Feminism and the culture of marriage

It seems women who are more successful relative to their husbands have happier marriages.

This is according to some new research - the New York Times article is also interesting - which I've been periodically thinking about ever since feministe linked to it a few days ago. My first thought was, naturally, "well, of course that's true. Successful women are more likely to be happy."

Now, this in itself is very important. An enormous number of people are quite terrified at the prospect of women being the primary earners in a household - they insist that chaos and broken families are the inevitable result. These results make them look positively foolish.

It's even more important than that, though. For years, we've been insisting that society would be a better place with more equality and power for women. But not everyone agrees with that. I can't count the number of times that I've tried to explain why feminism is still important (Women can vote and own property now, can't they? What else do we need?) to someone, only to be told in no uncertain terms that it only benefited women, that families (i.e. men) were being made miserable by feminist actions. One answer to this, of course, is that it's hardly fair for men to achieve their happiness at the expense of women, but research like this essentially bypasses the question.

If successful women actually improve families and marriages, that strikes at the central argument of those who insist the opposite. The so-called 'decline of the family' is one of the most pervasive bogey-persons today; it seems to be being systematically dismantled (other recent research about the effectiveness of homosexual parents comes to mind). Feminism is finally changing, not just laws and regulations, but the culture itself. This is a very, very good thing.

Which is not to say we're anywhere near finished - just look at the tagline of the LA Times take on a study about the increase in women who earn more than their husbands (22% to be specific). 'Researchers say marriage may be a path to economic stability for men.' It's still all about teh mens for so many (and the article was apparently written by a woman!).

We just need to go further. Real cultural change is the answer.

iPad...now with wings

Hire a woman or two for your marketing team, Apple; they might have been able to foresee this problem:

Apple has generated a lot of chatter with its new iPad tablet. But it may not be quite the conversation it wanted.

Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that “iPad,” in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from “iPod,” Apple’s music player.

[...]

In the hours after the iPad announcement on Wednesday, “iTampon” became one of the most popular trending topics on Twitter.

Indeed. No way anyone would have guessed this might happen.

Via the NY Times.

You're never getting that station wagon back, Obama

This isn't strictly feminist, but it's political and too damn true not to share (specifically starting around the 1 minute mark). The idea that Obama needs to drift further to the center/right is just asinine.



"Dude, where's your car?"

"I gave the Republicans the keys."

"Why?!"

"They said they'd be nice to me if I did."

"You're never getting that station wagon back, man."

"So giving them my house keys was a bad idea, too?"

"Dude."

Yeah. Something like that.

A few thoughts on Haiti

The disaster in Haiti (as seen by those in the rest of the world, of course) is winding down. The government is giving up on searching and moving toward rebuilding. The media frenzy is nearly over - no headlines, few articles on the front pages of websites and papers. Even more - people aren't talking much about Haiti any more, and although I don't know, I imagine donations are on their way down, too.

I could say that in reality, the disaster is far from over, that we still need to support Haitians, etc. And it would be true - at least to a point.

But in all honesty, Haiti will be okay - as much as it can be. The damage is already done. Hundreds of thousands are dead, and the country destroyed. The humanitarian groups are finally in place, and all the rich foreign governments are involved. The disaster relief machinery is in place, it's all downhill (or is that uphill?) from here.

And it's too late to really do anything, because this disaster wasn't really caused by the earthquake.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It had a terrible infrastructure. The government was inefficient, corrupt, had no resources, and was completely incapable of dealing with a disaster. And on and on it goes.

Haiti needed 'disaster relief' long before the earthquake. And if something had been done, the effect of the quake would have been much, much reduced.

That's how it always happens, though. A part of the world, a people group, some other division has a problem. It could be poverty, potential war or genocide, or just simple racism, sexism, classism. Something happens, the conditions finally become intolerable, and then people (hopefully) do something. If it's obvious enough (earthquake, hurricane), we do quite a lot. If it's more subtle, we don't do as much.

Regardless, by that point all that can be done is clean up. That's the real disaster.

Something needs to be done before the earthquakes, not after.

Women's Suffrage...it's pop quiz time, y'all!

This semester I'm teaching an Introduction to Women's Studies class in order to buff up my CV and gain some more varied teaching experience. So far, two weeks in, it's been great experience. My students seem generally engaged and invested, and they talk in class without my prompting. I think it'll be a good semester, even if teaching a lecture class (as opposed to the discussion-based classes I've taught before) is a brand new thing for me.

That said, in order to help encourage them to do the readings, I'll be springing some pop quizzes on them here and there over the course of the semester. Tuesday's quiz was about women's suffrage and based on a chapter they read from Louise Michele Newman's book White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States (chapter 2: "The Making of a White Female Citizenry: Suffragism, Antisuffragism, and Race").

