Well, now they’ve done it, and I believe that women have gotten pretty much as far as they’re going to get. Which is better, but not great. I mean, it’s immensely better. There’s no comparison. It’s against the law to say, “This job is just for boys.” But that doesn’t mean there aren’t all kinds of jobs you can’t have [as a woman]. And there are all kinds of things you won’t get. It’s just much more subtle now. And that’s progress.
But there are still girls who make it bad for girls. Young girls are always showing me their diamond engagement rings. “Look, Fran!” It’s so old-fashioned. I think that I am too old to feel that people who are kids remind me of my parents. Someone my age is supposed to be angered by kids. You’re supposed to say, “These crazy kids—what will they think of next?” You’re not supposed to say, “These kids are so boring. These kids are so regressive.” It’s like the 1950s. The 1950s weren’t just about great suits. That time was really suffocating.
So it seems to me that people, especially women, especially women who have all these choices, are now looking for things that aren’t oppressive exactly but are pretty suffocating. What used to be called middle-class respectability looked like it was going to disappear, but it didn’t. It’s returned. It just returned in a different costume. If you do it in a loft instead of a split-level in the suburbs, it’s still the same. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be allowed to do it; I’m saying it’s suburban. This is why New York today seems suburban to me—all kids and babies in strollers. It’s 1950s domestic life. The sidewalks are the same size, but now you have twins and dogs.
December 13, 2010
"What are your thoughts on feminism today?"
Fran Lebowitz is asked:
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86 comments:
The words "thought" and "Feminism" do not belong in the same sentence.
* What are the "all kinds of jobs" that you can't have as a woman?
- There are certainly jobs that many if not most women can't have, based on their physical strength, but I don't think Ms. Lebowitz wants to live in a world where my 112 pound self is trying to rescue her in a fire.
* What are the things that we won't get? I really don't feel that I've been denied anything (except perhaps blow jobs- I'll admit, I'm curious) on account of my womanhood.
* I would look at not being able to get an engagement ring and show it off as suffocating and eliminating my choices. Why do feminists seem to think what they want is the only thing permissible to want? I like the suburbs.
Choices. I've had them all my life. Even with conservative parents, a stay at home mom, and "middle class values."
Ms. Lebowitz's life doesn't present them.
- Lyssa
She hates the suburbs just like another famous thinker I am familiar with:
"I'm not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me."
"But that doesn’t mean there aren’t all kinds of jobs you can’t have (as a woman)."
Bullshit.
Name 3.
Hell, name 1 job a woman cannot get.
I'd be more than willing to describe the blowjob experience to you in real-time, and exquisite detail, Alyssa.
When are you free?
(Just kidding)
Regressive! Yes, reproduction has been around for eons, LOL. First you give birth and then you have to care for the little things. So unfair.
But Fran's bon mots are so very more chi chi.
"What used to be called middle-class respectability looked like it was going to disappear, but it didn’t."
Ha. Man, I so remember that!
Wow. Does she realize how boring and regressive she sounds? She's a feminist complaining about men, and babies. And happy women in love.
How sad.
1000 to 1 she votes against Palin.
"I don't think Ms. Lebowitz wants to live in a world where my 112 pound self is trying to rescue her in a fire."
You already live in that world.
There are thousands of female firefighters.
http://www.i-women.org/images/pdf-files/35827WSP.pdf
Nothing Fran Lebowitz claims is based on observable objective fact.
Nothing.
She's merely jealous because nobody in their right mind will put a diamond ring on her fat hairy finger.
"except perhaps blow jobs"
I've always assumed that a guy going down is nearly equivalent, all things considered.
P.S. The ones w/ teeth aren't so great.
Why did this strike me as funny? I came of age in the late 60s, and supported the equal work-equal pay aspect of feminism. I also know that it enabled at least two friends to leave abusive relationships. I had a successful marketing career in a Fortune 500 financial service company. Now I am a gardener and enjoying it. Doesn't Fran realize that the right to choose was what drew so many women into the fold?
"P.S. The ones w/ teeth aren't so great."
And you never want to get one from a woman with a chipped or missing tooth, either.
Those filthy Breeders!
