Hello, friends. You may have seen this already but this week, I wanted to highlight Caroline Heldman’s crisp, powerful TEDx Talk, “The Sexy Lie”. In thirteen engaging minutes, Heldman defines objectification; teaches us how to identify it; and outlines a few strategies for how to deal with it.
This brilliant talk is aimed at young people and it doesn’t talk down or attempt to be chummy. Instead, it takes a fraught subject and distills it. I know I’ll be taking its lessons and teaching them to the young people in my life. I hope you will, too.
What did you see or read this week that really impressed you, made you want to share it with everyone, and maybe even realigned the way you see things?
Somewhere in the wilds of the internet, I clicked through to the comedy sketch State Home for Manic Pixie Dream Girls. It’s fairly funny, in my opinion, although there’s a clangingly callous throwaway joke at the end that ruins it for me. But I was slightly irked by its underlying assumption that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl character is the main thing to be mocked: stupid MPDGs, who start out so refreshing and redemptive, until men weary of their whimsy. Hang on a second. Shouldn’t the mockery be aimed at the creators of the MPDG? There’s a brief flash of this in the State Home video, but it goes unexplored.
I was going to write a post about this until I realized that Feminist Frequency has already done it! It’s a bit more serious than I’d have been, but it’s all there. Take it away, FF!
If you want a transcript of the video, it’s here. And there’s some interesting conversation to be had in the comments, too. And now I’m off to read more about Feminist Frequency. Oh, the internets.
The best thing I read this past week was Anne-Marie Slaughter’s essay, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”, in The Atlantic. (Thank you, Stephanie Burgis, for linking to it on fb!) It’s a long, thoughtful, nuanced article that, despite its deliberately provocative title, is a powerful argument for fairer, more flexible working conditions for Americans.
Essentially: nobody who is tied to a rigid work schedule can hope to “have it all” – by which Slaughter means professional success and work-life balance. And while Slaughter is talking primarily about women like herself – affluent, powerful, highly educated mothers, the kind who most people see and marvel, “How does she do it all?” – it’s also applicable to men.
Are you up for a long read? If so, I’d love to discuss it with you. My main questions so far are:
- Slaughter is a seriously elite academic, talking about other super-high-powered women. What does her argument mean for average workers – for example, someone who works in retail and has to be in in the workplace in order to work?
- Why hasn’t Slaughter questioned the very idea of the mega-hour work week? Is it really an achievement to work from home if you’re still sending email at one a.m.?
Sometimes, the universe seems to steer me towards a subject. Then it clobbers me over the head with it, repeatedly. (It’s not subtle, my universe.)
In this case, a Facebook friend shared a link to a terrific slam-poetry performance. Then I read Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter. After that, generous friends gave us 3 enormous bags of sweet, tasteful, hand-me-down clothes.
And you know what? Our girl isn’t even born and I’m already experiencing Pink & Pretty overload. I avoid the pink aisles in children’s stores. I know that Barbies, Bratz, and yet more bumptious dolls await. And I’ve noticed that clothing for small girls is relentlessly – even furiously – feminine: pink and purple, frills and tucks, flowers and hearts. Depending on the day, I sigh, shudder, or rant.
What I’m less certain of is why this bothers me so. Little boys are equally stereotyped: blue and more blue, trucks and dinosaurs, “action figures” (can’t call them dolls, or society will collapse!) and toy guns. But to me this seems less dangerous, less toxic, less generally loathesome. Also, less compulsory. Am I under- or over-estimating boys, or being unfair to them in some way?
These questions churned in my brain as I read Cinderella Ate My Daughter. The pretty/pink conundrum torments Orenstein, too, as you’ll see if you read her book (I recommend it). And here’s where I think Orenstein really gets it right. She says:
It would be disingenuous to claim that Disney Princess diapers or Ty Girlz or Hannah Montana or Twilight or the latest Shakira video or a Facebook account is inherently harmful. Each is, however, a cog in the round-the-clock, all-pervasive media machine aimed at our daughters – and at us – from womb to tomb; one that, again and again, presents femininity as performance, sexuality as performance, identity as performance, and each of those traits as available for a price. It tells girls that how you look is more important than how you feel. More than that, it tells them that how you look is how you feel, as well as who you are.
That’s it, right there – the core of my anxieties, uncovered.
And the slam-poetry performance I mentioned earlier? It’s Katie Makkai’s “Pretty”. I think all girls should hear it – as mine will, one day. (Thanks, Coco.)
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On a completely different subject, The Agency: A Spy in the House was recently shortlisted for an Agatha! These are readers’ choice awards (yes, named for Agatha Christie) and the members of Malice Domestic will vote for a winner at their April convention. (Check out the full shortlist here.) I’m so very honoured. Thank you, mystery fans!
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