Cross Town Thoughts
Misandry is accepted. Misogyny is dissed. Trump the equal opportunity insulter is regularly panned for his attacks on women. Despite his calling guys sweaty, short, fat, stupid. Get it coming from the left. They push the war on women to raise money and gain votes. But. Don’t feminists realize the disservice they do to themselves by bunching up in vivid victimhood?
Monolithic labels demean every group. David Brooks’ column takes that misguided route.
Women’s worst enemy? Other women. NYPost exposes Valerie Jarrett and Michelle O behind HRC email leaks. And other intrigues emanating out of the feminist wing. Beware women’s rights advocates. They are all for your rights unless you are wrong. Hillary not liberal enough. Yes, they like another woman, Elizabeth Warren. But, they are backing Martin O’Malley, too. I know. I plead guilty. And don’t even talk to Maureen Dowd. Ouch! Most scathing anti-Hillary column ever. Should be interesting Morning Mika tomorrow. She overtly pushes the Valerie-Michelle-Warren agenda to promote her book and lecture series.
And… just finished the number one best seller The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins. Weak women. Bad men. Yawn. Three needy, vulnerable competing current women tell their stories around an English train track. Intriguing literary device. Reductive in the end.
Women’s Lib. Coinage of the day circa 1970. Misandry replaced romance. Friedan. Steinem. Started a political movement. The fib. That women could have it all. Work-life balance morphed into a myth. Recent Harvard Business School study says it’s not kids but husbands who determine a woman’s climb up the career ladder. Today’s Supreme Court considers whether pregnancy merits the same benefits as a disability in corporate terms, the UPS case.
Before the Libbers, Helen Gurley Brown maybe had it right. A woman who chose a sexy single life. Starting as a secretary at Foote Cone & Belding ad agency, she rose to the top of the publishing world. Brooke Hauser’s upcoming book, Enter Helen has already been optioned to be made into a movie prior to the book’s 2015 debut.
Just finished Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests. 2014 feminist lit. Post-WWI England when all the good men had been lost and women had to find solace in each other. Makes one wonder. Have women come full circle back to spinning their domestic wheels? What will millennials do.
Helen Gurley Brown dubbed wallflower women “mouseburgers”. Lena Dunham’s new book gives advice to such women that takes Brown’s mantra to heart. Stay single as long as you can and have all the sex you want. Call the shots and don’t be a doormat. Trailblazers both. In a good way?
Speaking of mouseburgers. Secret Service Chief Julia Pierson’s performance in front of the House Panel to address glaring lapses in security was abysmal. Competence trumps gender. She doesn’t seem qualified to run a Quik Stop.
Hagel staggers into Pentagon today. Diminished by his own performance, just as sequester negotiations peak. Obama’s weak presence on the Hill will seal another fractured financial fate. Trickle-down redefined as reality in the States.
Women in the workplace hits tectonic plate. Yahoo’s mommy CEO rattling feminist base. Face-time still important in the office. Work-life balance teetering.
Girls on the cliff. Enough Lena butt already. Graphic testimony in crazy Arias slut trial, too. Eeeyu. Beyond Fatal Attraction. HBO’s Parade’s End a plodding facsimile without Downton’s appeal. Cummerbund mumbles and waggles.
Who will prevail? Michelle Obama spent most of Letterman’s show last week talking about parenting and her work with childhood obesity and Veteran’s needs. She was funny and real. She should stay. Her friend Valerie Jarrett is her President Husband’s closest advisor. She should go. I said so, NYTimes.
Ann Romney got some good reviews at the RNC, but lamenting rising gas and grocery prices fell flat given her reality. In our local Gazette, a letter recounted an appearance by the then Massachusetts First Lady. At a gathering of low-income Moms, Ann told the group how she could relate as the mother of five sons. Why, one time she and Mitt were playing mixed doubles at the Belmont Tennis Club, and she had to leave in the middle of her set to calm a sibling feud. No.
The article that is striking more debate than the lightning outside, is in this month’s The Atlantic. Anne-Marie Slaughter, former high-powered State Department director, has the guts to tell the truth. Women cannot have it all. It is possible to work and have children. It is not possible to do both well. A luxury quandary many women do not have. But, those of us women who cracked the glass ceiling and rose above middle management either made the decision not to have children, or sacrificed family for a career. There, I said it.
Reality bites. Something has to give. Having made the right moves for my family, it still hurt. My career, sometimes my sanity. What the wonderfully complete and complex article does not talk about is how those who are career-only employees also suffer the consequences of so-called work/life balance. Someone has to see the patients or take care of clients while parents are tending to stuffy noses or attending soccer games. There is resentment on both sides of the fence.
In this economy, the next generation will have fewer choices. Whoever has a job will work. No matter the gender.
The funniest thing I’ve seen in a while, the Obama-Dylan show. Best quote, George Will calling Trump a ‘bloviating ignoramus’. Best restaurant continues to be ABC Kitchen. MichelleO just had dinner there. Meryl was a cool sighting. For all who are bored with MadMen discussion, have heart. RHONY starts next week.
A final ‘mad’ note. I’ve had lively interactions with wise and wonderful women over the past days who think my perspective on Joan’s decision was askew. When she took charge of the negotiation with Pete for a NON-silent partnership, that changed the landscape. She took control of her destiny. If she had done it for the money, she’d still have been considered a secretary slut at work. This deal put her in a different arena, using her leverage for a once in a lifetime game changer. It gave her equal status with the boys. Look at their behavior. ‘Whore’ is in the eye of the beholder. I make no distinctions for gender. Only 2 more episodes.
1967. Things tipped earlier in Manhattan than in the ‘burbs. Peggy took her shot. Go, girl! Without good looks, she needed extraordinary drive, focus and talent to succeed in the mAd men’s world. Joan made a decision to use her physical assets to control her financial future, rather than continue to have them used and abused by Roger or even her own husband for no return. Megan’s beauty got her Don, and an easy chair at the copywriter’s desk. Making her Peggy’s peer. Megan has ad talent. But, she’s determined to be an actress. So, she’ll need to re-deploy her other skill on a casting couch to launch her new career. ZooBeeZoo.
Poor Don. He’s confounded and befuddled. When Joan strokes his cheek and tells him he’s one of the good guys, it’s clear. He’s not in Kansas anymore.
Here is Matt Creamer’s review. Don’t agree that Joan and Peggy were competing against each other to be Queen Bee. They both ended triumphant this week. If Don had talked Joan out of doing the deed and they got the account anyway, she wouldn’t be a partner. If Peggy had stayed, she’d always be Don’s protégée.
Back in the day at Mount Holyoke, feminism was burgeoning, we were on the cusp of being dutiful daughters or Steinem surrogates. As one who never liked joining, I eschewed the tide and succeeded in the business world as an individual, not a representative of any group.
Segue to the state of feminism today. Be careful what you wish for. Who are the current feminists? Are Palin, O’Donnell, Bachmann, Whitman, Fiorina women? Are they working moms, independent thinkers, political activists? Are they part of our group because we are all women? What makes one woman more a woman than another? More a feminist? Would I want to join the group today? Hmmm.
Side Trek . NYC 