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Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood: the male ego

male ego

I’ve picked up a lot of new followers since Wednesday (hello, all!), so I wanted to give you a heads up on today’s post. I’m currently in the middle of an extended book review on Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin. The introduction to this series is here, and you can find a complete list of all the posts here. I put up a new post in the series every Monday. Also, because Helen’s book deals exclusively with traditional, essentialist, patriarchal gender roles, it makes it difficult for me to escape that sort of language. I work to affirm LGBTQ identities, but sometimes I fail in that when discussing her rhetoric.

I’m halfway tempted to have today’s post be nothing but a collection of choice quotes from this chapter, because they almost entirely speak for themselves. However, like most of what Helen’s says, it’s all grounded in (unfortunately) common stereotypes about gender, so they are worth discussing. The chapter is titled “Masculine Pride,” and I had a hard time identifying anything in it that I could agree with or tolerate. Beginning with this:

The most important thing to learn on this topic is that masculine pride is very sensitive. A man cannot stand to have his masculinity belittled, ridiculed, or treated with indifference. Such an attack on his manhood is one of the most painful experiences he can suffer.

As members of the human race, I’m sure most of us can attest to the unpleasantness of being belittled and ridiculed. I’m going to be honest and say that, in grad school, I had to deal with a woman who belittled me in front of our peers pretty consistently– and it was worse than just distasteful. It was infuriating at times, and there were days when I drove home from work literally screaming in frustration (yes, I’m that dramatic).

The most painful experience of my life? Completely unendurable? Uhm . . . no. Not even by a long shot.

Granted, I’m a woman, but I’d have to be a real “man-hater” to believe that all men were incapable of tolerating any sort of ridicule whatsoever. But that is, in fact, what Helen spends her entire chapter arguing– that all man are, in fact, this immature, and are incapable of growing beyond it. I understand that when your spouse ridicules you it’s a lot harder to swallow than when a colleague does it. We trust our partners with a vulnerable heart, and being attacked by him or her would be painful.

If that’s where Helen went with her ideas, she’d have no argument from me. However, to Helen, there is no difference between offering constructive criticism and ridicule. They’re the exact same thing– at least, if you’re criticizing or ridiculing something about his masculinity. She is completely silent on how your husband will supposedly respond if you start negatively talking about something that she doesn’t associate with his “masculine qualities” (“his muscular body, his manly skills,” etc.). By doing this, she completely erases any sort of possibility that men exist outside of Western gender stereotypes. It’s not just that she’s reinforcing stereotypes– by telling women to only recognize their husband’s masculinity, she is telling them that recognizing and appreciating non-masculine traits is either a) a waste of time or b) wrong.

Two of the things I admire about my husband are his intuition and his empathy. I can’t imagine what he would be like without those traditionally “feminine” traits. But how would Helen react to me consistently affirming these “feminine” qualities and occasionally being amused at his obsession with Michigan football or aerospace engineering? Pretty sure she’d be horrified.

This is also the chapter where she starts her heavy-hitting “men must always excel women” idea.

Don’t belittle, show indifference, or excel him in anything which requires masculine ability. This applies not only to skills in his work, ,but to such things as carpentry, mechanics, fishing, hunting, masculine sports, math, or anything in which he has masculine pride . . . and if, through necessity, you must perform some masculine skill yourself, do not outshine him.

I’m currently writing on my husband’s laptop because my desktop PC died a couple weeks ago. When I got a blue screen, I handled it on my own. I started troubleshooting. I googled solutions. I figured out it wasn’t the video card or the power supply completely on my own– that it was a 7B error. I cracked open the case and started switching out DIM cards. Today I’m going to boot from disc and try to see if it’s the hard drive and if my data is salvageable (backups are your friends, ya’ll). I grew up with my dad– a computer engineer — showing me everything I need to know about computers. I built this PC on my own (which, seriously, not that hard. Nowadays everything is color coded).

But, oh noes! Computer engineering is a masculine field (yes, she says this later in the book)! Computers are for boys! I’ve emasculated my husband by handling my own problems!

