When Will Women Get What They Want . . . . Without Feeling Judged or Guilty?

Somehow in the fight for women’s rights we lost our right to be mothers.

Women today can do and be anything. Over the past 50 years women all over the country have fought hard to obtain the equal rights we enjoy today. Though we still fight to obtain equal treatment and recognition with our male counterparts, we are undeniably in a far better place than we were 50 years ago, right?
I think the answer is yes, but while we have come a long way we are certainly no where near there (wherever “there” is).

In an interview on Terry Gross’s show, Fresh Air, Wednesday, April 13^th, guest Tina Fey discussed some of these issues and how she brings them up on her show, 30 Rock. While listening I was annoyed by a clip played from an episode where Tina Fey’s character, Liz, tries to talk a young 20-something out of her decision to marry. As it turned out, my annoyance vanished with my laughter as I listened to the ridiculous clip. The 20-something explains to Liz how she has known her fiancé for “2 months in 3 weeks” and how she wants to have babies before she misses the window to be a hot mom.

But the topic still made me wonder; what would someone like Tina Fey have to say about me? I’m 20-something, married and have 2 children. Going against the current trend of putting family on hold in order to work on a career, I put my career on hold in order to have a family. While I’m pretty sure that if I ever had the chance to talk to Tina she would not accuse me of having babies young in order to be a hot mom, I do worry about what people think of me because of the choices I’ve made. What stereotype do I fit into? And why am I so preoccupied with this?

Maybe part of the reason is because of the way friends ask me how I am; patronizingly as though there is no possible way I could be 25, married, raising two children AND be happy. Well I am happy! And the only things standing in the way of complete bliss are the stigmas put on young motherhood by our society that simultaneously fights for the rights of women! Well, which is it? Can women be whatever they want to be? Or is the truth more that we can be whatever we want to be as long as it fits into the status quo and what authorities on the subject deem to be the best choices.

But wait one second, what were women of the last hundred years fighting for if not the right to have the freedom to be what and who we want to be; whether that is a mom and a wife, a relentless career woman, a nun, or a stripper?

Tina and Terry go on to discuss the double-standard of women as sex symbols and as I listened to Tina Fey I realized that she most certainly gets it. She sums it up brilliantly:

"It's just such a tangled-up issue, the way women present themselves — whether or not they choose to put their thumbs in their panties on the cover of Maxim and judge each other back and forth on it. It's a complicated issue, and we didn't go much further on saying anything other than to say, 'Yeah, it's a complicated issue and we're all kind of figuring it out as we go.'
" . . . But I find it interesting that Olivia [Munn, a correspondent on The Daily Show] gets people who go after her on some of these sites because she's beautiful, and that's part of it. I think if she were kind of an aggressive, heavier girl with a Le Tigre mustache posing in her underpants, people would be like, 'That's amazing. Good for you.' But because she's very beautiful, people are like, 'You're using that.' It's a mess. We can't figure it out."

It is a mess indeed! But brave people like Tina Fey, who slap you in the face with these issues on shows like 30 Rock, will help us figure it all out.

Listen to Wednesday's Fresh Air interview with Tina Fey
Watch "TGS Hates Women" 30 Rock Episode

A Final Word on Race (For Now) . . .

A few days ago I naively responded to a post entitled 'One Race' on the blog Resist Racism. 

This was the post written by resistance on April 12, 2011:

    It was planned by teachers for their elementary school students.  They sang and
    displayed signs that read “One World” and “One Race.”
    More than 90 percent of the teachers were white.
    And no, it wasn’t supposed to be a Klan rally.

I didn't get it.  Naively I responded saying basically that we are all biologically one race (Read the original post and my stupid comments here).  While I am embarrassed by my own ignorance, I am also grateful for places like resistracism.wordpress.com where (even though I'm sure most of the regular contributors find my comments annoying and stupid) I can make those comments and be corrected or called out and at least walk away knowing more than I did going in.

But the real issue here is the fact that I didn't get the significance of the original post.  In typical naive white person style I questioned it thinking "how is this racist?"  I thought that I did see how it could be interpreted as racist but that the teachers were probably well-intentioned and so it wasn't really a big deal.  But it is a big deal!  My own initial response to this proves how this is a big deal; how there are so many white people out there who just don't get it!  And I am admittedly one of them.  

Affirmative Action

In college I had to do a project about Affirmative Action.  My partner was a Black girl and my professor who reviewed our project was also Black.  I have complicated feelings about Affirmative Action.  I feel that it is necessary right now and that it does a lot of good but I feel that it is a temporary solution to a much bigger issue.  I think that our real goal should be to no longer need Affirmative Action.  Ideally in a society with a true ‘level playing field’ where all people have an equal opportunity to succeed something like Affirmative Action should no longer be necessary.  I attempted to explain this feeling to my partner and my professor (I think in an effort to not sound racist I ended up sounding more racist and not articulating my thoughts fully) and they seemed (understandingly) to get annoyed with me and my professor concluded that I did not truly appreciate Affirmative Action. 

She was right.  How could I?  As a white person how could I possibly fully appreciate Affirmative Action?  But looking back on that experience I wish that I had fully articulated my thoughts on the issue and had a real discussion with my partner and my professor.  Largely because of my own fear of being labeled ‘racist’ (which inevitably as a white person I am anyway) and also because of the stigma associated with really discussing race I think I missed out on a valuable learning experience and an opportunity to start to dissect a serious issue concerning race.