Literary Mama Blog

Being An Author Broad

LM Fiction Co-editor Suzanne Kamata was a featured speaker at the Being An Author Broad career seminar in Tokyo. During the event, which was sponsored by the Tokyo-based magazine Being A Broad, Kamata, author of Losing Kei and editor of Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs. Author, columnist and Kodansha Publishers,Inc. editor Kit Nagamura, and Caroline Pover, author of Being A Broad in Japan, spoke about their experiences writing, publishing and editing to an audience of about fifty expatriate women.

MomsRising

Dear MomsRising Member,

NEW YEAR'S POP QUIZ: What's Maternal Profiling?

a. The practice of selling stiff undergarments that promise a return to one's pre-pregnancy profile.
b. How the Oprah Show executives determine their prime demographic.
c. Employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children.
d. Routine stop and searches of swerving minivans to check if violence is being perpetrated via flying food between minors.

ANSWER: c. Maternal Profiling was recently reported on as one of the new buzzwords of 2007 in the New York Times (and members of MomsRising were credited with introducing this term into our national consciousness!). They defined it as:

"Employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children. The term has been popularized by members of MomsRising, an advocacy group promoting the rights of mothers in the workplace."

SPREAD THE WORD: Join us in our New Year's resolution to help stamp out Maternal Profiling. Share this term with friends and family by forwarding this email: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=2295. You can also read about how others experience Maternal Profiling on our blog, and if you're so moved, share your story of Maternal Profiling at the end of the blog as well.

*Click here to read more about Maternal Profiling, including how it impacts you & comment on our blog: http://www.momsrising.org/node/710

*P.P.S. Read the recent New York Times article which includes Maternal Profiling and MomsRising here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/weekinreview/23buzzwords.html

A crusading publisher pushes Niger's limits

Read Under The Saharan Sun columnist Jennifer Margulis's latest story in The Christian Science Monitor: A crusading publisher pushes Niger's limits, Maman Abou's anti-corruption scoops are profitable, but dangerous to report.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0417/p20s01-woaf.htm

Abou, a free speech crusader who owns Niger's biggest publishing house tells Margulis, "I'm human like everyone else. We're always scared that something bad will happen to us, but I'm not scared enough to give up the struggle or my convictions."

Mom TV?

Notes from the Underbelly is getting decidedly mixed reviews, but read one Literary Mama's take on it. Former LM columnist Liz Finn-Arnold reviews the new sitcom over on TV Squad.

Andi Buchanan on "The Escalation of Cool"

Literary Mama's own Andi Buchanan recently appeared at the Association for Research on Mothering conference in Toronto, Canada talking about trends in mother-literature. The full text of her speech appears on her own blog, Mother Shock, but you can get a flavor of it here:

It used to be transgressive to write about "the dark side" of motherhood. I still remember when a friend read one of my essays from Mother Shock -- "Loving Every Other Minute of It" -- where I concluded by admitting that I didn't love every single minute of being a mother. Now, in this climate, in 2006, that seems almost quaint. But when that piece was first published, in 2001, my friend called and said she'd been positively shaking when she read it. She told me, "I love it. But I'm so glad it was you who wrote it, and not me."

I'd like to think that books like mine and others helped give people the courage to voice their dissatisfaction, or their worry, or their difficulty, or give voice to their own dark side. But now that it is becoming no longer transgressive to admit that motherhood isn't all Hallmark moments and peak experiences, the pendulum has swung. And suddenly, at least when it comes to what publishers are thinking about what makes books and newspapers sell, if you aren't a bored mother, a depressed mother, an I-could-care-less mother, a mother who drinks, you are not a mother who is having an authentic experience.

And here:

The fact is, the hallmark of the parenting experience is vulnerability. You are never more a part of the messy, hot, sticky, sometimes boring, sometimes disgusting, sometimes painful reality of life than when you become a parent. You are plunged into the reality of biology, of life, of the heart of human existence -- the emergence of self. And you are plunged into this often as ill-prepared as a newborn is for life out in the world. And it is harrowing and punishing and exhilarating and incredible, and sometimes it brings you to your knees.

Cool is an armor against that.

Sometimes when we don it, it is protective gear against a world that is cruel or difficult or that we can't face without a mask. Sometimes we take it on to protect us from our experience. But sometimes we take it on to prevent us from being fully where we are. And in literature, that prevents us from really getting to the raw truth of our experience. We become ironic, painfully self-aware narrators of our own lives whose endless chatter never allows the unmediated thought to emerge. We fall in love with our own edge, but we don't allow ourselves to look at how it cuts both ways.

Read Andi's full speech and report back -- we'd love to know your thoughts!

Living in the U.S.? GO VOTE!!!

Here in the United States it's Election Day. Honor your revolutionary foremothers and get thee to your polling place!

Remember that most of the early Suffragists in this country were mothers (many had five or six children): Julia Ward Howe, Kate Shepard, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote suffrage speeches while nursing her sixth child.

These women suffered arrest, hunger strikes, and force feedings for our right to vote. Honor their struggle, exercise your rights. Go on... turn off the computer... VOTE!!!! ... we'll still be here when you get back.

"O" Magazine Publishes Article "No, Daddy, No"

If a man gets caught molesting a child down the street, he'll get jail time.

If a father or step-father gets caught molesting a child living in his own house, he'll get probation and therapy.