There's a whole swath of ladies out there who are my mother's age and who are shocked by me. I'm 38, graduated from MIT and UC Berkeley, and now I'm a stay at home mother of 2 boys, 4 and 2, with another on the way. The horror!
The idea that it's my choice is not something they can comprehend. The idea that I'm happy in this life and not suffocating is even more shocking to them.
But it's interesting that women choosing to have urban lives isn't enough for her--even if you're not in those ticky-tacky suburbs, you're still breeding, and that's the real problem. That's the shackle and the suffocation right there.
Someone should ask her who will be paying her social security.
I remember when Fran had a column in Glamour, back in the 70s, when she was just starting out. I looked down on *her* because she was in Glamour, so she was too "middle class respectability" for me.
When are you free?
(Not kidding)
I'd be happy to provide you with your first blowjob.
Why doesn't she do us all a favor and jump off the fucking Empire State Building as a statement against creeping suburbanism.
Don't just stand there you hairy bitch. Do something!
Why does it always seem these people climb out from under their rocks only when they're trying to sell a book?
The list is long and distinguished, Ham. But thank you. Best offer I've had all week.
Another Lefty who realizes that the Xers and Yers tried the results of 60s Leftism and don't like them, so they're going back to Conservatism.
New "Hussein" Ham said...
"But that doesn’t mean there aren’t all kinds of jobs you can’t have (as a woman)."
Bullshit.
Name 3.
Hell, name 1 job a woman cannot get.
US Army Ranger
US Navy SEAL
USMC Force Recon
Ann Althouse said...
"What used to be called middle-class respectability looked like it was going to disappear, but it didn’t."
Ha. Man, I so remember that!
That's one thing that always hands me a laugh when I hear the hard-Left Demos giving me their rap about how they care about what happens to the Middle Class. 40 years ago, the same people used "Middle Class" as an epithet, an insult.
The 1950s were the best of times and the worst of times. But at least they taught their children at school and no promotion to the next grade was given away for showing up. People do very well when challenged. That is what makes people so special...not easy entitlements to a fairy tale life. Today's men have a great challenge confronting them now. The women are favored in most careers, with the exception of some good old boy favor still presumed to be for men only but only among the most powerful 1% or so, where the women are not included or are tokens only. We will get to see what Sarah Palin does with that Glass Ceiling soon.
Professor, perhaps you'd be so kind as to answer a question I've always had about feminism:
If one of the tenets of feminism was that a woman should be viewed, and respected, as more than just a convenient place for a rotten man to park a boner, why is it that feminism has had the (had to be unintended) effect of creating a category of women who are sexual predators offering sex-without-consequence as a means of "empowerment"?
Well, women still cannot get jobs in certain specialties in the military. Not that they can't fight and die for our country, because they do, but rather, that certain jobs are still off limits, such as infantry, armor, etc. Partially, it is based on unit cohesion and the intimate living arrangements, and partly on upper body strength.
This may change over time, after DADT is finally eliminated - the arguments made against DADT are arguably much stronger when it comes to women.
But, beyond that, I can't think of anything. There are plenty of jobs where women don't want to go, esp. those that require a lot of danger or strength. But that is their choice. Except that in non-government jobs, just like an employer can refuse to hire a 120 lb guy for some jobs, they can also refuse to hire the 100 lb woman for that same job. Outside of the military, this doesn't seem to apply to much of the government, which seems to have to hire women even in situations where they are not suitable physically (e.g. different physical standards for men and women for some fire and police jobs).
Let me suggest that women these days probably have more life choices than men do. In particular, while men can be the stay-at-home parent, there is still a substantial amount of pressure against such a choice.
Hell, name 1 job a woman cannot get.
Female impersonator? Sperm donor?
Word verification: ovessene.
I was thinking of the lesbian photographer. Fran used to be on TV here and there--is she too old now?
"But there are still girls who make it bad for girls."
Except, of course, for themselves.
Reading that interview. it sounds like Fran started talking before she had organized a coherent response, and still hadn't formed one by the time she finished.
She wrote some funny stuff in the 1980s,though.
I didn't know much about Fran other than she dresses like a man and that put me off as I assumed she was a militant feminist.
