Okay, I'm back in town, and I'm pissed. Specifically, I'm pissed over James Woolcott's cover story in the Oct. 2 issue of The New Republic on the subject of (here we go again) the Mommy Wars, in which The New Republic belatedly gets around to assessing the relative merits of the most recent books by Caitlin Flanagan, Linda Hirshman and Leslie Morgan Steiner. Woolcott professes to be mystified by all the ruckus these books have produced among America's moms. "Men are competitive with other men, but less comparison-oriented," he writes. " We don't understand why so many women are
so avid to sit in moral judgment of other women's difficult choices,
why they care so much about what other women do (often women they
barely know), and why so many of those women are writers."
Well, let me explain. Ever hear of the crab-bucket syndrome? When crabs get caught and tossed in a bucket, destined to be gutted and/or parbroiled alive, a couple of crabs always try to crawl out...and the other crabs always grab hold of the would-be escapee, and haul him (or her) back in. Why this happens in seafood is beyond my expertise, but in human terms the way it works is that when you are a member of an oppressed group, it is in the interests of those doing the oppressing to keep you fighting with each other as much as possible, so as to distract you from seeing the real enemy....and, just maybe, getting yourself out of that bucket. Hence the Mommy Wars.
So (heaving a heavy sigh), for the benefit of Mr. Woolcott and others, let's go through it again:
The so-called "mommy wars" is a media construct
which pits women against women in an artificial "one way is
better" argument. The reason so many of the women making most of the noise are writers, Mr. Woolcott, is that they are part of the media--and writers usually try to write what sells, at least some of the time. (Even the very high-minded among us need to pay bills.) Meanwhile, two very large groups--I speak of
"fathers" and "corporate executives"--sit on the sidelines, enjoying
the catfight. As well they should: as long as women are egged on into
attacking other women about the "choices" they've made (as if they are
real choices), dads (far too many of them, anyway, my husband NOT included) and employers get a free pass. They don't have to
wipe butts, they don't have to figure out how to get the kid to the
pediatrician AND make the 4 p.m. meeting, they don't have to explain
those "gaps" in the resume that are death to anyone who has dropped out
of the paid labor force to raise children; they'll never have to look
at a Social Security wage statement that counts the hardest-working
years of their lives as, economically speaking, a big fat zero. They
don't even really have to actively oppress women--they've got us doing
that scutwork, too.
I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but: Caitlin, Linda and Leslie are tools of the patriarchy. Yep, that's what I said. They're just too dumb to know it, which I seriously doubt, or too unreflective to realize it (which is Leslie Morgan Steiner's problem, I suspect), too doctrinaire to think about things any other way (Linda Hirshman) or--and I believe this especially in the case of Caitlin Flanagan--too sly to own up to the game.
Any way you look at it, though, it's pretty damn depressing.