This month, "O" Magazine takes on laws and family court systems that abuse children by failing to protect them from sexual predators in their own families. Jan Goodwin writes:

All across the country, legal loopholes let convicted incest offenders go home and crawl back into bed with their traumatized daughters and sons. Even in states were that's not the case, weak links in the judicial system often leave a child in the groping hands of the molesting parent. "In our culture, if you grow your own victim, you are legally protected, says Linda Davis, a licensed clinical social worker and the executive director of Survivors of Incest Anonymous (an international support organization). " If a stranger rapes a child, it's "Call the police, jail him, throw away the key." But if that same man rapes his daughter, its "Call the therapist, slap him on the wrist, let him go back and do it again."

To read the rest of the article, go here. For more information, check out:

Justice for Children
PROTECT
The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence
Small Justice
Child Help
Mothers Against Sexual Abuse
Courageous Kids Network
California NOW on the Family Court
Protective Mother
California Protective Parents Association
California NOW Family Court Watch Program
Mothers of Lost Children
Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma
Stop Family Violence
Battered Women, Abused Children, and Child Custody Conference

Talk Radio for Women, by Women: Victory or Cautionary Tale?

Yesterday evening marked the official launch of GreenStone Media, a new national radio network "for women, by women." With powerhouses Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem serving on GreenStone's board, this looks like a wonderful day for feminists, indeed.

GreenStone promises to be "what is missing in talk today -- radio that is thought-provoking, emotionally involving, believable and trustworthy. Radio that talks with you, not at you." GreenStone took the unique approach of having Gloria Steinem host a conference call with a number of well-known women bloggers to help promote the concept that this radio network will be a two-way conversation. Steinem also gave the keynote address, titled Broadcasting: As If Women Mattered, at this year's The Conclave Learning Conference (a key conference for radio industry insiders). Her address is an interesting one and is well worth the read.

In her address, Steinem makes some surprising (at least to me) statements about women's interests: "Nine out of ten (women) said they want information about current events and issues – no topic ranked higher – and they also want humor; they want to laugh. They want information about health, about fitness, about relationships, about women in the news, and also – this is something they find virtually nowhere -- about how women live in other countries. How do those women handle many of the same things that women experience everywhere? Women wanted stories, stories and more stories. They also wanted to know what books and movies or worth their very scarce time. What do they want the least? Politics – because unfortunately, it has come to symbolize fighting -- and sports, because inaccurately, it has come to seem like “a guy thing.”"

I thought that the group might take this opportunity to reframe the political (and, for that matter, athletic) conversation. To make it so that talking about politics is not associated with Limbaugh-style confrontation. Instead, it seems, it's simply off the agenda. According to an article in Washington Business Journal, GreenStone President and CEO Susan Ness "says the company plans to add programming for every time segment and day of the week. The shows will steer away from politics and instead focus on issues such as faith, business, families and relationships. "The talk that typically appears on the AM radio tends to be harsh and confrontational, and that's not the kind of radio that women want to listen to," Ness says.""

It also struck me as a little strange that Steinem, of all people, seemed concerned in her keynote address that radio insiders not be put off by any feminist label: "I tell you all this about feminist not because good programming is about labels. On the contrary, it’s about information and humor and creating an on-air community, one that treats everybody with respect. I tell you this only as preventive medicine: Don’t let labels be used to keep you away from good programming – the programming most women want." And just in case any radio executives might still be hesitant about joining forces with arguable the country's best known feminist, she reaasures them, "I trust the intelligence of this audience to know that we aren’t going to burn bras."

The thing that struck me as most odd in the address, however, was that after a lengthy discussion of how women are ignored by mainstream radio, in spite of our earning power, education and lead role in major household purchases, one of her conclusions was this: "No wonder 91% of women are annoyed at the low level of ads and pitches directed at us."

Huh? What? I'm annoyed at ads, period. High level. Low level. They are all ads, trying to convince me to buy something I don't really need.

So then I thought I'd check out GreenStone's advertising policies because up to this point, I thought that it would be run along the lines of NPR. Suddenly the reading became even more interesting.

On the page designed for prospective advertisers, the network is described not as a place for women to be their "authentic selves" (as is described on the listener oriented page), but as "The Perfect Vehicle for Female-Oriented Brands". It describes how "GreenStone Media programs offer unparalleled advertising opportunities for people and products who are trying to reach the very desirable 25 to 54 year old women." They describe their approach: "We do it with powerful personalities with a sense of humor, big time guests, real world content, interactive talk about issues that women care about, and an approach that creates community: the best possible environment for female-targeted brands."

On the "Our Reach" page, they offer their advertisers access to their target market: "More than just radio, we’ll build brand awareness and drive sales with in-program product placement, guest experts, branded features, podcasts, and promotional campaigns -– on-air and on the web. These targeted efforts will bring your brand closer to the female audience than ever before."

On their page describing their Charter Sponsor Packages,they refer to an "Audience Database -- We know who our women are, where they live, what they like. . . and what they buy. Get product and logo placement, database research, targeted email, product sampling, and more." They offer these features: "Product Placement and Guest Experts -- Where appropriate, your products and experts will appear on our shows and in our content", "Sponsor Features -- Own a lifestyle feature: Parenting, relationships, beauty, entertainment, health, fashion, shopping, style, leisure, home, and more.", and "Long Form Commercials and Custom Vignettes -- Your brand becomes the star with audio content that entertains and sells your message."

