An article entitled We Scream, We Swoon, How Dumb Can We Get? appeared in the Washington Post today. In it, contributor Charlotte Allen writes tauntingly of her own gender:
“What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental?“
Her missive was inspired by the phenomenon of women swooning at Obama rallies and also by what she deems a poorly executed campaign by Hillary. Whether I agree with her on that last point is of another matter - but the reason I am posting a link here is that for a long time I have been put off by the two extreme (and extremely flat, non-descriptive) images of women focused media. The image seems to either be:
- Feminazi, tough and somewhat angry
- and on the other end of the spectrum ‘girl power’ or another more cozy Kleenex grabbing version of cutesy, juvenile, cloying, ‘healing’ and ‘fixing’ (read: victim mentality). Pink, cozy, and decidedly unserious.
What kind of ongoing effect can this have if we don’t break the cycle and present an alternative? In the end, I think this article is wildly misogynistic.
She says:
“Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true ” and ends with “So I don’t understand why more women don’t relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess …and revel in the things at which …we excel: tenderness …the ability to make a house a home….Then we (can) shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts’ content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.”
THIS makes me want to sit up and prove this (dimwitted) woman wrong.
READ THIS IN THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, letters to the paper on the election. Andrea Shepard Conroy wrote:
“The women I knew during my divorced years in the 70s did not have degrees from Wellesley or Yale Law School nor were we partners in prestigious law firms. We had traded comfortable houses for dumpy apartments and the luxury of staying home for entry-level jobs when there was no such thing as “day-care centers” — all because we thought we had a better shot for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as single women rather than married women in bad marriages. Given the choice of staying with a lout for security or trying it on our own, we took a trembling chance on ourselves.
Hilllary didn’t take that terrifying step. With every advantage of brains, education, money, recognition, and public sympathy, she wagered that Bill Clinton rather than Hillary Rodham would get her where she wanted to go. It didn’t work.”
As coaches are fond of saying on ESPN, “Baby, if you’re going to talk the talk, you gotta’ walk the walk.” Hillary talks it but she didn’t walk it. She thought someone else could take her further than she could take herself. She did not grab the opportunity to teach her daughter that an honorable marriage and personal integrity are worth the risk of losing everything. Divorce isn’t pretty but neither is unbridled ambition or using a sham marriage for political gain, thinking no one will notice.