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reeniecrystal's review
4.0
"Clearly imagining day care as some place staffed by hippies who passed out joints to toddlers wearing tiny Chariman Mao jackets, Nixon declared..."
This book makes excellent (and humorous) points about a topic rarely tackled in popular feminist discourse but which I feel is very important, that being the way that a superficial celebration of women and womanhood and the co-opting of feminist language has been used to put a flashy new coat of paint on old traditionalist conservative values and re-sell them to modern women, resulting in the almost invisible rollbacking of their rights. This is accomplished through multiple angles, but the book primarily focuses on an incarnation of post-feminism that Douglas dubs the "new momism":
"This book is about the rise in the media of what we are calling the “new momism”: the insistence that no woman is truly complete or fulfilled unless she has kids, that women remain the best primary caretakers of children, and that to be a remotely decent mother, a woman has to devote her entire physical, psychological, emotional, and intellectual being, 24/7, to her children. [...] The “new momism” is a set of ideals, norms, and practices, most frequently and powerfully represented in the media, that seem on the surface to celebrate motherhood, but which in reality promulgate standards of perfection that are beyond your reach.
[...] Central to the new momism, in fact, is the feminist insistence that woman have choices, that they are active agents in control of their own destiny, that they have autonomy. But here’s where the distortion of feminism occurs. The only truly enlightened choice to make as a woman, the one that proves, first, that you are a “real” woman, and second, that you are a decent, worthy one, is to become a “mom” and to bring to child rearing a combination of selflessness and professionalism that would involve the cross cloning of Mother Teresa with Donna Shalala. Thus the new momism is deeply contradictory: It both draws from and repudiates feminism."
To put it more straightforward, because the initial waves of feminism were successful enough that patriarchal culture knows that it can no longer get away with deriding women as foolish, incompetent, and their work as irrelevant, it has retreated and restrategized: Rather than insisting that women can't cut it out in the working world, it instead heaps excessive praise onto the domestic/maternal world and insists that women were happier and more fulfilled when confined to this sphere. It concedes to feminism that women are as capable as men, but insists that women are only truly done right by when they take on the oh-so-honorable mantle of "Mom."
"Oh, of course women are free and enlightened and strong and can make their own choices! ... And the most enlightened choice that a free woman can make is to be a mother. They're the only ones strong enough to do it! Working? Uh- Uh- Well, you see, women are so smart that they know that mothering is far superior to working, unlike us stupid men, who couldn't even do it we tried! Ha ha! And besides! Women are so strong and so amazing that they can handle working and mothering if they really want to! Isn't that awesome?!"
Part of how this is accomplished is through the rise of the nauseating "supermom," a strawman version of feminist ideals and supposedly empowering archetype which is the result of patriarchy making a sort of Cinderella bargain with feminism, whereby women will be allowed into the traditionally male sphere of careers, outside lives, etc. ("Fine, you may go to the ball..."), so long as they also fulfill and prioritize their own traditional duties of motherhood, wifery, etc. in addition to this ("... as long as you finish all your chores first!"). The supermom is the woman who "does it all" with a smile on her face, the hip modern woman exemplified by the celebrity flashed on women's magazine covers, the one who is a CEO, a sexy actress, and a fulltime mother to three gorgeous babies without breaking a sweat. Despite her glossy "barrier-breaking" veneer, supermom is actually a very safe woman for patriarchy, as she does not meaningfully challenge established male entitlement in any way; she doesn't ask her children's father to step up more because she's "strong enough to do it all," she doesn't expect the government to force her employer to be more accommodating to work-life balance because she's "strong enough do it all," she doesn't ask uncomfortable questions about whether or not she even wants or values kids because she knows that she's "strong enough to do it all."
But just like in the Cinderella story, the whole point of this bargain is that it's a trick of unrealistic expectations designed to keep the victim out of the public and stuffed in the kitchen. Nobody can actually "do it all." Modern women are more stressed than they've been in decades because this lack of liberation from the domestic world along with the new expectations of non-domestic self-realization have effectively doubled their workload. When they inevitably reach a breaking point due to this dilemma, patriarchy swoops in and does what patriarchy does best: Blame women and women's insistence on basic rights for the very problems that it itself has created. Post-feminism and the new momism assert that this fatigue is proof that feminism is a failed experiment, that women got their taste of equality and found it lacking, that they must make a choice and that choice must be a return to the traditional mommy-wife role. Which, they insist, is so much better and more empowering than having a stuffy old job anyway! After all, all those celebrity moms on the magazines said that they find being a mom more fulfilling than any multi-billion dollar movie contract (pay no attention to the fact that they have an entire team of nannies, assistants, cooks, and maids behind them that might sweeten the deal a bit).