I liked the Public Speaking special she did with Scorcese on HBO. In that setting, she seemed reasonable. She was telling the audience that women aren't "equal," as we don't have testerone aggressively driving us towards one goal. Women have lots of goals that divide our attention including babies. She didn't seem unreasonable then, but realistic.
I really do find the "suburbs are boring, maaaaan," tropes to be boring.
People move to the burbs because cities are expensive. Cities often mean expensive housing, shitty public schools and high taxes. People who can afford private schools, expensive apartments or townhouses often have "weekend and summer" houses. Most people in the suburbs live there year round because they can't afford the city and the country and the suburbs are the compromise: more for your money and you don't have to send your kids to private schools.
I live in the semi-suburbs for that reasons I list above - space, cleaner air and I am not house poor.
I also think it's a myth that the whole engagement ring/wedding fantasy has ever been unpopular with women. Yes, they have become more extravagant, but so has everything else.
By the way, tiny cops and forewomen who can't carry people out of a burning building are doing no one a favor. I remember when a neighbor had a heart attack and the tiny paramedic needed help carrying the stretcher. Part of the job. If you can't do it, you shouldn't be doing it regardless of your sex.
But there are still girls who make it bad for girls.
Yes, but not in the way Lebowitz is suggesting. I think that Lebowitz assumes that nasty, rotten men, or maybe "society" are to blame, but women stabbing other women in the back is still the biggest hindrance to any woman's career.
Hell, name 1 job a woman cannot get.
US Army Ranger
US Navy SEAL
USMC Force Recon
And you know, Fran Lebowitz cries every night because she can't be one of those!
All these isms blending together. It's all one pattern of thought: dislikes bourgeoisie respectability, population growth, people who don't think like her and make her choices. Wants to be surrounded by like-minded people (but wouldn't that be suffocating for her too? Just another kind of conformity) and to be surrounded by them preferably in a non-suburban-like urban environment, with all its colorfulness - but I'm assuming she wouldn't want too much colorfulness, because that could mean rampant crime and having to barricade yourself within your posh bohemian apartment.
Two decades-old essay collections I recommend reading with lots of spot-on amusing analysis of the cultural/intellectual elite, both written by Tom Wolfe: Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak-catchers.
"Hell, name 1 job a woman cannot get.
US Army Ranger
US Navy SEAL
USMC Force Recon"
Not true: Demi Moore became a SEAL, but then went back to stripping because it apparently paid better.
(the other kev)
Bitter. Old revolutionaries are always bitter.
Female impersonator?
Have you forgotten Victor/Victoria already?
So Julie Andrews wasn't quite believable as a man.
I attempted to ask this question a few months ago of some liberal friends, and really didn't get a satisfactory result, so I'll ask it here:
What, specifically, needs to be changed in the US, to reach the "post-feminism" ideal?
Obviously, there are pockets, and I've said over and over again how shocked 2008 left me, based entirely on reactions from the left, but on the whole, I don't anything "not great" (as Ms. Lebowitz puts it) at all.
Someone please enlighten me about how held back I am!
But there are still girls who make it bad for girls. Young girls are always showing me their diamond engagement rings.
I think that she is claiming that this sort of peer pressure is bad and needs to be eliminated.
But (and maybe this is a straw man argument), I think that this is an admission that women, or at least females, are not as strong as they could be in the realm of standing up to their peers. I think that most of us can remember the almost lock step conformity of girl-world during the middle school years. And, yes, part of that continues through high school and thereafter. But it does seem to diminish over time, at least for most women.
There are a lot of reasons for pushing women, and men too, into marriage. Incomes go up a lot. Child rearing success goes up a lot too. Prostitution and prison go down a lot of their kids, etc. All this happens if women marry and have and raise their kids in wedlock.
So, yes, I think that it is a good thing that women feel some pressure to get married.
What I don't think is good for a lot of females is for getting married to be the only thing, or the absolute most important thing, in their lives. A good job, career, friends, etc. are also important.
And, I am reminded of one wedding I attended several decades ago. The bride had spent months planning the wedding. This was her day. She had it planned out from getting up in the morning until they were in their marital bed that night. Then, the reality hit. She was married and her new husband wasn't excited about her going out with the girls to bars a couple times of week. They got divorced a couple months later, but still had all that debt incurred for the wedding to pay off. She never seemed to look beyond the wedding, and I think that was a mistake.
