Beyond the daydream, the reality - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 13: The Next Big Thing
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Emily Maguire
AS A MIDDLE-CLASS, EDUCATED FEMINIST JUST SHY OF THIRTY, I am, demographically speaking, part of feminism's third wave. Older feminists have characterised third-wave feminism as a laissez-faire, do-what-feels-good, girl-power philosophy. To them, third-wavers, by focusing more on individual empowerment and less on gender equity, are responsible for the phenomenon I am describing. By telling girls that each and every one of them is a precious jewel, the argument goes, young feminists have created a generation of women who are more concerned with being treated right as a unique individual than with the position of women as a group.
There's some truth in the accusations of individualism, but to blame Princess Culture on feminism of any wave, stripe or flavour is wrong. The young feminists I know are deeply distressed that so many of their friends and peers are disappearing into princesshood. They support the right of women to make their own life choices, but despair as much as any second-waver about the fact that so many are choosing a life which precludes them from ever having to make another decision apart from curtains or blinds, cash or credit.
Neither is this, I would add, a strictly generational phenomenon. Wannabe princesses span the generations: X, Y and whatever they're calling the one after that. Princess Culture is enthusiastically spruiked by Baby Boomer parents and Silent Generation grandparents.
Some would say that what I call a scary cultural trend is simply women acting naturally after the brief aberration of women's liberation. To argue against Cinderella dreams is to argue against nature; every little girl wants to be a princess and the desire only grows stronger as girl becomes woman and needs a provider and protector for the children to which she will give birth.
In response to this, I can only relate my own experience. As a child, I did want to be a princess. I fantasised – in detail – about frothy dresses, priceless jewels and enormous castles. But, as often as not, I would picture the fantabulous gown as torn and filthy and my princess-self flushed and sweaty from a bareback horse ride through a dark forest. And yes, as a teenager I imagined elaborate scenarios in which a handsome and very wealthy man would sweep into the classroom and carry me away from dowdiness and tedium.
I wanted to be wooed and adored – sometimes. The rest of the time I wanted to be the one sweeping, wooing and adoring. I wanted to seduce boys I desired and then smash their hearts to smithereens. I wanted to fuck and be fucked, to fight and to win.
Theories of "natural" female behaviour aside, it is simply untrue that women are returning to a traditional model of womanhood. Modern princesses with their crippling shoes and delicate French manicures are not baking pies and scrubbing floors. What we are seeing is not a return to the past, but a gender movement uniquely of our time. For my grandmother, a career was an impossible dream; for my mother, it was a privilege; for me, it is an expectation. It is simply not possible for women to return to the old model even if we want to. Our economy is based on the assumption that adults of both genders will work for most of their lives – our social structure supports this.
But when it comes to marriage and motherhood, the expectations have hardly changed at all. The pressure to marry and breed may not be quite as intense as it was fifty years ago, but it is far from gone. Indeed, marriage is on the rise among twenty-somethings, and no young woman in the nation can be unaware of the official government line on childbearing (Do it. A lot.)
Despite awareness of "superwoman syndrome", all the educated, professional women I know over the age of thirty-five still do most of the childcare and housework, organise the dinner parties and family barbecues, and spend a monstrous amount of time and money trying to reach some arbitrary state of perfect womanhood. Few living this frantic existence wish the same on their daughters, yet girls are still told they can do anything, have it all.
But these girls have seen their mothers and older sisters work themselves to the ground only to be confronted by the disheartening reality that men still hold most senior positions in the corporate world and, at every level, are better paid. They must acknowledge that prostitution and modelling are still the only professions in which women earn more than men; that men still dominate the parliaments and courts; and that the few women who reach the halls of power are judged on the condition of their kitchen and the cut of their hair, as much as on their ideas.
Girls do not choose princesshood because they doubt their capabilities, but because they have observed that being capable is not nearly enough if they are not also attractive, sweet and a good mother and wife. The reverse is not true.
It's no good telling girls they can do anything – they know this means everything and they've seen where this will get them. Until we can tell girls – honestly – that what they put in to life will be equal to what they get out, we will continue to lose them to princesshood where the rewards, although shallow, are at least commensurate with effort, the daydream is endless. ♦