And the final line, in bold, "GreenStone will deliver the women you want in a whole new way."

Yikes. Is it just me or is this a little unsettling?. I know that sometimes the end justifies the means and perhaps this is the game we play in order to get our issues on the agenda (Gail Evans, author of Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman is on the Board of Directors) but, wow, I've got to say this left me feeling a little weird. How can I be expected to have an open and honest conversation and to be my authentic self, knowing that somewhere out there a researcher at a consumer products company is mining my data to try to get me to buy more female-oriented products?

In fact, even in her keynote address, Steinem seems to be referring to how offering women what they wanted to hear can influence their purchases. She describes radio pioneer Mary Margaret McBride: "She ate food on air, could be lyrical about describing it, and became so trusted by listeners that advertisers forgave her for refusing to promote alcohol and cigarettes -- just as they now forgive Oprah for promoting products she actually likes." Cue radio industry audience chuckles.

I'd like to think that women are looking for ways to take an ownership role in the media and I don't kid myself that making a profit will not be high on the list of objectives. As more and more media consolidation is taking place, obtaining and maintaining ownership is critical to keeping the issues concerning women -- family, health, and yes, even politics -- on the agenda. But I just want to believe that the $3.1 million invested by Billie Jean King, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem and Rosie O'Donnell, all strong and powerful women, might be used to do something other than "deliver women" to advertisers.

Ladies, I'm concerned. Please prove me wrong.

Will write for swag?

Mediabistro.com's Galleycat has an interesting piece on product placement in books. While a handful of books that have embraced this idea does not a trend make, one wonders how long authors will be able to resist tapping into the $6 billion of product placement dollars and in-kind payments.

Since so many advertisers are focused on marketing to the Mommy Demographic, it will be interesting to see if, as mother writers, any of us get approached. And it will be interesting to see if, as mother readers, the book that nourish us will in any way become compromised as a result.

A Remedy for Mother Judgement

Well, first there were the CDC guidelines to treat all women as "pre-pregnant," as outlined in this article in the Washington Post and subsequent MetaFilter dicussion.

Then there was the breastfeeding awareness campaign that equated not breastfeeding with riding a mechanical bull while pregnant, as detailed in the New York Times article, Breast-Feed or Else.

And then, the constant policing of mothers was recently brought to light in the mainstream media by the Britney Spears interview on NBC's Dateline.

It's a tough time to be a mother.

Thankfully, there is a wave of mothering activism which is countering the mother judgement. MomsRising.org, a grassroots organization dedicated to moving motherhood and family issues to the forefront of US politics, is one such group. It was founded by Joan Blades and Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner, authors of The Motherhood Manifesto. Literary Mama recently became one of their aligned organizations.

Recently, Judy Stadtman Tucker, founder of Mothers Movement Online, an organization founded to promote economic and social justice for mothers and caregivers, was the guest of honour at a Bay Area Mother Talk. Literary Mama Reviews Editor Rebecca Kaminsky gave her recount of the evening:

The latest Bay Area Mother Talk's guest of honor, Judy Stadtman Tucker, founder of Mothers Movement Online, led a discussion that lasted late into the night. We all left with our "inner activists" energized. Judy is dedicating her life to being at the forefront of the new Mothers' Movement, and it shows in that she came into our small group of Mothers and immediately had everyone involved in the discussion. The evening's topics included: how we can best further our cause, the meaning of "caregiving" and the place it should hold in the world of "work", the role writers play in activism, the latest in rocker mama bands, if and where "mommy wars" take place, parents' rights in the workplace, and what we'd like the USA to look like in ten years with mothers (and fathers and all caregivers) in mind. The evening's guests included Motherlode members Ursula Goulet, Sarah Raleigh Kilts, and Rebecca Kaminsky; Bloggermom and LM contributor Mary Tsao; and attorney and motherhood activist Charlotte Fishman. For a more detailed recap of the evening check out Mary Tsao's blogpost here -- and be sure to check out the comments which include a fascinating back and forth between readers and author of the MMO essay "Lucky": Shannon Hyland-Tassava. Thanks to everyone for a wonderful evening!

Interview with Caitlin Flanagan

My interview with Caitlin Flanagan and review of her book, To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife, have been posted. If you have any comments, we'd love to read them here.

Return of the Happy Housewife

A little while, Literary Mama published my review of Darla Shine's Happy Housewives. I half expected Shine to respond as she had to some of my previous blog posts, but my review was greeted by silence.

Perhaps she hadn't read it. Perhaps she had and was pleased: although I was not a huge fan of the book, I did try my best to be fair.

Well, as it turns out, she did read it. She even commented on it. She simply did not comment on it on Literary Mama.

Andi Buchanan had blogged about the review on Mother Shock:

Jen Lawrence, of TO Mama, MUBAR, and LM blog fame, takes a long hard look at the current "sexy housewife" movement in her excellent, in-depth Literary Mama review of Darla Shine's Happy Housewives titled "The Feminine Mistake." It's long and well worth reading, as it touches on everything from Flanaganalia to the troubling sexification of domesticity to feminist bashing and mom-on-mom judgment cloaked in the rhetoric of "values" and "choice."