As if. Handsome (my husband) is proud and impressed that “I got this.” Sometimes, I don’t. Sometimes, I don’t want to open the pickle jar. I could, but why not hand it off to him when he can easily pop it open and I would have to strain? Our marriage is about determining abilities and gifts– he loves spreadsheets and budgets, and I adore the Food Network. He handles the financial side of things, I handle a lot of the daily logistics. He’s big picture, I’m detail-oriented, and we do what works for us. Sometimes that means some of our responsibilities fall inside “traditional” roles, and sometimes it doesn’t. We also don’t care.

The next few pages are loaded, but it’s pretty much more of the same– although it does expressly forbid working women from “excelling him at work; doing a better job, advancing to a higher position, or bringing home more pay.” In a country where women are the primary breadwinner in 40% of all households, that particular order is insanely outdated.

Then she moves into a section labeled “Common Mistakes Women Make,” and describes a few situations. The first one is a scenario where the husband wants to make a large  investment where the odds are “10 to 1 that he could be fleeced” (her emphasis). The only way we’re allowed to express concern about this? “It sounds like a good idea . . . but for some reason I just don’t feel right about it.” Offering a logical analysis? Discussing his reasoning with him? Not possible. We’re also not allowed to utter the words “Let’s be practical” or “sensible.” Anything we do that could put a damper on his enthusiasm is the same exact thing as belittling him. No, really:

Remember, if your diminish masculine enthusiasm, you damage masculine pride.

And if we’re busy with something, like right smack dab in the final moments of cooking dinner and he wants to share a compliment he got from his boss, we’re not allowed to say “That’s wonderful! Could you tell the girls to wash for dinner?” Because being distracted and preoccupied is not permitted– that would mean we’re not “feeding our husband’s soul.” She refers to this behavior (not dropping everything your are doing the second he walks through the door) as belittling and dismissive.

Helen and I could be on the same page if she used the words “belittle” and “ridicule” the same way the dictionary uses them, but she doesn’t. She turns ridicule– something that actually could be a serious problem — into any action on a woman’s part that indicates she’s an actual person with a mind, responsibilities, and abilities of her own.

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood: family finances

1950s Woman Shopping Frozen Food Section Of Grocery Store

Occasionally during the course of her book, Helen gives her readers practical, “down-to-earth” level advice. This is one of those chapters, which is dedicated to telling women how they can help their husbands by “developing the womanly art of thrift.”

Like she usually does, she opens up her chapter by appealing to the Bible, which “makes it clear” that it is “the husband’s responsibility to provide the living.” However, also like she usually does, she doesn’t reference any particular passage, just expecting us to know what she’s talking about. However, I can think of a few examples that render this claim completely unfounded:

  • The Proverbs 31 Woman. She’s been used to bludgeon Christian women for decades, but one of the things that “the Bible makes clear” that she does is not just “practice the womanly art of thrift” but she also makes money. Proverbs 31 describes a woman who is like “the ships of the merchant,” whose “merchandise is profitable.”
  • Priscilla, who with her husband runs a profitable tent-making business. Paul frequently talks about how indebted he was to this married couple, and he always lists Priscilla first. Considering that the culture of the time always listed the head of the household first, Paul’s decision to lead with her name is significant. (Acts 18).
  • Lydia, the “seller of purple,” and traditionally considered the first Christian convert in Europe. Because of her wealth and her status as a free woman, she invited Paul and his companions into her home, which she would not have been able to do if she was under the legal control of a husband or father. She was clearly in control of her home, independent of any man (Acts 16).
  • Phoebe, who Paul describes as “minister” (the same word he uses to label other notable pastors) and a “leader” or “patron.” She was tasked with delivering his letter to Rome, a duty that also would have required her to read and interpret it for the church there. She was certainly not staying at home, behind closed doors, hiding behind her husband. (Romans 16)
  • Titus specifically tells Roman-Christian women to be “keepers at home,” which as I’ve written about before, was a charge to run a profitable family business; it was not something Paul wrote to make sure women stay in the kitchen.

