Cleavage and the Feminist Reawakening
Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:10:10 AM PDT
My best friend e-mailed me just yesterday about a conversation she had with the director she has been reporting to as a consultant. It was an odd conversation, started by my friend to address how she is perceived by the rest of the staff. BF is slightly younger than I am, very smart and in a position with some older men with more experience.
Somehow, and she wasn’t entirely clear about how it came about, the conversation took what I thought was an odd turn. From her e-mail:
He asked what I thought others thought of me. I said, I don't know to that one. He replied and said that some find me very easy to work with and some think I am pushy, however, he thinks that is unwarranted because they are throwing it out of proportion. He said in a meeting a couple weeks ago with a bunch of directors, he asked, how much cleavage is too much? So he asked me that in terms of how I dress. I told him I thought I dressed okay especially since I always wear a wrap. He asked if I thought my job and treatment in the area is effected by the fact that I am pretty girl with nice hair and a nice personality. He also said that someone like me doesn't need to try so hard, unlike some others out there.
Anyone else slightly creeped out? She assures me it "wasn't like that" but anyway. I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition to the recent New York Times Feature, "The Feminist Reawakening Hillary Clinton and the Fourth Wave."
We've addressed the feminists for Hillary vs feminists for Obama discussion before, so I somewhat glossed over that particular part of the article. But what I thought was pertinent to the conversation I had with my BF was this:
But who wanted to complain? It was easier—and more fun—to take the Carly Fiorina approach: to shut up and compete with the boys. Who wanted to be the statistic-wielding shrew outing every instance of prejudice and injustice? Most women prefer to think of themselves as what Caroline Bird, author of Born Female, has called “the loophole woman”—as the exception. The success of those women is frequently cited as evidence that feminism has met its goals. But too often, the exceptional woman is also the exception that proves the rule.
Indeed, it might be said that the postfeminist outlook was a means of avoiding an unpleasant topic. “They don’t want to have the discussion,” a management consultant who worked at a top firm for nearly a decade told me, referring to her female colleagues. “It’s like, ‘I’m trying to have a level playing field here.’ ” Who wanted to think of gender as a divisive force, as the root of discrimination? Perhaps more relevant, who wanted to view oneself as a victim? Postfeminism was also a form of solipsism: If it’s not happening to me, it’s not happening at all. To those women succeeding in a man’s world, the problems wrought by sexism often seemed to belong to other women. But as our first serious female presidential candidate came under attack, there was a collective revelation: Even if we couldn’t see the proverbial glass ceiling from where we sat, it still existed—and it was not retractable.
At the conclusion of her discussion with the director at work, BF went out and bought new clothes, and decided to dress more conservatively. My response was snarky, as was my mood on Monday. My response:
Here is the issue. all this shit is part of the problem not a solution. Some people think you're easy to work with, some think you're difficult. Bull shit. "Difficult to work with' is code for "woman who doesn't step back and let you take over". And the dress thing is the SAME SHIT. Oh, I can't take you seriously because you have boobies. Oh, you're too PRETTY to be smart, why don't you tone that down. IT IS SHIT. It better get better by the time lily has to work. God
Her response was essentially what the NYT article mentioned- it's a game, and she'll just play it. It's an attitude I understand, but it also gives me a raging headache. Because I don't know where to go from where we're at. I know it's crap, I know it's a sign that the movement ain't over, not by a long shot. So while I appreciate the article, the end is frustrating:
The past few months have been like an extended consciousness-raising session, to use a retro phrase that would have once made most of us cringe. We’ve parsed the gender politics of the campaign with other women in the office, at parties, over e-mail, and now we’re starting to parse the gender politics of our lives. This is, admittedly, depressing: How can we be confronting the same issues, all these years later? But it’s also exciting. It feels as if a window has been opened in a stuffy, long-sealed room. There is a thrill at the collective realization. Now the question is, what next?
Yes, what? I haven't the foggiest. Thoughts?
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