And there, buried way down deep beneath all of the comment span, was a response from Ms. Shine, which Andi forwarded to me:

"Troubling sexification of domesticity to feminist bashing and mom-on-mom judgment cloaked in the rhetoric of "values" and "choice." What the hell does that mean? You really are reaching here aren't you?

You know, I try not to respond to all of the bloggers writing about me because I do not want to stir this pot, but you are really funny. I had to respond to your quote.

As for the Literary Mama review saying my book isn't well researched, Hello! It is not an acedemic paper. It is a fun book, specifically written in journal style for moms to have a good time reading. Fun, a word you just don't know about. I do have a sense of humor and I laughed all the way through the review of my book on Literary Mama. Do you all try to prove how smart you are using big words? Are you so smart that you just can't absorb satire, is that beneath you? Do you understand that when I write, don't talk to your husband, just have sex, that it is a joke? Don't you get it? I guess not. Maybe if you opened yourself up and laughed a bit, you wouldn't be so uptight.

We do agree, that the Feminine Mystique is an amazing work. I have a copy too. Does every mom's book have to be a serious look at the plight of women?

And speaking of provoking, who is provoking the mommy wars? I'm not. You are the ones who continue to write about me. I specifically wrote a book for women who CHOOSE to be home. I wrote in the first few pages that my book is not for women working full time. There are so many books out there for career moms, God help us all if one book comes out supporting the stay at home mom, and you all get yourselves into a frenzy.

I wrote my book as a journal, to help other SAHMS, like me, who were having a bit of a struggle being at home.

Maybe you should all focus your energy on improving the workplace for moms, maybe then all women would get what they really want, mom share programs, flexibility, quality child care, and longer maternity leave. Maybe instead of trashing me all over the internet you should use your strength in numbers for a bigger cause.

I don't know why you would write a review saying you don't want to give more publicity to my book and then promote the review on your other website? Who asked you to review my book? Take it off your site.

I do think that maybe you did enjoy Happy Housewives a bit. I do think that if you would allow yourself to get off your high horse, you just might realize we aren't that different. It sucks being a woman. Having to choose your career or your kids. We have to do it all. Hold it all together. Some days are a nightmare. I wrote in my book that we should all come together to support each other, that if we did, we would be the most powerful political group. We could take over. But, that will never happen will it?

And let me say for the record. Why on earth would any of you not agree with what I am saying. Why would you allow yourself to work for a male owned corporation where you were not being supported as a mom? Why would you leave your child in day care for 10 hours a day? Why shouldn't you agree with what I am saying? If we refused to work with any company that did not support moms, that company would topple. The fact is women decide what car, what house, what vacation, what the money will be spent on, and corporate America would have to wake up if we banned together and demanded some respect.

You try to spin my book into something it's not. I am not trying to repress women. In fact I tell moms that they can achieve everything from home. Which is why some of my biggest fans are Doctors, Lawyers, Educators, and women who realize they can start their own business and set up shop right from their homes.

The stay at home moms are getting powerful. I think that's what bothers you the most. And that is really sad.

Oh and for the record, I don't serve dinner every night in an evening gown, it was a photo shoot.

I'll file that under things that make me say "Hmmm". I do, however, want to highlight what I think is a very astute observation on her part -- one that I've written about myself in the Canadian context -- is "If we refused to work with any company that did not support moms, that company would topple. The fact is women decide what car, what house, what vacation, what the money will be spent on, and corporate America would have to wake up if we banned together and demanded some respect." Amen to that. That's exactly the reason I am so hard on books like hers which seek to divide us. (After penning my review, one of her fans left the following comments on my personal blog: "I can't believe you would say that you don't miss your babies when you are away from them! Why would you have them? Shame on you" and "Why are you bragging about being a lazy homemaker? And Darla is not stepford, and neither am I. Why do women have babies and then don't want to be around them?" Oh no, that's not divisive at all.)

The ironic thing about all of this is that although I seem to have be held up as the humorless, anti-stay at home mother poster-girl, I've been invited to appear on ROBTv (a Canadian business channel) this week to discuss how I disagree with the views of some radical feminist thinkers like Linda Hirshman who devalue at-home mothering and caregiving.

I think I'll file that under things that make me say "Hmmm" too.

That Mommy Wars Thing

It just won't go away, will it?

My copy of Leslie Morgan Steiner's Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families arrived last week and although I have not yet had a chance to dip underneath its spilled milk cover, I feel as though I have already formulated an opinion.

There has been a lot of angry buzz in the blogosphere about the book. Rebel Dad, a blogger I respect a lot, has declared a bit of a war of his own on Steiner's seemingly devisive book. And while I do agree that Miriam Peskowitz's excellent The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars should be receiving more publicity (and ought to be sold in tandem with Steiner's book on Amazon) as it is a very thoughtful and balanced look at the issue, I suspect that Steiner might be getting a bit of a raw deal.

I want to reserve commentary until I've read the book. But from the article and the one piece I have read (excerpted on Literary Mama here), I am not sure that this book is about moms "facing off" at all. I do think that is more about the inner struggle moms have when trying to figure out how to balance childrearing and an identity outside of motherhood. As for the title, yup, it's a bad one, but again, I'm not convinced that Steiner has not been saddled with the provocative title by her publisher.

