Ladies are we a generation of mislead women? Well according to the author of "What our Mothers didn't tell us," we are. According to Danielle Crittenden, something is awry in the lives of American women. They are encouraged to embark upon the world seeking fortune and sowing oats, and have achieved goals previous generations of women could only dream of. Yet in the midst of plenty, she says, women today feel more unhappiness, more confusion and more insecurity. "There are a great many women unhappy because they acted upon the wisdom passed along to them by the people they most trusted," She writes. "These women thought they did everything right, only to have it turn out all wrong. That the wisdom they received was faulty, that it was based on false assumptions, is a hard lesson for anyone to learn. But it is a lesson every woman growing up today will have to learn as I, and thousands upon thousands of women of my generation had to learn, often painfully."
Women today enjoy unprecedented freedom and opportunity. So why, are the articles in women's magazines so relentlessly pessimistic?
Here is a timeline through written publication that may explain why:
Betty Friedan had concluded in 1963 that the women of her generation felt unhappy and stifled.
The modern women's movement in the early 1970s.
In 1973 -- the year of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision and the Senate's vote to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
Male reproductive functions would be replaced by artificial insemination. Husbands and lovers would no longer be needed for economic support or companionship.
These radical notions above were conveyed in the magazines' customary playful manner ("How to Liberate Your Entire Family!"), making them seem deliciously fun, a lark, like indulging in a pair of the season's impractical platform shoes. And they were artfully sandwiched between photo spreads showing gorgeous ways to decorate your new (very own!) apartment, profiles of women who had shunned marriage and motherhood for dazzling careers, and tips for leading a sizzling and adventurous sex life (because men, when they were not being discarded, were to be used as casually as they had once used you).
Now fast foward to 2009 and the magazine articles look like this:
"What Are Your Chances of Staying Married?"
"Invite a man you've just met home for sex!"
"Will He Cheat?"
"The dangers of "date rape"
"Tips" to catch a man's attention-spill a drink on him!"
It's common now for the elders of the women's movement to express disappointment in my generation of women -- the "daughters of the revolution" now our twenties and thirties -- who came of age long after the last feminist brassiere had been burned. As we see it, we are enjoying the spoils of their victories without any gratitude for their struggle. We get up in the morning and go to our jobs as doctors, Executives, accountants, lawyers and even soldiers without devoting a second's thought to the efforts that were spent making these jobs seem completely normal. We deposit our paychecks without having to worry whether we are getting paid less for the job we're doing because of our sex. We enroll in science courses with every expectation of being taken seriously as scientists; we apply for postgraduate degrees with every expectation that we will use them and not let them languish when we become mothers. When we graduate, our first thought is not, Whom will I marry? but, What will I do? And when we do marry, we take for granted that our husbands will treat us as equals, with dreams and ambitions like theirs, and not as creatures uniquely destined to push a vacuum or change a diaper.
Our grandmothers, we are told, took husbands the way we might choose our first apartment. There was a scheduled viewing, a quick turn about the interior, a glance inside the closets, a nervous intake of breath as one read the terms of the lease, and then the signing -- or not. You either felt a man's charms right away or you didn't. If you didn't, you entertained a few more prospects until you found one who better suited you. If you loved him, really loved him, all the better. But you also expected to make compromises: The view may not be great, but it's sunny and spacious (translation: he's not that handsome, but he's sweet-natured and will be a good provider). Whether you accepted or rejected him, however, you didn't dwindle.
But if a woman remains single until her age creeps up past thirty, she may find herself tapping at her watch and staring down the now mysteriously empty tunnel, wondering if there hasn't been a derailment or accident somewhere along the line. When a train does finally pull in, it is filled with misfits and crazy men -- like a New York City subway car after hours: immature, elusive Peter Pans who won't commit themselves to a second cup of coffee, let alone a second date; neurotic bachelors with strange habits; sexual predators who hit on every woman they meet; newly divorced men taking pleasure wherever they can; embittered, scorned men who still feel vengeful toward their last girlfriend; men who are too preoccupied with their careers to think about anyone else from one week to the next; men who are simply too weak, or odd, to have attracted any other woman's interest. The sensible, decent, not-bad-looking men a woman rejected at twenty-four because she wasn't ready to settle down all seem to have gotten off at other stations.
So the single woman is reduced to performing the romantic equivalent of a dance over hot coals: She must pretend that she is totally unaware of the burning rocks beneath her feet and behave in a way that will convince a man that the one thing she really wants is the furthest thing from her mind.
The pull between the desire to love and be loved and the desire to be free is an old, fierce one. If the error our grandmothers made was to have surrendered too much of themselves for others, this was perhaps better than not being prepared to surrender anything at all.
