Friendly Fire (or, The Personal is Political, Part II)

Recently I made the unfortunate decision to join women I didn't know well for a day trip, despite knowing that such adventures should be ones that allow for quick bailing. During the car ride to our destination, I learned why I hadn't spent more time with these women. They terrified me. Their favorite topic of conversation was their husbands, whom they loved to talk about but didn't seem to like very much. They shared stories of husbands who were so stupid they couldn't do laundry or who were so inept that they could not "babysit" their own children. What bothered me more than what these women said, though, was how they spoke: they seemed proud to one-up each other in stories of clueless men, beginning tales with, "Oh, you think THAT is dumb! Well MY husband..." They showed no sense of injustice or any desire to change the situation. Seeing their husbands as clueless seemed to give them a role, a sense of power. I tried to wipe the incredulous look from my face while I wondered why anyone would marry someone they didn't respect or why I had the great idea to go on a day-long outing with people I barely knew.

Yet these supposedly stupid husbands seemed cunning to me. They had someone to do laundry, cook, raise children, and also work a job to provide half of the household income. If I could somehow convince my husband that my wee little lady brain lacked the ability to comprehend the sorting of laundry or the cleaning of toilets, I'd be tempted to give it a shot. Credit for egalitarian relationships is not only due to the non-knuckle-dragging men who cook and clean (and please, it's not "pitching in" when it's their own home), but to women who resist outdated gender roles and require men to do their share. Merely complaining about it has all the effectiveness of breathlessly clutching at pearls.

When venturing beyond my egalitarian-loving social circle (where men do laundry without expecting a merit badge), I realize that a good deal of the inequality women face is perpetuated by women themselves; we're going down by friendly fire. The chaos is understandable, though -- the enormity of the social shift that our generation finds itself in cannot be overstated. Many of us born in the 70s were born during a transitional time of mixed messages. While many of us were raised with the idea we could be anything we wanted to be, any professional success came along with a duty to marry, have children, and handle the duties of the home. Most of us were not raised with the expectation of becoming as professionally successful or as financially savvy as our husbands. Yet our generation was the first where women not only outnumbered men in the college classroom, but outperformed them as well; some sociologists believe women now show greater professional ambition and work harder in the workforce (my offices have shown anecdotal evidence supporting this). Women are in unchartered marital territory full of options but not much precedent; taking on new responsibilities seems easier than delegating old ones. Venting with girlfriends is easier than insisting on new rules with husbands. I read a quote from the 70s in which a feminist (Steinem, I believe?) offered a married woman the advice to pretend she was dividing household duties with her best friend and then not to lower that standard with her husband. While this 30-year-old advice seems forehead-smackingly obvious, apparently this memo has not been widely circulated. It's easier for some women to think of their husbands as stupid than to realize they're victims of the patriarchal systems of their own making.

There's an email forward that gets passed around every few years in which a wife details the average night in her home. The wife announces she's going to bed and then bathes the baby, does the dishes, folds the laundry, makes tomorrow's lunches, prepares for a morning meeting, and THEN goes to bed. The man says he's going to bed and then just goes to bed. Somehow, there are women who find this email hilarious, who add smiley faces and "Isn't this the truth??" before forwarding on. I sit there screaming at this fictional woman who doesn't tell this dude to get his butt off the couch and make some lunches, which is not prevented by the presence of a Y chromosome. I usually direct much of my feminist angst towards laws and policies which place women in unfair and subordinate positions. Yet during times like my fun little day trip, I realize that my little group of progressive friends doesn't always represent who's really out there, and more of my feminist angst should go toward the women themselves who are more comfortable confronting a boss about a promotion than a husband about the laundry.

You like me! You really, kind of, sort of like me!

I find that the gap between who we pretend to be and who we really are is an area infinitely interesting to examine in others and terrifying to notice in ourselves. It seems to be our most telling detail: that gap is where we’re exposed for the flawed, hypocritical creatures we really are; it’s where we look into the magnified mirror under florescent lighting and shudder a little at the truth. But I believe it’s good to know our whole selves, who we’re dealing with on a daily basis, and this is a good place to start.

One such gap I have deals with likeability. I believe that women are sold a false bill of goods when we’re girls -- that, above all, we should be pleasing and likeable to all. Cinderella craved the acceptance of the horrid step-sisters; Snow White made it her mission to win over seven distinctly different personality types. We use code words like "charm" and "etiquette" for the true goal: to make girls universally pleasing, liked, and utterly and sadly generic. Boys should be respectable, girls should be likeable. And if you think that doesn't hold true through adulthood, just listen to the different adjectives used to describe the men and women of politics or even your workplace.

That’s why I dug the Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart of yore. These women were too busy living to vie for our acceptance. Clinton (and I mean the pre-candidate Clinton) seemed to give a flying flip whether she was liked. Respected? Sure. Listened to? Absolutely. Liked? Whatev. Martha Stewart (and I mean the pre-prison Stewart) cut the chit-chat short and got to her work of running a business empire. She was trying to build a brand, not her Facebook friend list. (Sadly, both women have faced the choice of irrelevancy or learning to adopt behavior more suited to The View. That's another topic for another blog.)

As much as I may fancy myself otherwise, a Hillary or Martha I am not. I’ve taken strides since my early twenties, back when I found it a talent to meld into any number of groups; however I still experience moments of wanting to be liked by all. This is not a reasonable or admirable goal. Despite being generally amiable, social, and up for a laugh, I have personality traits that prevent universal friendship, as does anyone with a hint of personality or self awareness. Yet appallingly I’ve realized that I have the nerve to become offended when someone I don’t even like doesn’t like me back. I know that popularity is a poor indicator of substance, as indicated by Nicholas Sparks’ eternal presence on the bestseller lists, but despite everything I know to be true, it sometimes bugs the crap out of me not to be liked.

When this gap emerges between who I claim to be and who I really can be, it’s an immediate indicator that I’ve fallen away from my center. That’s when I return to the Gospel of Didion (Joan Didion’s excellent essay, “On Self Respect”): “The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others--who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without… Character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.”

So there it is. Placing value upon being liked is the cheap, knock-off version of respecting and liking oneself. The gap that appears in my psyche from time to time is merely an indicator that something is off elsewhere, and that something has everything to do with me and not with you. And although recognizing that the "official" versions of ourselves don't always match the real deal is not a fun exercise, it's a meaningful one nonetheless.

But I really am a nice person. Really.