So I was keen to hear about the Berkeley MotherTalk featuring Leslie Steiner that a number of Literary Mama contributors including Caroline Grant (who blogs about the evening here), Sophia Raday, Sybil Lockhart, and Heidi Raykiel attended. I asked Literary Mama Review Editor and MotherTalk host Rebecca Kaminsky how the session went:

RK: It was a lovely intimate group of about fifteen women, some writers including mommy blogger Mary Tsao (you can read her review of the evening here) and local poet and musician Sarah Kilts (of the band "Diablo's Dust), some Literary Mama readers, and even a (personally and professionally) interested reporter from the sf chronicle. Several of the guests were also members of the local writer's group "Motherlode".

I read the book before the evening and was very impressed -- the stories are deep and honest, and not about "facing off" in the way you might think (or the way the title might lead one to think). Each woman wrote a memoir-type piece about how they came to motherhood and how they define themselves as mothers. Most wrote about their own mothers and how their mothers had affected their choices. These are the kind of stories I love -- these women really sat down and thought deeply about their lives. I didn't agree with everyone, but I think that was the point. We all come to different choices and the rub is to not judge each other.

If there is one overall theme to the book I would say that it is about reframing the "mommy wars" as a war not between SAHMs and mothers who work outside the home, but as a war within each woman who wrestles with how society judges her and how she judges her own mothering. The book also did a great job of finding voices on the whole spectrum, from strict stay at home moms, to moms who work part time and define themselves as either "SAHM's who work part time" or "Working moms who are at home with their kids," to pantyhose wearing working moms.

One wouldn't have thought at first blush that Ms. Steiner, an east coast journalist and MBA would have fit into this slightly crunchy Berkeley crowd (she was in a smart business suit and most of us in jeans and sandals) -- but we all warmed up right away. She began by reading from her introduction to the book, "Our Inner Catfight". Her motherhood story was moving and very personal, her courage in sharing it gained respect from her audience right away. Soon we were all laughing and talking about our own lives and how they relate to the themes of the book. We covered many topics: the definitions of motherhood society forces upon us and how we deal with that in our everyday lives, how defining motherhood differs from defining fatherhood, whether her book title was detrimental to her topic, how the definitions of motherhood change along race and class lines (something the book touched on but could have done more -- definitely needs to be opened up into a wider discussion), and how our own childhood experiences often frame our motherhood choices. We all ended up bonding across the coastal divide and were sad to see the evening end.

Rebecca also shared with me her comments about the book's controversy, especially in the blogosphere:

RK: With respect to the seemingly devisive title, Steiner did say that the title was her publishers choice, not hers. But to dismiss her book because of that makes us guilty of fanning the war flames too. The actual stories (along with her intro) seem to dispel the myths of the mommy wars -- she seems to be trying to reframe the judgement mothers have for each other to be more about a war within when society that forces these roles upon us, but yeah, the "facing off" part of the title seems to be fanning the flames -- I had the hardest time with that part of the title.

Also folks have pointed out that she's helping perpetuate a mainstream framing of motherhood -- I can see that point, but won't any book that successful fall victim to "sound bite" theorizing. On the other hand, it is annoying that so many other of the more carefully theorized and deeper books in the new wave of motherhood literature don't get the same great publicity.

Hopefully the publicity generated by Steiner's book will demonstrate to publishers that women are interested in having this dialogue and it will open the gates for many more mother writers to weigh in on this issue. For more on Steiner, you might also want to check out Literary Mama Editor Helaine Olen's interview with Steiner on Salon.com.

When the going gets tough, lower your expectations

Given that it is International Women's Day, Maud Newton's blog post today reads as particularly disheartening.

Newton links to Meghan O'Rourke's essay in Slate entitled Desperate Feminist Wives: Why wanting equality makes women unhappy. O'Rourke refers to a recent study by sociologists at the University of Virginia on happiness within marriage. The study discovered that the "single most important factor in women’s marital happiness is the level of their husbands’ emotional engagement — not money, the division of household chores or other factors. The study also finds that women whose husbands earn the lion’s share of income, who don’t work outside the home, or who share a strong commitment to lifelong marriage with their husbands report the highest levels of marital happiness — in sharp contrast to academic conventional wisdom." What the study seems to show is that when a wife's expectations of marriage are in alignment with the marriage's realities, she tends to be happy. And since in "traditional" marriages, the expectations of marriage tend to be more clearly defined and agreed to by both parties than in more "progressive" marriages (where things such as division of labor tend to be negotiated throughout the marriage), it is no surprise that the "traditional" wives claim to be happier.

But instead of seeing the study as evidence that the more narrow the gap between expectations and reality, the happier one tends to be (otherwise known as 'aim low'), O'Rourke seems to use the data as an opportunity to jump on the 'Now that Betty Friedan has died, it's OK to bash her' bandwagon. O'Rourke writes: "Feminist ideals, not domestic duties, seem to be what make wives morose. Progressive married women -- who should be enjoying some or all of the fruits that Freidan lobbied for -- are less happy, it would appear, than women who live as if Friedan never existed."

She sings the praises of having low expectations: "The sexual revolution tried to free women and men from set-in-stone roles. But the irony turns out to be that having a degree of certainty about what you want (and being in a peer group that feels the same way) is helpful in making people happy. Having more choices about what you want makes you less likely to be happy with whatever choice you end up settling on. Choosing among six brands of jam is easy. But consumers presented with 24 types often leave the supermarket without making a purchase." Right. Well, if those 6 jams so happen to be strawberry, peach, grape, raspberry, apricot and gooseberry, then fabulous, good for you, the lack of choice worked out really well. But if the 6 jams happened to be liver, onion, alum, ipecac, eye of newt and manure -- well, you'd probably be wishing that you had a bit broader selection from which to choose.