And I am also tired of the "New York sucks now that it is (more) clean and not as crime ridden." Because grafitti defiled subways were cool, maaaaaan. Muggings were awesome!
When I moved to NY you couldn't have a radio in your car, and it was a given it was going to be broken into or stolen at somepoint so just accept it!
I remember reading articles in NY Magazine about the problems in the village of having your car broken into by a prostitute to have sex in your car and just rampant vandalism. Needles in the sandbox at the park. Walking home after dinner to have a crack addict sing I am the good ship lollypop to you and you realize, oh, it must be late, I should go home. Those days were GREAT!
I had company this weekend and that company required we go to see the tree at Rockefeller center. It was a mob scene and I used to work there from 94-99 and it was never so crowded. I hated the crowds, but I think it's good that NYC is not the pit it used to be. It was a cesspool. The urban equivalent
Now if only Bloomberg would focus on the pot holes instead of my salt intake.
Someone please enlighten me about how held back I am!
It might be a little bit harder to get a top law job, since women are now out-graduating men. And, indeed, it is harder for women than me to get into a top college with the same credentials. But that is because there are so many more women than men applying with those credentials, and many colleges believe that if their male/female ratio gets too out of whack in the women's favor, that then the school will become less attractive for both sexes.
But I don't think that is really what you were talking about.
What, specifically, needs to be changed in the US, to reach the "post-feminism" ideal?
I think non-equality bugs them. They won't be happy until men get pregnant. Or pregnancy is eliminated completely. Or we're all brains in jars.
I mean, what really seems to bug Fran? Human reproduction. Men doing that man thing and women doing that woman thing. Drives her crazy. She's not going to be happy until we put a stop to it.
It turns out that women aren't just men with bigger tits. Who knew?
Am I supposed to know who this person is?
Am I supposed to know who this person is?
2nd cousin of Judd Hirsch.
I always had a bit of sympathy after the tragedy that befell her sister Fawn.
Hell, name 1 job a woman cannot get.
Gigilo.
There is a big difference between 'can't' get and 'shouldn't' get.
So it seems to me that people, especially women, especially women who have all these choices, are now looking for things that aren’t oppressive exactly but are pretty suffocating. What used to be called middle-class respectability looked like it was going to disappear, but it didn’t. It’s returned.
Just because YOU don't want it and find it suffocating, doesn't mean that EVERYONE shares your leanings.
I too, have noticed a return in the younger generation,( my daughter's 30 somethings), to a more traditional family structure. The desire to have children, raise them yourself, a cocooning trend...if you will.
I am heartened.
It may represent a return to normalcy. To sanity. Perhaps the baby boomer me Me ME MEEE!!! generation is expiring at last.
We can only hope.
"What used to be called middle-class respectability looked like it was going to disappear, but it didn’t."
Perhaps, but increasingly it is restricted to the upper middle class, while the lower middle class / formerly-solid working class (a/k/a/ middle America) sinks down towards the lower or under class.
Idiots like Lebowitz helped to destroy marriage, encourage out-of-wedlock births and devalue the family (and especially the role of fathers) because she and others found those institutions "stifling". Happily the more educated segment of my generation mostly figured out that you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and have chosen to preserve or resurrect the important and good parts of traditional marriage and child-rearing. Unfortunately, a lot of middle America didn't get the later memo, and are rapidly moving into true white [and other elasticities] trashdom. Once again over-educated boomers remaking America to suit their own wants (not needs) and to F'n bad about the collateral damage.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/254974/crisis-middle-rich-lowry
Pardon my language but what a boring twat stuck in some kind of adolescent rebellion. She is truly sad and bitter at seeing people who have benefited from their own efforts and eons of effort on the parts of generations before them. They can work hard, learn, tolerate, fall in love and pass the favor and struggle and beauty on to another generation. All at the cost of their entire lives and worries efforts to feel the wonder of sacrificing all that was passed on to them on the gamble of raising the babies that take their breath away.
That harpy faux-anarchic twat would be the first to complain about a late subway or a man who didn't hold a door.
