Random feminist grousing
Ran into some essentialist bullshit today (of the "women warriors are 'mannish' and therefore gross" variety.*)
Really damned tired of how we categorize traits and behaviors that support self-sufficiency as "masculine" and traits and behaviors that support dependency as "feminine."
Even more tired of the notion that women don't need to adopt "masculine" power because they have "feminine" power via the ability to sexually attract straight men and bear/nurse offspring. Such "power" is an illusion: it lasts only as long as the woman wielding it has those weapons available. Once they're gone--once she loses aesthetic appeal or reproductive capacity--she's left with nothing unless she has other skills. Women who spend the majority of their youth on aesthetics or childrearing, rather than on getting their own education, job skills and other self-sustaining experience, are utterly screwed once they hit 40 and can no longer lure shallow men into providing for their needs.
Even if you have the best husband ever (hi, M!), who really does support you, and pledges to do so no matter what you look like or whether you're rasing his kids, what happens if you lose him or lose his ability to support you? What happens if he loses his job or his ability to work? What happens if he becomes seriously ill or dies? What happens if, against all promises, he changes his mind and decides to leave you for a 20-year-old trophy wife? Shit happens. And if you don't have a contingency plan in place that relies only on YOUR skills and experience, you are setting yourself up for catastrophic failure.
I wish more young women understood this, because it's heartbreaking to see so many who obviously wasted their teens and 20s being acceptably decorative and fecund getting utterly lost when they can't get men to support them anymore. There's a reason that poverty disproportionately affects women--and especially single mothers. If you don't have the ability to support yourself (and your kids, if any) entirely on your own, you are completely screwed. Alimony, child support, survivor benefits and insurance don't go far, and welfare certainly isn't reliable. Your own job skills are all that really stands between you and being homeless if you lose your man and aren't young/pretty/fertile enough to get another one right away. If you have no job skills, you have no hope. It's that simple.
FWIW, I agree that there's no point in women adopting the worst of "masculine" traits in a bid to gain power. But when your culture's power-granting structure is built on some of those traits, if you don't adopt them, you have no power. Period. In a culture in which power is held largely by combat, for instance, people without those skills have no power. Women, therefore, who learn to become warriors aren't trying to be men. They're trying to survive.
*Yes, this was a Game of Thrones thing. General grousing about Arya and Brienne. General support of the idea that women in that culture should only be trying to gain power via sex and marriage with powerful men. Barf.
Really damned tired of how we categorize traits and behaviors that support self-sufficiency as "masculine" and traits and behaviors that support dependency as "feminine."
Even more tired of the notion that women don't need to adopt "masculine" power because they have "feminine" power via the ability to sexually attract straight men and bear/nurse offspring. Such "power" is an illusion: it lasts only as long as the woman wielding it has those weapons available. Once they're gone--once she loses aesthetic appeal or reproductive capacity--she's left with nothing unless she has other skills. Women who spend the majority of their youth on aesthetics or childrearing, rather than on getting their own education, job skills and other self-sustaining experience, are utterly screwed once they hit 40 and can no longer lure shallow men into providing for their needs.
Even if you have the best husband ever (hi, M!), who really does support you, and pledges to do so no matter what you look like or whether you're rasing his kids, what happens if you lose him or lose his ability to support you? What happens if he loses his job or his ability to work? What happens if he becomes seriously ill or dies? What happens if, against all promises, he changes his mind and decides to leave you for a 20-year-old trophy wife? Shit happens. And if you don't have a contingency plan in place that relies only on YOUR skills and experience, you are setting yourself up for catastrophic failure.
I wish more young women understood this, because it's heartbreaking to see so many who obviously wasted their teens and 20s being acceptably decorative and fecund getting utterly lost when they can't get men to support them anymore. There's a reason that poverty disproportionately affects women--and especially single mothers. If you don't have the ability to support yourself (and your kids, if any) entirely on your own, you are completely screwed. Alimony, child support, survivor benefits and insurance don't go far, and welfare certainly isn't reliable. Your own job skills are all that really stands between you and being homeless if you lose your man and aren't young/pretty/fertile enough to get another one right away. If you have no job skills, you have no hope. It's that simple.
FWIW, I agree that there's no point in women adopting the worst of "masculine" traits in a bid to gain power. But when your culture's power-granting structure is built on some of those traits, if you don't adopt them, you have no power. Period. In a culture in which power is held largely by combat, for instance, people without those skills have no power. Women, therefore, who learn to become warriors aren't trying to be men. They're trying to survive.
*Yes, this was a Game of Thrones thing. General grousing about Arya and Brienne. General support of the idea that women in that culture should only be trying to gain power via sex and marriage with powerful men. Barf.