Choice has enabled women to leave abusive relationships. Choice has enabled women to escape poverty. Choice has freed us from the notion that biology equals destiny.

And yes, the choices fought for by feminists like Betty Friedan have added a measure of complication to our lives. Sometimes it feels like navigating the modern marriage of equals is a lot of work. It is hard to determine the best division of labor and to figure out what paid work/childrearing combination works best. The "man wears pants, woman wears dress" approach would be a lot simpler. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.

So why stop there? Let's ditch democracy. All of those choices about who to vote for -- golly, that sounds complicated. I'm so confused. I wish that someone would just tell me to go and bake a pie or something.

Blaming the feminist movement for raising women's expectations of what life can be is bunk.

Lobbying for fewer choices is bunk.

Telling women that happiness is simply a matter of aiming low is bunk.

Repeating Our History

I was saddened to hear about the death of NOW co-founder and Feminine Mystique author Betty Friedan yesterday.

I didn't really know why I felt sad. I did not know her. She was 85 years old. By all accounts, she had lived a very full and remarkable life.

It was author Ann Douglas who (as always) hit the nail on the head in her blog post. I think I felt sad because I realized that after all of the hard work of feminism, which the tributes written to Friedan chronicled, we are still having some of the same, tired conversations. We continue to be told that we need to be Happy Housewives just as we were 50 years ago. Only now, we also are expected to be Yummy Mummies and pilates ourselves into a pair of $400, size 0 jeans six weeks post-partum.

Sometimes I feel that there has been significant progress. Corporations are becoming more aware of work/life balance issues. There are laws to prevent gender discrimination in the workplace. Divorce courts often recognize the work of mothering in the division of marital assets. The much loved Dove Girls commercials, for example, finally (finally!) show us what real women look like (of course, Unilever, the company which markets Dove, also markets Axe cologne which has some of the most sexist ads out there).

But then, there is also this retrograde 'come on girls, let's put on our aprons and lipgloss and tell the feminists that they got it all wrong' thing that is bubbling up in the mainstream media and threatens to tug at our heels like quicksand. There is this desire to revive the spectre of the Ugly Feminist and to dismiss all of the work that has been done on our behalf. Only now instead of hearing that feminists don't get dates, we are now being told that feminists are anti-mom. I have just finished penning the first draft of my review of Happy Housewives, where Shine accuses organizations such as NOW and feminists in general as being somehow anti-mother. She seems to forget that many feminists, including Friedan, were mothers themselves.

I just feel sad, I guess, that we, as women, as mothers, seem to be a little stuck. Thanks, in part, to Friedan, we know that we are being played. That we are being fed a line so that we will want to Clean Our Homes (and buy the cleaning products) and Be Thin (and buy the weight loss products) and Be Perfect Moms (and buy things to alleviate our guilt and our stress when we invariably fall short). And yet, somehow, we still seem tempted to buy into it -- at least, I know I do.

When I am reminded of the achievements of Friedan and her feminist sisters, I feel so grateful for all of that they did for our generation (to think that only 50 years ago women used to be fired when they grew old or got married or became pregnant.) But I guess I also feel a little worried. Worried that as feminists like Freidan die, we will lose sight of why they fought for what they fought for. I am worried that we will start to take feminist issues lightly. That we won't get mad when people infantilize us, patronize us, dismiss us as Yummies or Happy Housewives or Hot Moms, somehow try to convince us that feminism isn't feminine and tell us that Motherhood is just another arena where women can compete.

And that when our daughters reach our age, and have children of their own, they too will be stuck having the same tired, old conversations.

Read Martha's blog. Right now.

Martha is one of my favorite online writer friends. She is also a force to be reckoned with. Read her impassioned response to Maureen Dowd's recent piece in the Times, In Defense of the Bake Sale. My favorite part is the whole damn thing, so I'll restrain myself and just quote a few choice paragraphs:

Raising children well is physically and emotionally grueling. Imagine a corporate executive having to be near the office all day, every day, with no vacations – unless a trained proxy can fill in for the short term (such a person could never be trusted with the long-term health of the company). Oh, and the pay and benefits are zero dollars. Less, if you consider the expense of working the job.

Such an executive would be regarded as incredible. A true believer. Someone making noble sacrifices for the sake of shareholders. Either that, or insane.

And yet, these are the working conditions that people caring for their own children face. Physically, it is exhausting. The emotional cost is even higher, compounded by the uncertainty of the job. First time parents often say, “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, as long as it’s a healthy baby.” But even that isn’t something we can count on. Nor is it an excuse to walk off the job. Any parent who’s spent time in the hospital with a sick baby – as I have – knows you can’t. You can give this job your heart and soul, and get no guarantees your child will even survive.

Parenthood is not mindless; it requires strategic planning and thinking. And I’m not just talking about the challenge of timing dinner preparation so that all the elements of a meal are done at the same time, all the while wearing a toddler legwarmer.

Rather, it’s the planning that goes into a good life: figuring out how to grow our children’s minds, discover their passions, develop their ethical and moral sense, keep their bodies fit and healthy, and out of trouble.