She is the sixties.
whine, whine, whine.
twice as many men lost their jobs in this recession as did women.
more women are in and graduate from law school, medical school, college.
more women graduate from high school.
women consume much more health care than men (excluding costs associated with childbirth.
men are a minority group; women are the majority group.
women suffer from lower levels of genetic flaws and defects than do men.
women suffer violence at much lower levels than do men.
whine, whine, whine.
women live 4-5 years longer than men.
women spend most of the nation's consumer spending. and still--whine, whine, whine.
it's quite a strategy.
whine, whine, whine.
Obviously, there are pockets
But you can carry a pretty handbag, which men can't. Girl trou are too tight, so wear a jacket if you want usable pockets.
god I hate that word twat. It sounds like a metal trap or something.
"Am I supposed to know who this person is?"
A bargain-bin Dorothy Parker.
When Liebowitz says that women aren't going to go any further, did she forget that 100% of humanity was born of women?
Now how much "further" can you get?
New York does sort of suck these days, because there's no "middle class" here anymore, respectable or otherwise. It's all rich and semi-rich people and poor people who commute in to serve the rich people.
And the fucking strollers are completely out of control. There's a difference between a stroller and the triple-wide mega-strollers that the nouveau-yuppie bitches push around.
I saw the HBO documentary. She is witty and entertaining. I don't think she dresses as a man so much as she dresses as Oscar Wilde. She is known as a writer although she hasn't written any books in years and makes most of her living giving lectures......Her opinions are extreme, but that's part of her act. Who wants to see an Oscar Wilde channeler who gives a mild, balanced analysis of the world?...... She lived in NY in the bad old days, and it was more fun only because she was younger and more agile. In the documentary, she more or less concedes the point. At any rate she doesn't seem in any hurry to move to Newark for a fresh rush of urban chaos.....As noted, she is witty and entertaining, and no one, least of all her, believes in anything she says. It's a living.
How do I feel about feminism today? The same way I felt about feminism back in the 70's. Instead of wasting your time worrying about what isn't "fair" for women, learn that life isn't fair. Then get on with it.
@St.Croix,
Sorry for the repugnant term though language is great at conveying feelings with terms. Other words wouldn't have been up to communicating the gut impact her self important silliness embodies.
Some are more effective steel traps than others.
@William:
"...As noted, she is witty and entertaining, and no one, least of all her, believes in anything she says. It's a living."
Even worse.
--If one of the tenets of feminism was that a woman should be viewed, and respected, as more than just a convenient place for a rotten man to park a boner, why is it that feminism has had the (had to be unintended) effect of creating a category of women who are sexual predators offering sex-without-consequence as a means of "empowerment"?
Silly, that tenet of 60s feminism was that men were rotten scoundrels who just wanted holes for their parts, and *women were entitled to be just as rotten and crude* as the men. No more requiring women to be civilized and civilizing. They now had license to be just as depraved and selfish. See how much better life is now?
lyssa brings up a question I've been wondering; what does a modern feminist stand for anyway, besides pontificating about feminism?
My daughters have more control over their destiny than my sons. As Tim Allen pointed out; women can do whatever they want--men can work or go to jail.
(Women are still heavily favored in family court. So what is the gripe of feminism again?)
Fran must be a real hoot at parties.
They now had license to be just as depraved and selfish
They've long been professional, but they're only licensed in Nevada.
Like Sinatra a great talent but much to be desired as a human being although to be fair she never was 'connected' to the wrong people.
The old days are always great for the old.
It's called being young. For me the 70's were the good old days, I was young, skinny, had hair and got laid plenty. That doesn't mean that overall the times didn't suck. When you're young and have a job the feeds you, puts a roof over your head and gives you money to go clubbing who gives a crap what else is going on? Fran can't get used to the fact she is old and romantically probably past her sell by date.
Instead of presenting a coherent philosophy she just gives a rant of the "anything that does not fit my worldview bores me" kind. And her list of grevances is so stale.
MrBuddwing --
"Sperm donor?"
Job, not avocation.
wv: rendy - What you feel like after donating.
That Fran is so progressive!
"As noted, she is witty and entertaining, and no one, least of all her, believes in anything she says. It's a living."
Yep.
