Invisible Worlds

Me: Hey, Margie.  Did you know that you are a traitor to feminists?

Margie: I’m what?

Me: Yeah.  You have a PhD, but you aren’t using it to make money.  Instead you are raising the girls on Long Island, while your husband makes the big bucks in the city.

Margie: Well, I would love to have a job, but there aren’t openings in Ancient Near Eastern Inscriptions anywhere in the Northeast and I can’t find a part time job.

Me: Bad feminist! Traitor!  Resource squander!  You clearly only went to school to meet up with big money bags husband.

Margie: Uh, you know how I met my husband.  And how can I be a bad feminist? I’ve donated money to Planned Parenthood for two decades.  Besides, my life isn’t over.  I want to work sometime in the future.

Me: Too bad.  Burn in hell.

Ever since that Yale mommie article came out, I’ve read so many characterizations of parents.  Two dimension slams that have nothing to do with reality.  Common themes — selfish, materialistic, slackers, conservative.  There has been no discussion of the obstacles that women face, just a lot of self righteous finger wagging.  They have no idea about the world of parents.

But then I step away from my computer and I am surrounded by hard working, struggling people.  Some work outside the home; some don’t.  Some went to Harvard and some never finished high school.  And they are just trying to get by.  They have to figure out how to pay the student loans and how to keep Junior from getting left back.  Most are exhausted all the time.  They are interesting and political and funny.  (Last week, I went out with a bunch of local moms for beers; Kathy told me that her six year old wanted to know why his father has a mustache around his penis.  I nearly peed my pants.  ) 

And they have heard nothing about this hoopla.  They have no idea that Maureen Dowd is calling them alpha moms or that Linda Hirshman thinks that they really should be partner in a law firm.  No clue.  They are too busy to read the blogs. 

just found this from Miriam at Playground Revolution:

More on how the New York Times apparently hates families, the latest update being the Judith Warner piece in the Week in Review. One Chicago shopkeeper asks kids to use their indoor voices and now we have yet another family trend of the rudest children in civilization. Huh? How about how there’s no infrastructure for kids and families, no indoor play areas, not enough rec centers for when it’s cold out? How about some articles on really polite kids? Good families? Or at least, a family trend article that actually uses data and evidence in a fair and sane and balanced way?

Can anyone explain why the NYTimes hates mothers and families with such a vengeance? Or did they just hire the same trend marketing folks I wrote about in "Truth Behind the Mommy Wars," the ones who advise media and advertisers to keep at us because then at least we get mad and pay attention.

The Linda Hirshman piece in the American Prospect is getting emailed around, and got a spot on AlterNet. More tendentious lies, as in: the workplace changed enough. Oh, please. I was interviewed for that piece, and totally distrust the author’s assumptions and her willingness to be honest and truthful. I’m so exhausted by ideologues. Her database: three weeks worth of couples who advertised their June weddings in, yes, the Sunday New York Times. She’s trying to find a book contract for this, god help us all. And she’s a scholar too, she should know better about how to use evidence. Enough, enough, enough. We’ve got a whole country out here trying to make ends meet, and this is the crap we get, again and again and again.