Even with top-notch childcare (which comes at incredible cost), parents still must be deeply involved in their children’s lives to be confident of a good outcome, which benefits society as a whole.

To write this off as “volunteering at the bake sale” is the deepest of insults. That it comes from a woman makes it worse.

Read the whole entry here.

Opting Out -- Again?

Miriam Peskowitz has an eloquent response to the recent New York Times feature on Ivy-educated women who plan to give up work for motherhood. And she also links to an excellent piece by MMO editor Judith Stadtman Tucker, who writes, in part:

. . . [I]t's occurred to me that mothers may not be doing themselves any favors by repeating the feel-good mantra, You can have it all, just not at all the same time. Maybe we should be channeling the energy whipped up by all that enthusiasm and self-acceptance into imagining what "having it all" would look like in a more fair and just society. Or maybe we should switch to a new refrain: "Men can have it all, just not all at the same time." Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Story's report is that of the 138 undergraduate women who answered an email questionnaire about their future plans, only two saw their ideal husbands in a primary caregiving role. Apparently, the 85 students who expect to scale back or interrupt their careers when they become mothers assume the men they one day marry will conform to the ideal worker mold without complaint. And why not? For young men in high-performance professions, having a wife at home full-time assures that when push comes to shove, they are free to put their careers first -- and reap the attendant rewards.

The latest New York Times piece on unbalancing work and motherhood also raises interesting questions about the relationship between the rise of the hyperparenting phenomenon and the reproduction of privilege. A single-minded determination to claw one's way to the top may be tolerated in childless women, but in mothers that kind of thing is still viewed as an aberration -- and a blight on their children's futures. A University of Pennsylvania freshman quoted by the Times remarked, "I've seen the difference between kids who did have their mothers stay at home and kids who didn't, and it's kind of an obvious difference when you look at it." Well, no, it isn't, not after age four or so -- and studies show the behavioral variations of young children who spend more than 30 hours a week in day care fall well within the normal range of development. So what's going on here?

Even taking the Reagan-era-and-beyond backlash into account, it's profoundly unnerving to see how willing some of these young innocents are to toe the conservative line on gender and family. In the weird twists of politics and culture over the last thirty years, women were urged to drop the question of whether the smidgen of social power granted to mothers as the nation's nurturers is really all it's cracked up to be. In its place, we've been invited to behold the best practices of mothering as a means of modernizing corporate culture and contributing to the greater social good. Is it any wonder that a certain cross section of young women perceive motherhood as entirely compatible with their desire to excel? And isn't that what we really want?

Judgment call

LiteraryMama contributor and New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Lauck (who has an essay in all three of my upcoming anthologies, It's a Boy, Literary Mama, and It's a Girl) posed a question for her blog readers about the kind of situation many of us have experienced: making a judgment call about another person's parenting. On a flight, she witnessed another mother basically losing it with her toddler. The question was, what should she do about it? Should she leave it alone, or should she say something?

Judging is easy. Why else would talent shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance and whatever the hell that ballroom dancing with celebrities show was (and all the other reality shows where voting and literal judgment determines who stays and who goes) be so popular? You get the rush of being a critic, sitting there on your couch, pointing out who's off-pitch or whose turn-out sucked or deciding who should be voted off the island. But judging well is hard. From the outside looking in, it's easy to decide a mother is doing things all wrong, to feel a bit superior as she struggles in a situation you know for sure you would handle much better.

But who among us would want to be judged by our worst parenting moments? Even those of us who can feel confident that we're pretty good mothers have had those dark moments of saying something we knew we shouldn't have said, handling something the exact opposite way we would have handled it on a better day, making a situation harder than it would have been had we a clearer head, more time, less stress -- pick your poison. Fourteen-hour days with young children can be detrimental to your thinking process.

Jennifer describes the scene she witnessed on the plane and asks readers what they would do in her situation, then, in a separate entry, finishes the story and shares what she decided to do.

We all make judgment calls every day about our own parenting and others'. And we all bring our own past to bear on our present parenting -- some mothers might be more sensitive to any semblance of maternal neglect due to childhood experiences with a self-absorbed or unavailable parent; some might be more hyper-aware of issues of enmeshment due to growing up with a hovering, correcting parent. Our personal family histories and experiences inform us as parents, and as judgers of other parents. The difficult task is judging wisely, being able to assess a situation and come to a conclusion that is not somehow entirely wrapped up in blame, defensiveness, or self-protection.

A mother I know told me years ago that she had come up with something that helped her deal with her extremely difficult children (who have now thankfully moved beyond that difficult phase): she told me that when things were tough and she was ready to lose it with her kids, she pretended that there was someone else watching her watching her and judging her actions. This, she said, helped her parent better, thinking of a stranger being present to dispassionately observe her. I think it's a good technique, to take you out of the moment where you're maybe crossing into territory your saner self would never want you to go. But the truth is, we don't have to pretend: people are watching us as we mother, and their observations aren't always as dispassionate as we might like.

So, now: read Jennifer's entries. What would you do?