Feminism is the product of feigned equality for the sheer sake of artificially trying to elevate one gender on an equal footing over the other. A complete bill of goods sold to women in western civilization through the products of mass/print media that they can do it all, have it all, and want it all. Instead we end up with muddled gender roles, man haters, tired 60's wash-outs, and Bob Dylan fanatics.
"Professor, perhaps you'd be so kind as to answer a question I've always had about feminism: If one of the tenets of feminism was that a woman should be viewed, and respected, as more than just a convenient place for a rotten man to park a boner, why is it that feminism has had the (had to be unintended) effect of creating a category of women who are sexual predators offering sex-without-consequence as a means of "empowerment"?"
You know the old saying: Feminism is the radical idea that women are human beings.
From there, how hard is it to answer your question?
Nagging is one way the eternal female interest in quest-sending can go.
Something is wrong and you have to guess what it is and fix it.
That will prove you care about me.
It's nagging when it's not followed by a show that the woman is satisfied with her man for his effort, the missing ingredient.
Feminism rings all the variations on that that avoid the discovery of nagging.
I thought Fran Lebowitz died in a kiln explosion...
Sorry - memory is failing. SteveR has it right, it was Fawn Lebowitz.
Her boredom bores me.
I'm not looking forward to the day when my imagination runs dry.
I knew I had seen her before, she has a recurring part on Law & Order as a judge. She actually is pretty good.
Having lived in a urban area most of my life I have to say that some of her observations about mothers and kids rings true, if like me, you don't have kids. According to Wikipedia she is also an advocate for smokers rights, even though I am a non-smoker, I have to give her props for that.
I've always believed that women were human beings, Professor, and able to do anything they wanted to do. My question, perhaps poorly formulated, was why is it that some aspects of feminism seem to hold that until a woman behaves like a man (at least how women THINK men behave) sexually, she's not truly benn liberated?
Hasn't anyone figured out that this is simply low-hanging fruit for us guys? This is empowering andliberating and getting you that respect you crave, how?
Fran is a bitter snob. And her bitterness is more important than the lifework of any individual woman.
She was funny years ago.
Ann,
Feminism is the radical idea that women are human beings.
That's "flawed" human beings - like every man they've ever complained about - right? Guys say their sons don't have options - "go to work or go to jail" - when women are in the workplace because guys joined them in their efforts. Who are the human beings again? Now that guys are in their (former) shoes - for no other reason than they joined them - where are the women for guys? Where's a sense of fairness and equality - that's already been proven to be possessed by men? In the faculty lounge trying to decide how to fuck them up more. (It's funny, a guy was just telling me yesterday, "If I lose this this job I don't know what I'll do.") Women imagine things to fear and then create them for others to experience.
In the new female-oriented world, you don't have to have to have skills (other than to serve) so nothing runs right because no "real" man's able to use their pretzel logic. Human Resources, for instance, is ALWAYS run by a woman who insists I take an orientation to learn not to discriminate, against myself, based on race - I love that - especially the implication my new white co-workers are evil and out to get me so I better watch out. The irony is lost on them. (I also love the term "orientation": makes it clear they're fucking with my mind. In my last one, it was computer based, so I turned the sound down - right in front of the woman who looked at me cock-eyed. I fiddled around absentmindedly until it was over and then took the test which I passed with flying colors, to her amazement and frustration - all completely common sense and unnecessary.
That's what feminism has really brought:
A job for her over me - that forces me to show how little her influence is worth in the day-to-day activity of getting the job I've applied for done.
BTW - as usual, I've immediately outdone everyone at this new job, which will last (just like the last one) until a woman decides she doesn't like me (that's it: she doesn't "like me" - not I've done anything wrong, or anything to her, but that I rub her the wrong way) and then charges me with something bogus that that lovely woman in Human Resources will have to get involved with because, as we all know, it's a "serious charge". Got that? A charge - an accusation. Always without proof, and which (so far) has been leveled because 1) I always walked away whenever two sluts (I don't use the term lightly) had their daily talk about their sex lives and "beliefs" and 2) a woman couldn't stand being told what to do when I was given the job to train her. No exaggeration - get this: She passed out cards for a massage therapy business, talked to our customers about the "karma" of their (potential) purchase, and openly propositioned a guy. I'm her trainer, right? I tell her, in no uncertain terms, she can't be doing this stuff - BOOM! - hello Human Resources lady, and me being "suspected" of hitting on her in an unwanted fashion. Some "human beings" you've got there.