“The Bible makes clear” Helen? I’m not sure what Bible she’s reading, but it’s not the one I’m pretty sure everyone else in the world has.

But, the biggest thing that bothers me about this chapter is how harshly she divides up people. The way she talks about married couples in this chapter is incredibly divisive. She boxes every single last human being on the planet into what she thinks is “biblical” without any sort of exceptions, without extending grace, without viewing difficult situations with compassion.

She is strictly addressing wives, here, and what she tells them is that they are to be given “allowances” to cover the “household budget”– which does not include anything outside of groceries and clothing. She forbids women from making any sort of purchase– at all— that doesn’t fit inside of “anything in regular demand.” Any kind of need, like furniture or repairs, is to be sought out and paid for only by the husband, and he has “major jurisdiction and final say.” She tells us that we’re not allowed to discuss these sorts of things with him– ever. If we do, we risk emasculating our husbands and “relieving him of his responsibilities” which, somehow results in husbands becoming incapable of handling money wisely.

This actually fits into Helen’s pattern, and is a direct result of how she views communication. To Helen, any possible sort of discussion (“conflict”) is to be avoided at all costs. If a conversation between a husband and a wife could lead to any sort of disagreement whatsoever, she absolutely forbids you from having it. To Helen, a marriage is only “successful” if the two never disagree, and the only way for that to happen is for one person to never have a say. In Helen’s world, that person is always the wife. The fact that one of the biggest sources of conflict in marriages is money (couples who fight over money once a week are 30% more likely to get divorced) has led Helen to believe that husbands and wives must never, ever talk about it. If you never even discuss money, you can’t fight over it, and presto-change-o, happy marriage!

For families in “financial distress” she tells women they they aren’t allowed to go get a job. Instead, we’re supposed to “reduce expenses” and “trim the luxuries” which… gah. The suggestions she makes for how women could do this? Selling their second car. Cancelling vacations. Don’t be tempted by advertisements. Which, in some situations could be perfectly reasonable advice. However, I’m becoming more and more convinced that Helen has never interacted with a poor person in her entire life. People who have two cars and can afford to sell one of them aren’t in financial distress, I’m sorry. Maybe someone who has two cars is living outside of their means, but that is nowhere near the sort of scale many families are facing when 20% of all children go hungry because they live in “very low food security households.” Selling your second car isn’t going to fix that.

And what are we supposed to do when men “make a mess of things”? When they don’t pay the mortgage, or the bills, when they overdraft their accounts?

Let go completely and turn your back on things. Don’t be anxious, checking the books to see if he added right, or is neglecting anything. If he make a mess of things, let him suffer the consequences, no matter what they are. That is the only way he will learn.

I might have thrown the book across the room at that line. Because he’s not the only one suffering consequences when the bank forecloses on your house because he didn’t pay the mortgage. This sort of comment doesn’t even begin to make sense, but she justifies it with “psychology”:

He will begin to feel responsible, to know that if anyone is to worry about the money, it will have to be him. And he will notice your relief, that you are happier. Let him know you are. As he sees you brighter he will try harder to make a go of things, to keep you happy.

Helen doesn’t live on this planet. I’m positive. If she did, she’d realize how ridiculous a statement this is. Sure, some people are motivated by wanting to make the people in their life happy. I’m one of them. But there are plenty of people who couldn’t give a damn, but she doesn’t even acknowledge their existence. This chapter, while Helen has presented it as practical advice, it is almost entirely inapplicable for huge sections of humanity. It is only relevant to the top 20% of all American households, and is wholly incapable of even making sense anyone who doesn’t have the luxury of two cars and a $70,000-a-year income. Helen, here, is displaying an astounding lack of compassion or even awareness that some families really are destitute. Her white, middle-class privilege is pouring out of her, and it’s more that just disappointing.