Alpha Mom

I'm sure many of you by now have read, or at least heard discussed, the Alpha Mom article in New York magazine a while back. It featured the kind of upper-stratosphere wealth and uber-working-mom gawking/stereotyping that would make Caitlin Flanagan salivate (or at least want to kick herself for not getting to skewer this woman first). I read it half resentful at the way the article seemed to manipulate the knee-jerk impulse to judge mothers with this whopper of an easy target to judge, and half sympathetic, in a sad way, to the article's subject, who seems to be doing what many mothers try to do during that intense period of early motherhood -- try to explain it all to herself in a way that fits her worldview -- albeit on a scale most of us would never consider. I'd meant to bring up the Kallman piece on this blog (and my own) a while back, when we were posting about mom-on-mom judgment and how easy it is to be judgmental of mothers, and then, of course, life got in the way. But this thread on Metafilter today reminded me just how torn we are when it comes to judging other mothers, and how divided we are on what is required of mothers to be considered "good."

Words fail me...

So I'll share with you here the words of Elise at After School Snack by way of the always wonderful Bitch Ph.D.:

Vaginas are scary!
Giving birth: it's a traumatic process, long and drawn out, often resulting in scars and emotional trauma that can make it difficult to be interested in sexual intimacy for some time after the child is born.

Not for the woman, mind you. For the man.

Or at least that's the situation according to Dr. Keith Ablow, in an article he wrote for the NY Times titled "A Perilous Journey from Delivery Room to Bedroom." Where many of us might be tempted to focus on the difficulty of, say, the expectant mother squeezing something the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a dime, Dr. Ablow wants to remind us that there's another person suffering in that delivery room: the male partner forced to view his woman's cooter in a way he never wanted to see it.

Read the whole thing here.

Supportive Celebrity Mama

Brooke Shields got it right in her New York Times Op-Ed piece when she wrote: "comments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere."

Brava to Brooke for taking the high road and using Tom Cruise's "performance" on Matt Lauer as a platform to raise consciousness about postpartum depression and to urge those in the health care profession to take action.

It is so refreshing to see a celebrity brave enough to challenge the supermom image that so many mothers in the public eye feel pressured to perpetuate.

Thanks, Brooke!

Expect a review of Brooke's new book, Down Came the Rain, in October, and check out my most current column, where I grapple with deciding whether to take antidepressants: Mother's Little Helper.

Mamapalooza

This Mother's Day, Sunday, May 8, I'll be taking part in the New York City MAMAPALOOZA, doing a reading at the Bowery Poetry Club along with Ayun Halliday and Catherine Newman. (Info: 3 to 6 p.m., 308 Bowery, NYC 212-614-0505, $5 door).

Mamapalooza was founded four years ago by Joy Rose of the band Housewives on Prozac and promises to be a month-long celebration of creativity and motherhood in eight US cities. Here's the official spiel; full New York City Mamapalooza events listing below the jump:

This May, in cities across America, Moms are stepping out and onto the stage: The Fourth Annual MAMAPALOOZA presents singer-songwriters, rockers, poets, craftspeople and comics laughing, singing and stomping their way out of the kitchen and into your hearts. Eight cities and counting, the Women of MAMAPALOOZA are poised to celebrate new ways of incorporating creativity and song into one of the more challenging jobs women face: The role of mother. Founded by Joy Rose of Housewives On Prozac, MAMAPALOOZA 2005 promises to be the largest presentation of the Mom-Rock movement in America and was recently featured in Child Magazine, PEOPLE, Ladies Home Journal, Daily News, Wall St, Journal, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, London Times, CNN, Good Morning America, FOX News, and NPR to name a few.

With alliances in New York, Nashville, Washington DC, Detroit, San Francisco, Ft. Lauderdale, Chicago and Dallas The Women Of MAMAPALOOZA are taking to stages, poetry jams and concert halls, forging new ways of thinking, being, celebrating and defining what it is to be an artist and mother in the 21st Century.

Backed up by the hard rocking Housewives On Prozac (NYC), Mydols (Detroit), Candy Band (Detroit), Frump (Dallas), Tiffany Petrossi (Rockin’ Moms), Emily Lord (San Fran), MomsOnThe Edge (DC), Sue Fabisch (Nashville), Vickie Raye (Ft Lauderdale) and Kim Char Meredith (Chicago) -- a wide array of talented mothers and others are singing songs that reflect every musical genre, from pop to punk to folk. MotherLode Trio (Folk), Black Flamingo (Punk), Golda Solomon (Poetry and Jazz), Alana Free (Spoken Word), Nancy Lombardo (Comedy), The Mothers (England), Jessica Feder Birnbaum (Children’s Events), Jamie Callan (Literary Events), Alyson Palmer (BETTY) are just a few of the women to participate in this year’s events, running from May 1st to May 25th.

SPONSORS include: Sam Ash, Luna Bars, Avon, New York Parks Dept, Phebe’s, and media sponsors Chick Chat Radio.

New York City MAMAPALOOZA 2005 EVENTS!

Magazine giveaways, raffles, Luna Bars, CDs and makeup and more!!

Video Game Babies as Demanding as Real Ones

This Belgian commercial uses a zippy video game format to warn teen girls about the drudgery of mothering a newborn. It reminds me of the new baby feature in The Sims. I must have had at least three simulated babies taken away by a simulated child welfare worker before I understood just how much attention the baby was supposed to receive from its simulated parents. (That is, constant attention... to the point of physical collapse.) And I was in my 30s when I first played the game. Here's hoping I clue in a little faster with my own real baby. Thanks to Andi for the link.