"a heroine, who is an 'I'"

     Reading Betty Friedan's classic second-wave feminist work, The Feminine Mystique, has been oddly like déjà vu:  streams of the past and present converge as I read.  This experience was especially apparent during Friedan's discussion of popular culture heroines.  She compares the "spirited career girl" in women's magazine stories of the 1930s to the “housewife-mother” of the 1950s, pointing out that the career girls were characters created by women writers and editors whereas the housewife-mothers were “the products of men’s minds.”

     Fifty years later, we like to think that our media is much more progressive.  However, what struck me about Freidan’s analysis of the 1950s housewife-mother archetype was its similarity to my own analysis of media today.  How many current, popular, critically-acclaimed movies, television shows, and novels have what Friedan calls “a heroine, who is an ‘I’ in pursuit of some human goal or dream”?

     Distressingly few.

     One measure of a woman’s centrality to a plotline is the Bechdel Test.  In order to pass the Bechdel Test, and thus have a woman central to the plot, the film must:

1.   Have at least two named female characters
2. Who speak to each other
3. About something that isn’t a man.

On the International Movie Database’s list of the top 250 movies, only 42 pass the Bechdel Test, and there has been little-to-no improvement over time (as can be seen in the graph).  This year (2013, mind you) of the 9 Academy Award nominated films for Best Picture 3 pass the Bechdel test, 3 fail, and 3 are dubious.   The fact is that men still dominate Hollywood, in terms of producing, directing, and even acting.  Films by and about women are  few and under-recognized.  Ultimately, media is still overwhelmingly "the product of men's minds."  Even Beyoncé declared in an interview with GQ:

You know, equality is a myth, and for some reason, everyone accepts the fact

that women don’t make as much money as men do. I don’t understand that ...

let’s face it, money gives men the power to run the show. It gives men the

power to define value. They define what’s sexy. And men define what’s feminine. It’s ridiculous.

     Certainly people are beginning to tackle the issue of gender inequality in the media.  The MissRepresentation documentary and corresponding movement are a great start to addressing the issue, but how many people will really be able (and decide to) see the film?  Why is it taking so long to make substantial progress? How can we move past the limitations that our foremothers of the 1950s and 60s endured?

What will it take for women to be “I”s, the heroines of their own stories?

Care-givers and Risk-takers

As we study gender in the workplace, I cannot help but reflect on my experiences in the workforce.  Because the careers I am pursuing all work towards social justice, positions I have held often involved direct service.  Most recently, I interned at a shelter for adult men experiencing homelessness.  In addition to the drop-in shelter, there is a transitional housing program for formerly homeless individuals.  The idea is that men staying in the shelter move their way up to higher levels of independent living.  The shelter and housing programs work in tandem to facilitate that upward mobility.  However, there are many divisions between the two departments, one of which is gender.

Care-givers

Shelter employees’ jobs are assumed to be more risky and less skilled; consequently, the shelter staff is paid hourly wages.  They conduct bag searches, intoxication screenings, and overnight security supervision.  Housing employees, on the other hand, conduct individualized care-taking tasks, plan therapeutic community-building activities, and work daytime hours.  Their jobs are considered lower-risk and professional positions; thus, the housing staff is paid by salaries.  Shelter staff duties emphasize rule enforcement and procedure while those of the housing staff emphasize relationship-building and empowerment, even though each program requires both facets.

Risk-takers

Significantly, there is a distinct difference in the demographics of the two staffs.  The shelter staff is entirely composed of men, with the exception of one female supervisor (salaried), while the housing staff is entirely composed of women, with the exception of one man who works the desk (for hourly wages).  Therefore, the women receive salaries while the men work for hourly wages.  Additionally, the women work in official care-taking positions while the men work in supposedly high-risk environments.  Both of these patterns align with gendered stereotypes, despite their material inaccuracies.  In reality, a key part of working in the shelter is building meaningful relationships with the guests, and the housing employees take many risks in serving their residents.  Both jobs require skills, competence, risks, and care giving.  However, those realities do not permeate the perceptions, and the staffing continues along the perceived divide.

Which came first?

As I consider these differences, I wonder:  which came first – the perceptions or the staff?  My position involved nightly outreach in the drop-in shelter, and the staff expressed concern for me – the only female in a room of over 170 adult men – despite the fact that no incident ever occurred and I never felt unsafe or threatened.  Based on the reactions I got when I explained my work to others, I wonder if more women aren't employed in the shelter because they were seen as being vulnerable.  Did more men apply for the seemingly riskier positions, or were more men hired for the seemingly riskier positions?  Finally, how would Joan Williams’ concept of Reconstructive Feminism impact this work environment?  Women are already earning more than men, but they are still confined to care-taking roles while men are limited to risk-taking roles.  How can we find a balance?

Freedom, Rugged Individualism, and Playing Catch-up

     The United States lags far behind the rest of the world in terms of family policy.  In Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter, Joan C. Williams calls our public policy “Family-Hostile” and advocates for five changes that would reconcile work and family tensions:

1. Short-term leaves
2. Good, affordable childcare
3. Regulation of work hours
4. Universal health coverage
5. A tax system that doesn't penalize dual-earner families

     Though I agree with her assertions and conclusions, I think that their implementation will likely take more than a few bills in congress and presidential signatures.  These changes will require altering U.S. ideology – the source and outcome of cultural discourse.  One ideological principle that needs to shift is our concept of “freedom.”  People in the U.S. often view freedom as a product of small government incapable of ‘interfering’ in their daily lives.  However, the assumption that government only complicates individual lives conveniently ignores all that the government makes possible.  For example, government produces and maintains the roads, bridges, sidewalks, and public transportation that allow us “freedom” of mobility.

     This disconnect arises because our concept of “freedom” relies on our belief in “rugged individualism” – the idea that people are self-made and ought to be self-reliant.  This view plays largely into all aspects of popular U.S. culture and discourse.  However, it is a false assumption.  For a variety of reasons, which can be summed up in the word privilege, people are not self-made.  Furthermore, no one is self-reliant.  That is a fallacy of Western rationality.  We, as humans, are profoundly interconnected.  Unless you have planted, grown, harvested, processed, and produced everything you have ever used, you have depended on other people.  No one lives in a vacuum; everyone depends on everyone else.  Why should public policy be any different?

     It is fine to hold “freedom” as an important value in our society.  In fact, I think it impossible to eliminate considering our cultural and national history, and I am not arguing that we do so.  However, in order for the United States to eradicate its toxic family policy and implement some of the programs that would allow positive change, we have to realize that government and interdependence enable, rather than oppose, “freedom.”

     If our nation can come to that realization, we might begin to understand that a federal program funding paid-time-off for its citizens (like programs enacted in every European and many other countries) can allow individuals true freedom:  freedom to choose whether or not they want children, freedom to care for their aging parents or sick relatives, freedom to take care of their families and themselves while giving under-employed individuals opportunities to work and gain experience.  The system we have is not working, and it is certainly not promoting tangible freedom for the vast majority of its constituents.  Systems of social support that honor, validate, and support families – those will provide true freedom for individuals in the United States.