Helen isn’t alone in this attitude, which is heartbreaking. Many people in conservative evangelical America share the exact same blinders that Helen has on in this chapter. We’ve forgotten that Jesus said “the poor you will always have with you” and that our primary responsibility as the Church is to care for the widows, the orphans, and the poor. We don’t even know they exist anymore. Not really. Oh, we do the Christmas shoebox drives and the book drives and the canned food drives and the backpack drives– one for each season. And then we completely forget about them, except for those four times a year.

I want to be angry with Helen, but I can’t be angry with Helen without feeling anger towards the modern American church in general.

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood: the protector

knight

This chapter is devoted to the second “masculine need”: “a man needs to function, feel needed, and excel women as a protector.”

A man being a protector is probably one of the more foundational concepts about men in conservative religious environments– it is most especially true where patriarchy and complementarianism are fiercely held. It appears in a variety of ways, some more subtle than others.

This attitude is actually called benevolent sexism. It differs from hostile sexism in that it usually presents as attempting to be beneficial for women: women are told to stay within patriarchal boundaries, but in return, they will receive benefits, such as protection. Hostile sexism, which is the active belief that women actually are inferior or less capable than men, is less common in American culture (although still present)– but it is very much alive in Helen’s book. This chapter is where Helen crosses the line from benevolent to hostile sexism– and she stays in hostile sexist territory for the majority of the book.

She opens her argument with an appeal to biological differences:

Men are larger, have stronger muscles, and greater physical endurance than women. Women are more fragile, weaker, created for more delicate tasks.

There’s two basic problems with this idea, First off, I’d like to see any man push a seven pound baby out of a space not even four inches across. I don’t think “physical endurance” is something that men have a huge advantage in. Are their muscles attached to their bones differently? Yes. Do their hips tend to be narrower, making them, in general, faster runners? Sure. Is the average man much stronger than the average woman? Most likely.

However, biological differences are not an argument for gender identities. People are people, and who they are, while sex is absolutely a part of that, is independent of sex. Not totally independent, I’m not arguing that, but biological sex is not the magic wand patriarchal and complementarian teachings make it out to be. My biological sex is not the sum total of who I am as a person. My identity is not rooted in the fact that I have a vagina. The sorts of traits, qualities, behaviors, etc., that are attributed to the biological sexes (and there is not just two, by the way) change across civilizations, cultures, and times. Western and American traditional gender roles have never been the universal truth– and treating Western middle-class gender roles (and yes, class and economics has always been a part of gender roles, with the middle class becoming the ideal after the Industrial Revolution) as if they are some sort of biblical absolute? That is a wholly inaccurate misrepresentation of the facts.

Helen moves on to describe the sorts of things women need to be protected from, including “dangers, strenuous work, and difficulties.”

My husband is an INFJ– the Myers-Briggs personality type sometimes referred to as “The Protector.” Taking care of the people he cares about is one of his fundamental motivators, and it’s a quality that I love and deeply appreciate. Because of my background, finding someone who is strongly motivated to make me feel safe is . . . I can’t explain how huge and wonderful that is. He wraps me up in his arms when I have night terrors, and I instantly feel sheltered, and it helps me.

However, I also protect my husband– in a very different way, because I’m a different person. I make sure to do what I can to take care of him the way he takes care of me. I am trustworthy. There are things I shield him from– things that I am quite capable of handling but he is not.

We protect each other. But that’s not how it works in Helen’s world.

In the early history of our country . . . there were dangers everywhere. Savage Indians, wild beasts, and snakes created situations which called for masculine courage, strength, and ability . . .

Today dangers are different, but just as real. Women are in danger of abduction and rape, sometimes followed by brutality and murder. Lesser dangers are vicious dogs, snakes, a high precipice, a deep canyon . . .

There are also unreal dangers . . . women are afraid of such things as strange noises, spiders, mice, and even dark shadows.

Aside from the horrible racism, the stereotypes here are absolutely ridiculous. Wild beasts– men are no more capable of fending off a bear than a woman is. And snakes? Pretty sure I’ve seen men go weak in the knees and pass out in a reptile house at the zoo. Or at the sight of blood. Or a thousand other things. I’ve known men who had a paralyzing fear of spiders. And, really? Women have to be protected from a “high precipice” and a “deep canyon”? This just makes me believe that Helen thinks all women are morons. What’s a canyon going to do– jump around to make you fall into it?

