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Mon 31 Oct, 2005 12:23 pm
Halfway through this article, I'm sputtering and writing stuff with a lot of exclamation marks in the margin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine/30feminism.html?incamp=article_popular_1
I'll finish it and come back, but I doubt she'll convert me in the second half.
Anyone else read it?
A lot of that is very familiar.
Depressing.
Yeah, I read it yesterday. I agree with the familiarity.
I read it. I wasn't sure what to make of it, since her world and mine are miles apart. The stats she cites (such as more women who take their husbands' last names after marriage) may or may not prove anything.
I do think, though, that there may be some truth to the idea that some men are intimidated by successful women...
I am too incompetent to speak to the subject of the article. If Maureen Dowd is correct, then American mating rituals must have diverged drastically from Western European ones. This is possible of course, but I am unwilling to take Dowd's word for it.
I am especially skeptical because this article is a classic example of her composing style: One juicy sound bite after another, strung together in a chatty, entertaining tone, adding up to a nice storyline whether it is true or not, and rarely giving the uninformed reader any particular reason to believe that her story is true. Dowd's articles, including this one, leave me dazzled the minute I finish them, but I forget them within an hour or so.
Judging by the impression her writing leaves on me, I don't think I would date Maureen Dowd myself. But this isn't because her New York Times job intimidates me as she suggests at one point in her article. Rather, it's because she seems to be a superficial, lightweight chatterbox. My life is too short to waste much time on her. (Except if she's really good-looking, that is.)
Thomas wrote:I am too incompetent to speak about the topic of the article. If Maureen Dowd is correct, then American mating rituals must have diverged drastically from Western European ones. This is possible of course, but I am unwilling to take Dowd's word for it.
We've had a few threads on how radically different many social mores are between the U.S. and many European countries. The one that springs to mind most readily had to do with the "man-date".
It's truly a different world.
I've made most of Dowd's observations in the article myself, though not perhaps as broadly stated as systematic - I don't see the patterns as uniform among all US men and women, or even among those in Los Angeles, where I have lived most of my life, but I've seen them. I'm ten years older than she is.
ehBeth wrote:We've had a few threads on how radically different many social mores are between the U.S. and many European countries. The one that springs to mind most readily had to do with the "man-date".
It's truly a different world.
I agree -- come to think of it, I made this point myself in the "man-date" thread. I probably didn't phrase my sentence precisely enough in my last post here. What I meant was the preferences of what people want in a partner. My impression was that these preferences evolved more or less in parallel in Europe and America. In the beginning, a drive towards emancipation, leading to something that can pass for equality in the 70s, followed by a radicalization of the feminist movement and some, but not complete alienation of most women from this movement. I don't notice any increase macho-hood among German men (though I may be a biased judge of that), and neither do I notice such an increase among the American men I know. Are your experiences different? If you still have connections to Hamburg, you might be better able to compare the developments than I am.
IMO, perhaps the most apt thing she mentioned were men with "eggshell-thin egos." Men who are not secure in their self-image will avoid strong women; this shrinks the pool of potential mates.
This article just made me realize how young and inexperienced I really am. I've experienced a fair amount in my days but most all of the half of that article I did read just left a glazed look to me, I've never understood the hunt or the games or the need to be equal or pretty much any of it even though i've heard of it my entire life.
"Paying is like opening a car door. It's nice. I appreciate it. But he doesn't have to."
Unless he wants another date.
This kind of thing is what I'm worst at so I've always made it a point that if i'm in the position to open a car door there is no question of another date, paying for the check is an exclamation point or rather a period, perhaps a comma rather then a question.
Not playing the game has unfortunatly left me with fewer chances to finish that sentence and in retrospect finding that on several occasions I should have been opening the door when I wasn't.
I'm about five years younger than Dowd (if the Wikipedia entry on her is correct) - and her comments fall in very much with what I've been observing, and muttering about, for about 10 years (when the women, who are now about 35, began to enter the professional workforce).
The younger women sitting around me are quite clear on their search for a husband with status/money/connections - and their desire to be provided with a big rock and a big wedding in white and a BIG house with several cars in the driveway. The younger men are looking to provide <yes, provide> that rock/house/status/money, those cars and connections.
Most of the Germans I have exposure to these days are through events sponsored by the Goethe Institut - and the same regression <to my eye> has not taken place. To many Canajuns - western European women are seen as being too mmmm aggressive, and the men too mmmmm delicate.
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Ohhhhhhh, and the Cosmo mag thing. It really drives me nuts to see Cosmo and Glamour and the like on young women's desks in the office here. Really, really drives me nuts. What happened to Advertising Age, Forbes, The Economist ...? Nothing wrong with Cosmo etc overall <or at least, that's a different question> but it's signalling something odd <to me> to have Cosmo on their desks at work.
I dunno. It's hard to stay focused on much of what Dowd writes (due to her sytle).
The only thing that DID pop into my head while reading it was the 2nd to the last paragraph:
Quote:If we flash forward to 2030, will we see all those young women who thought trying to Have It All was a pointless slog, now middle-aged and stranded in suburbia, popping Ativan, struggling with rebellious teenagers, deserted by husbands for younger babes, unable to get back into a work force they never tried to be part of?
I read that and thought "Just like their mothers??"
Maybe more like their grandmothers, fishin'. The implication I got was that these younger women are rejecting the feminism of the '60s and '70s...
I dunno D'art. There seem to be an awful lot of middle-aged women stranded (i.e. divorced) in suburbia taking anti-anxiety drugs (Paxil, Zoloft, Ativan, etc..) and dealing with their rebelious teenagers that are trying to get back into the work force again.
I agree that the jist of Dowd's column is that they are rejecting the feminism of the 60s and 70s but Dowd's flash-forward puts them in the same place many of their mothers (who came of age in the 60s and 70s) are right now.
BBB
My life experience has been very different from Dowd's. I was an activist feminist most of my life. But my relationships with men were based first on becoming friends before they developed into romance. Maybe that's what Dowd is missing. Friendship, including intellectual friendship, can be a strong aphrodisiac---that lasts.
Perhaps both men and women have it backwards. Going for sex before friendship. I realize that's what drives most men, but it usually doesn't result in solid relationships. Friendship brings out the nurturing instincts in men and women. Any subsequent sexual relationship is the better for it.
BBB
I'm really curious as to why the article so got your goat, soz.
I'm still putting my thoughts in order but I do agree that youth (or a youthful appearance) and beauty (even if surgically induced) have taken on a cultish obsession with many women my age.
Among many the younger women I come in contact with marrying well and owning the right things seems to be of critical importance.
I blame the whole damn thing on Estee Lauder and the Promise Keepers.
Like I said, I'm still getting my thoughts together but I can feel something stewing.....
Yep. Those that seek superficiality will find it; and then be surprised when their superficial husband bails, apparently.
Those seeking depth and quality will encounter difficulties, be they man or woman.
Dowd looks at the younger generation sqandering the riches that her generation worked so hard to amass.
The Montagues and Capulets felt similarly, I'm sure.
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