Our Uncomfortable Young Women

The First Feminist(?)

I have noticed a very meaningful paradox in the young women of America. Many of them (if not most) seem to feel compelled to embrace "sexiness" but they also seem completely uncomfortable doing so. This, I think, is one of the many negative results of the media-driven world.

Young women are taught (by example, in music and the media) that overt sexuality equals power; a kind of Wife of Bath-ish feministic statement. They are almost, I would argue, sent the message that it is their duty to be sexy; to wear certain revealing styles. I'm told by my young female students, in class discussion, that every young girl has, at some point, received at text from a boy that says "send nudes." The shocking thing here is not that boys want to see naked girls but that those boys seem to think they have a right to see these pictures; or, maybe worse, that getting pictures like that is a matter of course in their relationships with girls. The other thing I am told is that may girls comply because "they feel like they have to."

What I see in daily life is a lot of young women wearing clothes that "show" more than I ever, as a young man growing up in the 80s, saw. What I also see is how uncomfortable most of these girls seem to be in those revealing clothes. They seem constantly to be adjusting and trying to cover up.

It kind of breaks my heart to see that; to be witness to the profound and moving struggle between innocence and experience playing itself out in mannerisms.

To be clear -- and I don't mean this to be funny or ironic in any way -- I have respect for a confident woman who is comfortable both in a with her own skin; who is not ashamed to be sexy. She has every right to "strut her stuff" as they say; I (and the rest of us fellows), of course, still have an obligation to be gentlemanly toward her. But there is a great strength in a woman who is comfortable with her body and who is not ashamed.

That's all great, but, what if one is not ready for that? -- or what if one simply is not that person? This is what makes me sad, because it comes down to the usual thing: people being crushed by the weight of a media-connected, group thinking world.

I wasn't blessed with a daughter, but, if I had been, I would have done my best to encourage her to find her own "look" -- to be herself, without shame whether sh had chooses to dress minimally or conservatively. But I also would have tried to teach her that "sexy" isn't just about showing skin. It all has to be her choice to make, how she dresses; but every girl needs the independent spirit and confidence to really make it her own choice.

One thing I do know is that it really shreds a little bit more off of my already thinning soul every time I see a young girl who is obviously uncomfortable with the way society has dressed her. I don't blame her. I feel bad for her. Sadly, her only option is to take up arms against the ocean waves. Hopefully she has family and friends willing to support her in the fight.

Why It Was Better When Women Stayed Home

Okay, okay...I am guilty of my first "clickbait" post title.

Let me explain:

About ten years ago, I found an article that had reputedly come from an old home economics book from the nineteen-fifties. In it, women were instructed to basically be servants to their poor, hard-working husbands. (Snopes.com, today, says the article is unverified...may or may not be real. Some accounts say it was from Good Housekeeping; the image below says Housekeeping Monthly.) I brought the article into a college class I was teaching at the time to use as a writing "warm-up" topic...

The discussion that came out of this was interesting and most unexpected. One young woman raised her hand and said that, while, of course, the condescending language and ideas in the piece were absurd, the idea of the "homemaker" was not a bad one. She pointed out that, with all the work to be done, one person taking care of the domicile while one went out and made the money was, actually, an ideal situation; very efficient and practical. She also said that it was not absurd, then, for the woman to be expected to make dinner and do all other home-related jobs.

This lead to a more controlled discussion than you might think.

The conclusion was one that, from a modern perspective, lead to the class more or less agreeing that it made sense for someone to take care of the house and someone to bring in the dough. Of course, the respective "someone" does not have to be either the man or the woman by default. Today, we do see increasing numbers of men staying home while the women work...

What I think is that the old setup was, indeed, better. Not because the woman stayed home but because someone did. A house is a big responsibility. It is logical to run things that way.

Now that we have (almost) gotten over the idea that the man has to be the worker and the woman has to be the housewife, maybe we should go back to the "homemaker" concept as a goal. If one person makes enough money, be it the man or the woman, the other really should stay home. It makes sense. It is (was), I think, a better way to run a household.

But we would need get over two difficult hurdles: greed and stereotype. Are we capable of deciding when we are making enough money to give up an income? Can we escape the old gender job-assignments? Some of us can, but maybe anyone who has the means should try. I know that if I started to list the benefits of the worker/homemaker model, this piece would run much, much longer.

Gentlepeople

If I, as a man, write about how I believe a woman should behave, whether in terms of morality or comportment, I will invariably be labeled as a chauvinist by some. (I will have been guilty, in their eyes, of chauvinistic views and actions of which I am totally unaware, having grown up as a male in a male dominated society.)  It has already been made quite clear to me by numerous responses to any writing that touches upon women and their state in our world, that I have no business writing about such things and that, as a man, no matter how intelligent I may (or may not) be, I simply cannot speak with any validity on any matter relating to women. In short, empathy just ain't enough. I just don't get it, the critics say.

Yet...I speak. I don't have a daughter, but I like to think in terms of fatherhood: What would I want for her? How would I want her to act? What I find is that I would want her to act the same way I want my sons to act: like a gentleperson. I'd want her to be dignified, self-assured, polite/assertive, strong (both physically and mentally), confident and kind. In fact, there is not one thing I would approach, conceptually, differently in raising a daughter than in raising my sons, in essence. (I say "in essence" because, let's face it, each child of whatever sex requires a slightly different parental approach.)

That said, there is this video going around... As with most of these, I will not repost is because I don't believe in contributing to the easy viral success of anything I disagree with. The video consists of little girls speaking about feminism and cursing, letting the F-word fly in Scorsese-like barrages.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Courtesy of Control?

I rode the train for many years into Camden, to Rutgers, for most of my undergraduate work and for all of my graduate work. Sometime, I would be on crowded rush-hour trains and sometimes not so crowded. But the rush hour trains provided the same challenges: proximity and social graces.

For a week I have been as I previously mentioned, riding that same train, but to the end of the line in Philadelphia. The same challenges exist. People are boxed in and they are close to each other and they glance around nervously. Or, they poke their heads into books or newspapers to avoid talking; some people shut themselves off with ear buds, listening to music. 

It was the same in the late eighties and early nineties, except the tunes were on CD Walkmans and no one had an e-reader. But there is a level of uncertainty now, on one level, that didn't exist then. 

Even as late as the nineties, it seemed to me it was a given that a man would give up his seat for a woman, if she was standing and holding the seat handles. Now, it seems less like a loss of "manners" than a guessing game.

A few days ago, a college student, a few rows in front of me, offered his seat to an older woman. She graciously accepted and sat down with a sigh.