Also, the whole “women are in danger of abduction and rape” thing? It’s based on the idea that the man in your life, the man you trust, is not going to be responsible for raping you. That is grossly inaccurate. According to some studies, up to 96% of all female rapes are committed by men women know. 55% of female rape is committed by intimate partners or husbands.

Also, believing that rape can be prevented if women are protected by their husbands also leads to the idea that women who are raped were only raped because they did something to deserve it. They must have stepped outside their ascribed gender role in some way, and what did they expect was going to happen to them? Sarah Moon has an excellent series discussing this very idea, and I highly recommend it.

But, moving on. The second danger is “strenuous work.” Which just makes me want to pound my head into the wall, because women have been doing strenuous work for centuries, but Helen is either blithely unaware of outright dismissing all credible historical data.

Women need protection from work that is not appropriate for the feminine sex, such as driving a truck, construction work, road work, or anything greasy or masculine. Some types of office work are inappropriate, such as executive jobs, management positions, police work, or political posts.

Many of our jobs in America are divided by gender– there are certain jobs, like cargo transportation and construction, that are identified as being “masculine.” However, one of my best friends is bloody fantastic at putting up drywall. She’s a magnificent beast at dry-walling. One of my friends in college drove a Pepsi truck during the summers to pay for college. These were both “masculine” jobs– and they were fantastic at performing them. I’ve also known men to be incredible receptionists and interior designers. The gender divide in the job market is an unfortunate reality– a reality created by stereotypes and culture.

Also, that last sentence– curses. Women can make excellent CEOs. In fact, the Harvard Business Review recently released a survey that indicates people value traits they identified as “feminine” as being the most highly desired in leadership positions. And women like Wendy Davis and Hilary Clinton are big damn heroes, in my opinion.

Helen continues, rounding out with how men are supposed to protect women from “difficulties”:

Examples are financial entanglements, belligerent creditors, or dealings with people who are harsh, offensive, imposing, or who make unreasonable demands.

What must have her experiences with men and women have been– or even in her own life– that resulted in the opinion that women are incapable of dealing with unreasonable, obnoxious people? It’s rough, but dealing with people you don’t like very much is a fact of life. I have to put up with them all the time. So does everybody else.

Helen isn’t doing any woman any favors by telling them they can only win their husband’s love if they become timid, shrinking people who can’t deal with any sort of problem or “difficulty.” I have met people– both women and men– who were wholly incapable of interacting with reality in a mature, responsible manner. I understand sometimes having to withdraw from something– a confrontation, a trigger, anything. But always being “protected” from any kind of conflict or difficulty whatsoever isn’t possible.

The chapter ends with Helen telling us why chivalry is dead:

We see women walking down dark streeets alone, taking long-distance automobile trips, and even hitchhiking. We see them doing the rough work, lifting heavy objects, repairing automobiles, changing tires, driving heavy equipment, fixing the roof, doing the carpentry . . .

In the working world, women are doing the men’s jobs . . . We see women police, steel workers, pilots, and even engineers . . .

If men have an inborn sense of chivalry, why don’t they offer it? The answer is very simple: Men don’t offer their chivalry because women have become capable. They no longer need men.

If chivalry is dead, women have killed it. They have killed it by becoming capable, efficient, and independent, able to kill their own snakes. They prove by their strength and ability that they don’t need masculine care and protection, they they are well able to take care of themselves. They commonly display their capacity to solve their own problems and fight their own battles.

In other words, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

And this is where Helen slides into Hostile Sexist Land. Because women– women who aren’t hysterical harpies and shrews who will never be “truly loved” or experience happiness– aren’t capable. They lack the “capacity” to solve problems. Heavens forbid they’re efficient or independent.

This idea– that women are not allowed to be capable, becomes the battle cry for the rest of the book.