More like unfulfilled Nazis if you ask me.
I'd like to follow Crack around for a day sometime, and then watch him write about that day on the internet. I think that'd be interesting.
At least she's honest. Women today have MORE opportunities than men do today. Fran Lebowitz realizes that and doesn't discount it.
She's clearly upset that her and her cronies' attempt to destroy the social order wasn't successful, because you can't change the underlying biology from whence the social order arises, but she seems to understand, now, that it was always a fraud.
Fran Lebowitz is like a chatty J.D. Salinger. Her heyday was the Seventies, and she hasn't written anything of significance since then.
She must have a really good PR person to be still in the press.
Why would an average woman, who's not a New York progressive lesbian, care what Fran Lebowitz thinks?
Isn't her viewpoint rather unique?
lyssalovelyredhead,
I'd like to follow Crack around for a day sometime, and then watch him write about that day on the internet. I think that'd be interesting.
Nah, only if I was pointing out to you what people say and do, so you'd catch it - like Ann and Meade accusing me of being a cultist. Now, anyone that knows me also knows that's impossible, but I've still got to put up with it from two 60s relics who have bought into a whole slew of cultishly comformist ideas - starting with feminism.
They don't seem to understand I catch all this shit - I just don't buy into it.
And nowadays, not buying into it is a thought crime.
BTW - the end of that last story is, after I got fired, they realized she was crazy and fired her as well. (My friends there told me getting me fired just "empowered" her to get crazier.) She then came to my new job and applied. Fortunately, it's a lot more "macho" and they recognized her madness in the interview process. I didn't say a word to them until she had left and they were all like "Whoa!"
Seriously, lyssa, I ain't a bad guy, or mentally unstable. I'm just the first generation after the boomers - the little brothers old enough to have watched them make all their mistakes - and, now that their values and beliefs have finally wrecked my life, I am tired of what they've created, and willing to tell them how, and why they're full of shit.
It's really nothing more dramatic than that.
You can fight to give us choices, but you can't control what we choose.
(Not that many haven't tried, what with the belittling of motherhood as a vocation.)
the belittling of motherhood as a vocation.
Caused by the low barrier to entry, in my opinion. Compare neurosurgery. All the prestige occupations require years of study.
The only problem I see with motherhood -- American style -- as a vocation is that it could be isolating and wearing. The extended family provided adult conversation, and short breaks in child care throughout the day.
The extended family provided adult conversation...
Now we have cell pones and email which allow us to easily organize such things with friends and family.
Just this morning, I went to "playgroup" which is really more for the mothers to visit, which includes a lot of shop talk (note that I don't mean "shopping talk"), while the kids play underfoot. This evening, I'll be going out to dinner with the same group of women while the kids hang out with grandma. There are more such activities throughout the week.
And for mothers who don't yet know any other stay at home mothers, there are open groups online they can join to meet people. Or they can show up to community events until they make friends; that's what I did. Libraries, arts centers, botanical gardens, churches--all of these places have regular children's programming now.
Caused by the low barrier to entry, in my opinion. Compare neurosurgery. All the prestige occupations require years of study.
I don't think that's it. Owning a business has a low barrier to entry, but people don't look down on that. Same with being an artist of any kind.
Actually most people, characters like Lebowitz excluded, seem much more positive about motherhood as a vocation lately. It's the certain brand of feminists who were busy fighting for something women didn't want who seem to do the belittling.
Freeman:
I think that a lot of people of my generation (Xer) look around at their messed up friends and even more messed up Millenials, and realize just how important good child-rearing really is.
That said, you also need to know when to let go and reclaim your own life. My mom, whom I love very much, is a very intelligent and capable woman who really didn't grasp that last part and it really messed he up when my brother and I moved out into the world.
All the prestige occupations require years of study.
Yeah, motherhood's not an occupation. Or a business.
It's just the creation of humanity, that's all. The miracle of birth. But let's compare it to being a dentist. Cripes.
gotta hand it to fran for squeezing a career, of sorts, out of writing one and a half books some 35 years ago. she's a one-woman refutation of warhol's 15-minutes.
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