working on our dissertations when he was born. My health insurance came from a policy job that I had through the graduate center. The school itself offered no insurance to students. The school did not provide students with any stipends. We lived off the salary from my policy job, adjunct professor money, and student loans. After Jonah arrived, I quit my policy job. My parents gave us some money, so we could finish the dissertations. We also relied on WIC to pay for formula. 

There's been a lot of talk in academic circles about drastically shortening the time spent in graduate school. Yes. 

Just One More Sandberg/Mayer Blog Post

Two more quick points. First, let me clarify why so many women, including feminist bloggers, are annoyed at the Sandberg book. 

Sandberg's advice is for women who want the CEO position and for that small group of people, her advice might be very useful. I think. I do think that anyone who achieves those high level of power, man or woman, has had the benefit of luck and privilege, and that particular road to success might not help anyone else. Books by male CEOs aren't that useful either. 

The problem with Sandberg's book is that her particular formula for success (work super hard, don't complain, dream big, whatever) is actually terrible advice for everyone else. For people who want a good job, but not the highest job, they should do the exact opposite. They should get a nursing or a pharmacy degree, instead of a PhD. They should become teachers, not lawyers. They should think smaller. 

I also think that a lot of feminist writers find it disturbing to rally behind a fabulously rich and privileged woman. 

Second, I wanted to point to an article by Hanna Rosin in Slate. 

Team Sandberg or Team Slaughter?

If there's anything that the media loves more than a Congressional sex scandal, it's a catfight. Last week, there was a flurry of articles about Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence. (I'm on Team JLaw, btw.) This week the catfight is between Sheryl Sandberg and Anne-Marie Slaughter. 

Sandberg's book took a lot of grief last week. I'm not a hater. I thought her book offered useless advice for most women and failed to acknowledge the role that luck and privilege played in her success. Whatever. It's a minor book that was probably ghost written by a woman who recieved no credit for her work. It is also probably a move to transition out of Facebook to something else that will give her more flexibility. 

Here's Anna Holmes at the New Yorker with a rundown of the controversy and a pro-Sandberg message.