Anyway, here's the quiz. How would you fare?

1. Define suffrage/suffragist.
2. Define abolition/abolitionist.
3. True or False?: Female anti-suffragists were also against women’s rights in other areas.
4. True or False?: Black men were the most adamant opponents of a woman’s right to vote.
5. True of False? Colorado and Wyoming were two of the first states to allow women the right to vote.
6. True or False?: The 15th amendment gave women the right to vote.
7. True or False?: The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) and the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) were really the same organization.
8. True or False?: Some suffragists argued that women should be allowed to vote because their “moral purity” would help rid politics of its corruption.
9. Besides gender and race, name two other markers of identity that came into play in the suffrage movement.
   

Femininity and the Workplace

M. Leblanc of Bitch Ph. D has an interesting piece up about "Acting like a Man" with respect to the workplace. In it, she argues that women need to promote themselves more, to be more self-interested in order to succeed. I have to (mildly) disagree.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm all in favor of strong women, aggressive women, independent women - and any other sort of women; that's the point.

Women - and men, for that matter - should be free to have whatever personality is natural to them, to behave in whatever way they wish (within reason, of course). And people can of course react to that however they want to as well, including not hiring them for being less confident.

But consider this: do one's "self-promotion, confidence, and even occasional arrogance" really have a great deal to do with ability in most careers? I, for one, could do with far less of that kind of thing with the (largely male, admittedly) people I work with. A debilitating lack of confidence is a problem, of course, but most people don't have that issue.

For me, it's quite simple. I like being slightly self-depreciating. I like saying 'sorry' and using tag phrases. I like speaking softly in formal situations. I don't like to appear confident when I'm not, etc. It's just who I am.

It seems like the real trouble is with the employers who are unable to see past the mask of confidence to a persons ability, and who are so used to judging people by specific proscribed attitudes that they can't accept anything else. It's not that women are somehow 'naturally' more sensitive or non-aggressive - as in Ms. Zandt take on the subject (Which M. Leblanc rightly criticizes), but that women and men who choose to be less confident, less self-interested (dare I even say, kinder!) shouldn't be punished for it.

M. Leblanc:

These are natural, human ways of behavior that women are pressured, cajoled, and outright prevented from engaging in, from puberty on. Humans are an ambitious bunch, and we're self-interested and selfish. I don't think we need to jettison that aspect of human nature in order to live in a more just, free, and collaborative society, as Zandt suggests. What about ambition that seeks power and authority in order to bring about justice? That's the kind of ambition I have.

I respectfully submit that ambition, self-interest, and selfishness aren't 'natural human behavior' any more than self-sacrifice, or a desire to live simply is. Surely there's room enough for all kinds!

Don't get me wrong - any woman who is ambitious (especially for justice!) is to be greatly admired. But it often seems as if the presence of strong women is used an excuse for society to continue to discriminate against femininity.

So I suppose I'm not really disagreeing here - Shirky's original article was just so much tripe. I'd just like the feminist response to that sort of thing to be more balanced.

What do you think? Is there something intrinsically good about ambition and self-interest?

On listening to MLK

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I sat down and listened to the "I have a dream" speech today - and realized that I had never actually heard it before! Sure, I've read the speech, and others of his perhaps a dozen times, but I never actually listened to it, all the way through, as spoken by the man himself.

It was surprisingly enlightening.

I spent most Martin Luther King holidays during my teenage year angry, not perhaps at MLK himself, but at the importance that people attached to him. It seemed completely justified at the time - he was a plagiarist, a hypocrite in a variety of other ways, etc. (and I was influenced by my moderately racist local culture). After I became a feminist, I added his occasionally poor attitude toward women to the list.

Eventually, of course, I realized that most of his supposed failings were either fabrications or exaggerations made by a rather nasty group of people (there's a nice write up here, if you're curious). But even more important, I think, was realizing who Martin Luther King Jr. actually was.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great speaker. He wasn't a philosopher or a scientist who single-handedly discovered some great truth. And while he was an excellent leader, I don't think that's really why he's important. Martin Luther King Jr. real impact was that when he spoke, he wasn't just speaking for himself - he was speaking for an entire community. Even more, perhaps - he spoke for a whole group of people, black, white, women, men, who had one thing in common: they cared about equality.

MLK didn't just speak about race either, as some would have us think, he spoke about war, about poverty, even about technology. His genius was that he said what the people said; in listening, we can hear the people (including, perhaps, ourselves) speak.

And we would do well to listen.