Simply put, the new momism gives women two choices: You can either be supermom and have double the workload (with men getting to maintain their privilege and freedom), or you can be Neo-June Cleaver with half as much work and half as much freedom and power (with men getting to maintain their privilege and freedom). It is right and fair that Cinderella will just have to miss out on the ball if she can't handle both her chores and finding a dress — don't question why she's even expected to do all these chores by herself in this timeframe in the first place!
Advertising, the news cycle, Hollywood, etc. play their role in this scheme both by constantly portraying motherhood as a blissful, transformative experience and the absolute most fulfilling thing that one can do as well as showing the supposed dangers that occur when the ideal image of motherhood isn't properly fulfilled. While putting on an air of celebrating women, it really creates shame for every woman out there. Non-mothers are shamed as cold, bitter, and unfulfilled harpies who have been so sucked in by "manhood" that they don't know what they're missing out on back in the realm of proper woman/motherhood. Working mothers are shamed as selfish, neglectful, and disloyal to both their jobs and their families. Stay-at-home mothers are shamed for not feeling unending joy and satisfaction and for still wanting to have time and identity outside of motherhood despite "choosing" it. The new momism is also used to shape policy, using the excuse that women ought to be home with the kids and do everything on their own used to slash funding for public daycare, welfare, regulation on employee rights, etc., a glimpse into why conservatives find pushing so hard for traditional "family" values to be so lucrative. This fact makes a powerful statement on how we cannot assume that policy alone will be a driving force in shaping social and cultural opinion, as social and cultural opinion itself can be used to deliver a fatal bullet to policy.
Douglas explores this phenomena from multiple angles including television, advertising, and political messaging. She uses a lot of snark and humor (which I think lands great), does a lot to dispel popular myths that perpetuate new momism such as those surrounding welfare fraud, the effects of daycare and preschool on children (as well as the viable cost of these things), the effects of divorce on children, the rise of teen pregnancy, and the supposed overall dissatisfaction of working women. She uses a lot of references, making this an excellent resource for anyone pushing progressive policy. Ironically, this is also probably the book's main weakness. Douglas tends to get a bit overkill with her examples at times, giving like thirty where ten would have sufficed, which makes this an excellent resource for research but a bit of a pain as a reading experience at times. At times I felt myself skimming over entire pages because I felt she had already long since made her point. This is especially true when she gets into complaining about aspects of commercialism, which results in dreary lists of Douglas rattling off toys, TV shows, etc. that she does not like with a tone that sometimes borders on an annoying, "Back in my day..." rant.
She is also at times guilty of that old-fashioned feminist lack of nuance when it comes to analyzing certain pieces of media, such as when she condemns He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as a beacon of traditional pro-violence masculinity based on the fact that the characters are muscled hulks and Barbie dolls for all the reasons people usually condemn Barbie dolls. This is neglecting the fact that He-Man as a character is usually portrayed with what I believe to be a pretty healthy masculinity, being a laidback character who chooses cooperation and peace when he believes it to be possible, works alongside strong women (such as Teela, the Sorceress, his sister She-Ra, and his mother Queen Marlena) without ever questioning their abilities, pointing out their womanhood, or even showing romantic interest in them, and delivering gentle kid-friendly morals at the end of each episode. As for Barbie, ironically, the toy was developed specifically by a businesswoman who wanted to give her daughters a toy that showed them that women could be something other than mothers, as the primary girls' toys at the time were baby dolls (hence her many careers and the fact that Barbie as a character has never been portrayed as married or having children, only friends who are mothers and younger siblings) — Ruth Handler (Barbie's creator) would have been on Douglas' side 100%! It is not that Douglas is incapable of this nuance as she applies it well enough when analyzing television shows and movies from her own generation, rather it seems that she occasionally lets her age get the best of her in assuming that the new-fangled crap the kids have these days must be straightforward nonsense by virtue of being new-fangled crap.
I would also have liked for Douglas to offer more specific recommendations on what can be done to combat the new momism. This is unfortunately one of those books that is very good at laying out the problem but not so much on navigating a way out of it. I suppose that is ultimately the responsibility of the reader, and for that goal I consider it an excellent resource, but it does result in the book coming across as a bit disheartening and aimless towards the end.
Overall, I consider this book a good resource in not only taking picking apart traditionalist conservative gender politics and understanding the role that women's work plays in society, but also in understanding the ways in which feminism needs to be more vigilant of shifting patriarchal strategies. We need to keep in mind that oppression is not about being overtly cruel to a certain type of people, but rather about the negative effect that a series of practices themselves have on those people's wellbeing — cruelty and harm is the logical late stage result of these practices, not necessarily the make-up of the issue itself.
No amount of respect, praise, fanfare, or appreciation for women's traditional roles is ever going to be an alternative to the benefits that come from the elimination of those roles.
The idea that it can be is an excuse for people who feel guilty about the way women have been treated but are too scared of change or attached to their privileges to do the right thing about it.
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