Blue Notes from a Red Zone

The More Things Change

I was fortunate enough to grow up in close proximity to my grandmother, a fount of wisdom in many aspects of life. Most of what she passed down to me was extremely valuable, including her tale of being the first woman to work in an Atlanta bank, and her pride in my intelligence. She made it clear that women should be independent and self-reliant, and that I had the capacity to make a difference in the world.

However, one of her lessons, often repeated and used to reinforce the need for self-efficiency, may not have been quite as benign. When it came to matters of the heart, she was adamant that women needed to be very careful. "For men, love is a thing apart," she would quote. "For a woman, 'tis her whole existence."

From the vantage point of middle age, I think now that what she was trying to convey is that the choice of a mate was even more important to women than to men, and to be very careful in who I selected for that position. But at the time, all I ever heard was that there was a strong power differential in male/female relationships, and men held all the cards. Women were not as valued by men as men were valued by women, and this could not be good.

The culture of my childhood and adolescence, ranging from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s, certainly reinforced my interpretation. The teen magazines were dedicated to exploring the best ways to attract boyfriends. The women's magazines were focused solely on promoting ways for women to please men. Television sitcoms depicted these pleasing women as having no identity beyond their roles as wives and mothers. On the other hand, men's magazines were focused on politics, current events, mechanics and science. Those that mentioned women had brown paper wrapped around the cover, and depicted women as objects to be used, not cherished. The chatter from teenage girls certainly made it very clear that boys were the primary reason for existence. I attended an all-girls school where extreme wealth was the norm, and my lack thereof cause for social ostracism. However, I could reverse my social position, at least temporarily, merely by attending school dances and parties with cute guys.

I was not the only young woman to view this lopsided balance of power with alarm. In keeping with many emerging feminists, I chose to place my focus on my education and career goals. I spent my college years reporting and editing the daily paper for my university, and as a stringer for Newsweek magazine. I spent summers interning for the Atlanta Constitution, and had a job lined up there a year prior to college graduation. In my personal relationships, I placed my greatest trust in my girlfriends, and while I always had a boyfriend, I was always in control of the relationship. I made sure that, although I enjoyed being in love, I kept my relationships as a "thing apart." Perversely, this seemed to make me very attractive to men, and reinforced my conclusion that not investing too highly in them was sound strategy.

In the years following college, I married, put my husband through medical school, attended law school, and started a family. To my great surprise, I found that while I might be able to resist centering my life around a man, I was totally incapable of resisting the overwhelming joy that comes with having a baby. Suddenly, making sure that my children were loved, nurtured and prepared for a productive life took priority over all else, and I launched into an 18-year maternity leave without a qualm. I figured I had the skills to resume a career whenever I so chose, which not coincidentally occurred when my oldest went off to college herself.

During those 18 years, I spent a lot of time with young girls through the Girl Scouts, Odyssey of the Mind and teaching math and reading skills both to students who were well ahead of their class and those who were behind. I stressed the excitement of intellectual achievement and self-reliance, and filled our time together with travel, camping trips, music and art. I don't recall discussing make-up and hairdos and boys with anyone, either my own children or the girls in my sphere of influence. I do recall having a wonderful time, and thinking that the world was moving toward gender equality and respect for women.

But then, I went back to work, and started seeing the larger world beyond my family and neighborhood. It was an unsettling experience. Tiny girls were being dressed as sexual toys by their parents, and teenage girls were dressing themselves in the same fashion. Boys were spending hours and hours with video games that made killing men and raping women an interactive experience. I worked with victims of domestic violence who stayed with abusive men because they saw their only other option as poverty and homelessness, and all too often they were correct. Law enforcement officers and teachers were reporting that girls are moving toward one marker of gender equality, in that they are becoming increasingly violent. However, the violence is directed at other girls, and the reason given is generally because they each want the same boy. It's as though boys are so important, and in such short supply, that female competition through dress and flirtation is no longer adequate. Girls will still cancel plans with their girlfriends at a moment's notice, if a guy, even a relative stranger, asks them to do so.

What truly disturbs me is not just that women still tend to value men more than men value women, they also value men more highly than they do each other. It appalls me how often I hear women boast that they have no girlfriends, and that they spend all their time with men. Women slice their own gender apart, telling anyone and everyone that women are catty and bitchy and superficial, and that men are intelligent and forceful and substantial. I have never heard a man run down his gender, and certainly I have never heard of a man who would be proud to do so.

Since I do not believe for one second that women are in general weak, shallow or catty, I can only see this belief set as being a reaction to the fact that men still hold the balance of power in our world and in our personal lives. Forty years of a feminist movement, and of women moving steadily into higher education and the workforce, and the women's magazines still tell us how to please men and the men's magazines still tell men how to use women. Even the high percentages of women who are self-reliant do not reflect so much a drive to be independent, but the reality that many women are abandoned and many others have found that it isn't enough to keep a house clean in order to keep a man; you have to furnish it as well.

Ten years of working with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, of trying to alleviate poverty and strengthen self-esteem among young women has driven me to the edge of a cynicism that is frightening and destructive. Regarding men as an oppressive and hostile force is totally incompatible with achieving the outcomes of mutual respect and equality that are the only true hope of generations to come.

And so, because hope is all that keeps us getting out of bed in the morning, I look for ways to keep it alive. Amazingly, I find that hope springs eternal through that love I once viewed with such distrust. My daughters are loved, valued and cherished in ways that are truly transformative. My son, although still quite young, assumes his relationships are and will always be based on mutual respect and support. I have bonds of love with my family and friends, both male and female, that start with the assumption that we all need each other, and that it is very lonely to be completely self-reliant.

The world is not in a good place right now, but love and hope exist. It is enough.

An earlier post mentioned that January is a difficult month, one poorly equipped to sustain the promises of the holidays and the December hope of light. We are moving to February now, and the world is starting to seem manageable again. I have never given a lot of thought or attention to Valentine's Day, thinking it an artificial commemoration of an inequitable society, but maybe there is, in fact, something to it. For love is strong, nuanced, far-reaching, and very worthy of celebration. I might even cut out a few paper hearts for my grandson, maybe inscribed with a new epigram taken not from my grandmother, but from the Beatles: "Love is all there is."

posted by Lenore Wilson @ 3:04 AM