(Crossposted at Constant Thoughts)

Day of Service

Following in the footsteps of my good friend and brilliant blogger, Dr. Jay, I wanted to point FWF readers in the direction of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. It's a call for people to spend their MLK Day (especially if you have the day off) to volunteer in some capacity in your community. And, if you can't volunteer on Monday for whatever reason, I'd urge you to take some time to think about where and when you might be able to start volunteering (if you're not doing so already). As a regular volunteer at my local animal shelter, my experience has been extraordinarily positive; I look forward to going there every week, and I think it really might be one of the most fun and rewarding things in my life right now.

If you have no idea where to start, Volunteer Match and All for Good are good places to start looking for volunteer opportunities in your community. Also, if you can afford it and want to help those whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the earthquake in Haiti, please consider donating to Partners in Health, Doctors Without Borders, or The Red Cross.

Mea culpa, Hillary Clinton and Prop 8

First, the mea culpa: I am a no good, very bad blogger. I took a holiday break with the promise to return after the New Year, and then what did I do? I vanished! Okay, so I've been a little bit overwhelmed--trying to finish the final (final!) revisions on my dissertation, preparing for classes (first class was today), traveling over the holidays--but that's really no excuse. Blogging is fun and I'd like to be able to make time for it at least several times a week. So there you go--an apology and a New Year's resolution all in one. Hence forth, I will try to be better to my blog: pet her, feed her, walk her, play fetch...and...and I think that metaphor's over now, don't you?

Never mind. In any case, I'm going to start posting again fo' real tomorrow, but just to get me back into the swing of things, here are a few interesting items from this week's news.

1. According to The Washington Post, there are current 25 female ambassadors in DC, the highest number ever and a steep increase from ten years ago. I just think that's awesome. And you know what's awesomer? Quoting the Post:

A key reason is the increase in the number of top U.S. diplomats who are women, what some call the "Hillary effect."

"Hillary Clinton is so visible" as secretary of state, said Amelia Matos Sumbana, who just arrived as ambassador from Mozambique. "She makes it easier for presidents to pick a woman for Washington."

If it didn't make me feel like I was regressing back to my adolescence, I would put a smiley face here in place of this sentence.

2. In other Hillary news, Tracy Clark-Flory over at Salon Broadsheet has a nice little piece about the Secretary of State's recent speech about women's and human rights. Clark-Flory begins

Maybe you're feeling apathetic toward the plight of the world's women, or perhaps you're suffering from an acute case of Feminist Outrage Fatigue™. Well, you will be slapped right out of that stupor by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech Friday commemorating the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). She dished out familiar rhetoric -- like her famous line, "women's rights are human rights" -- but also dropped some cold, hard facts on our privileged first-world asses.

Check the site for the rest of her re-cap and, as for Clinton's actual speech, you can watch it on CSPAN.com or read the transcript.

3. There's great story in next week's Newsweek (online here) about Ted Olson, a prominent Republican lawyer--the lawyer, in fact, who won the court case that got George W. Bush "elected" president. (Remember that business? Ten years ago? Gore won but then Bush became president. Yeah, that.) Since I just said it's a great piece about Olson, you're probably thinking that he's involved in some kind of sex scandal or someone's revealed he eats kittens or its some other article ripping him to shreds. Au contraire, my friends.

Entitled "The Conscience of a Conservative," Eve Conant's story discusses Olson's involvement in a case he feels passionately about, so passionately that he's defying many of his conservative colleagues who think he's being an asshat (Conant writes that his conservative peers "have accused him of apostasy, and of trying to bend the Constitution to fit clandestine liberal views," but I'm sure they're really calling him an asshat in private). Ted Olson, former Bush Administration lawyer, will be arguing for gay marriage in the federal Prop 8 hearings starting this week. Yep, you read that right. For gay marriage. Writes Conant:

Olson's brief against Prop 8 is straightforward: laws banning gay marriage not only make no sense, they are unconstitutional. As a conservative, he says he believes in individual liberty and freedom from government interference in the private lives of citizens. Discriminating against people because of sexual orientation is a violation of both. "This case could change the way people think about one another," says Olson. "We are forever putting people into this box or that box, instead of just seeing each other as human beings."

This is the kind of conservatism I can get behind. Olson still considers himself a conservative, but he's very rationally decided that despite his politics he can't get behind the standard conservative party line (that's the "oppressing gay people" party line, in case I'm not being clear). I can't abide when people use unfounded, ungrounded and/or untenable arguments to support "causes" (that, in this case, disenfranchise--or, actually, support the continued disenfranchisement--of an entire minority group) just in order to 'fall in line' with their political party. (Are we sheep being herded by a grumpy, toothy border collie? I hope not.)

The growing partisan rift in Congress--where nothing gets done because everyone refuses to put a toe over the line-in-the-sand between Democratic and Republican "policy"--is totally scary, and this Newsweek story was just a little light at the end of the tunnel that makes me feel less sad about it all. Hopefully that light won't turn into an oncoming train...