Communications and Media

When completing the readings for this weeks assignment, I was struck by one, very clear pattern.  In some way, each of the readings spoke to a deep disconnect between the actual lives of women and the deep fallacy, perhaps even fantasy, about womens lives which commonly operate in our belief systems.  I found it interesting that, no matter the period of time or the specific issues being addressed by the writer, there was frequently this sense that the truth of womens lives was something which lies beneath the illusion or mask that is typically in public view.  

Some of the readings addressed the difference between the fiction and the reality of womens lives in very concrete terms.  In Backlash, Susan Faludi threw out a litany of factual evidence which, in effect, threw back the curtain on some of the erroneous suppositions about womens so-called achievement of economic parity.  Faludi quotes differences in pay grade, education and access to some of the most lucrative corporate jobs. Schneir adds some additional concrete, historical context to the argument with her piece, The Unknown History of Womankind, touching upon how external forces like war, voting rights and the institution of marriage have affected womens contributions to the feminist agenda. Also, the very title of Schneirs work points to this idea that something exists behind what is clearly visible for women.  Anitas Hills testimony, similarly, demonstrated a very concrete example of the reality which differed dramatically from our common ideas about the state of womens equality in the workplace. Although its widely acknowledged that sexual harassment didnt disappear entirely after the Womens Liberation movement and advances in civil rights legislation, for the most part, weve been led to its much less prevalent now than the numbers would suggest.  Weve also been encouraged to believe (mostly by movies, television and commercial advertising) that someone like Anita Hill would be immune to the overt sexual harassment that she describes.  Shes a Yale graduate and a professor of Law - someone with resources and clear knowledge of her rights.  She is hardly the image of female employment inequity. Yet, the reality was that she had the same set of fears and impediments to seeking help as would a 13 an hour office assistant at a local insurance agency.  And, Ms. Hill is reflective of the reality of many women who suffer sexual harassment in the workplace.  She looks like she has it all together on the outside, but the reality is that she is just as vulnerable.

A few of the readings illustrated the gap between the illusion and the reality in more abstract ways.  In Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique, Friedan talks of female homemakers who cant even name, or put their finger on the problem.  They dont have the same concrete measures (salary disparities, being shut out of promotions or raises) that working women do, yet theres this same feeling of a gap between the reality of the average, suburban homemakers existence and the hype that she is meant to believe.  And, without specifically addressing feminism, Herbert Marcuse discusses a similar feeling in One Dimensional Man.  He suggests that, with the collusion of society, the abnormal is made to seem normal and the irrational made to seem rational.  Clearly this is applicable to the plight of women throughout history, who seems to be struggling against the insanity of a world which will not support something which seems so basic and obvious (i.e. that women are human beings, no better and no worse than men, and therefore should have an equal right to education, employment, reproduction, social standing, etcetera).

Shulamith Firestones The Dialectic of Sex includes some far more radical ideas than the other readings, and was more difficult to integrate into the conversation.  But, like the others, Firestone suggests there is a strong illusion being perpetrated and sold to women about their lives, particularly where it concerns marriage and their roles as wives and mothers.  The reality of marriage for women (which Firestone seems to view as mostly unfair drudgery) is hidden, she suggests, behind the veil of romantic love.

However different all of the readings may be, each offers interesting insights into the real lives of women and suggests something even more provoking. That is, it is not just the glaring inequities between the sexes that negatively impact womens lives, but the fact that women  are made to believe the inequities dont even exist, that they are simply figments of their imagination.