“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”
That sure-fire old joke about women and the stove clock caught my eye. A few years ago my wife and children gave me a new two-oven stove. As the principal family chef, I was elated. And I never wear a watch, so the large clock on the stove has served me well.
My friend Steve Rhoads, according to Mr. Borgmeyer’s engaging essay on his book about sex differences [“Mommies’ little helper,” March 14], would presumably regard me as an oddity, out of sync with my male nature. He is said to believe that “the differences between men and women can be explained in biological terms—that hormones drive men to prefer competition and breadwinning and women to prefer nurturing relationships and housekeeping.”
I am no scientist and I doubt if I could explain to my granddaughter what a hormone is. But as a historian and sometime activist I have often thought about the ways in which men have made life a living hell for all of us, men and women alike. It was men—white men, that is—who enslaved and humiliated black men and women and who thought up the laws of segregation and the bestiality of lynching.
Wars have been another special gift of men to our history. Lysistrata, bemoaning all the killing during the Peloponnesian wars, thought men’s sex urge might be greater than their lust for battle, so she pitted one against the other. It was an ingenious idea. Men, however, have gone right on warring against each other, often raping along the way.
Then there’s man’s gift of poverty. Henry George, one of my favorite 19th century writers, said that the great enigma of his time was the association of poverty with progress. He was a smart and passionate reformer but I think he missed the point here. There was no enigma. That “breadwinning” instinct men possessed came to be known in George’s time as Social Darwinism. It made sure that some were rich and some were poor. Progress has gone right on doing that, working its way under different rubrics. The current explanation goes under the name of free-market capitalism.
When Henry Higgins wondered, “why can’t a woman be more like a man” he wasn’t wishing away Mr. Rhoads’ nature thesis. What he couldn’t understand was why Eliza wasn’t grateful to him and to Colonel Pickering for what they had done for her. Why couldn’t she understand their justified pride in their accomplishment? Why couldn’t she see it from their point of view?
The point of all this is that we shouldn’t see it from their point of view. For too long, through virtually all of the recorded history I know anything about, we have had to see it from their point of view—and that has meant war, poverty, subjugation and exploitation.
But we can be cheered. Whatever the truth of the argument over nature versus nurture, the one thing we do know is that men who have led the way to war, poverty, and subjugation of others, can be talked out of their dominating ways. They have always been there. You see them everywhere now in greater numbers than ever before, fighting poverty, resisting war, opposing subjugation. The point of our public policy and private commitment should be to continue enlarging their numbers, never troubling to wonder whether we are bucking up against the laws of nature.
Paul Gaston
Charlottesville
Gallant? More like Goofus
As a sociology graduate student I read many academic books and articles that explored the question of gender difference. I reached the conclusion after several years that the scientific evidence (biological, neurological, paleontological, anthropological, etc.) could support both “minimal difference” and “maximal difference” arguments. Thus, while the scientist-philosopher usually claimed to be “letting the facts speak for themselves,” in fact, he or she guided the argument by selecting and exaggerating certain pieces of evidence while disregarding or rationalizing other evidence. Steven Rhoads is a case in point.
The “difference” question will never be resolved—but certainly public policy ought to treat us all as fairly and equally as possible, giving each of us the greatest opportunity to decide the course of our own lives. Rhoads claims to be “defending women:” it would be somewhat humorous and even sweet (in a quaint, old fashioned way) if it weren’t so dangerous, particularly in the current neoconservative climate. We do not need a gallant knight of the 21st century protecting (only) the “true women” who populate his masculinist paradigm! (Perhaps this gallant knight should turn his attention elsewhere—say, to the needs of the women and children of New Orleans.)
Ginnie Daugherty
Albemarle County
Wham, bam, thank you, man
As a wife and a mother of two children, I would like to personally thank Dr. Rhoads for so selflessly looking out for my happiness and well-being. If only I had been a student of his while in college, I could have promptly dropped out, saved my parents a bundle of money and ensured my future satisfaction in the process. Now if he would just relieve me of my right to vote, I could cross pesky politics off my list, too.
The article left me with more questions than answers. What is this emphasis on “natural”? This is the punch line? What is natural these days? Not cars, not plastic, not air travel, not Fox News, not book tours, not artificial light or indoor plumbing. It is perfectly natural to poop outside and skin wild animals for clothing. Some people prefer to do this. I do not.
For many women, staying home with the kids is not an option. (For many women, this was not an option even in the exalted 1950s. Both of my grandmothers worked, at odd hours, at diners, in textile mills, and, oh dear, shared caring for the children with their husbands.) For others, working is something they like and want to do. Some of us will be conflicted and worried about making the right choice, or about lacking the freedom to do so. Most of us experience frustration with whatever day-to-day deadlines and duties we face. This is life.
What’s “natural” from a biological perspective can maybe make us feel better about our internal conflicts and make women feel less guilty or sheepish when all they want is a baby, but I don’t see how it can or should be brought to bear on policy. And what policy is Dr. Rhoads hoping to build with his conclusions? I can only guess. Does he hope that the whiny ladies will shut up already about subsidized daycare and get to their casseroles? But wait—the women who really need subsidized daycare are the ones who are being forced off public assistance and told to get a job even though they have children at home to—oh, never mind.
It’s a good thing that Dr. Rhoads teaches college students, who by and large probably don’t have families to take care of. I have an insight to share with him: I have two little kids, I am a woman, and I get bored playing with them. Perhaps it’s because I was exposed in utero to some testosterone, but I think it might actually be because they are 10 months and 3 years old and I am 34. But I oblige because I’m their mother. And my husband obliges because he’s their father. We never even thought to go write a book explaining to the world why someone else should handle all of the boring stuff. It’s a pretty good racket.
Since my first child was born in early 2003, I have both worked and stayed at home due to changing circumstances. There are drawbacks and benefits to both. There is drudgery and tedium and reward everywhere you turn. A lot of career women are surprised when they find themselves in complete and stupefying love with a baby, and say goodbye to the office with no regrets. Plenty of stay-at-home moms are bored out of their wits and yell at their kids a lot. But no one I know—from single moms with full-time careers to at-home moms who have had the baby names picked out since they were 10—loves to scrub a bathroom. I hope Dr. Rhoads’ wife puts her foot down and still makes him clean up after himself even as he’s waving his latest tome at her.
Jennifer Jacobs
Charlottesville
Fair and balanced? Or fairly biased?
The recent C-VILLE article on Steven Rhoads and the issue of women’s happiness is an object lesson in the deficiencies of “fair and balanced” journalism. We find out in the first third of the article that the feature’s subject, Steven Rhoads, has not, in fact, conducted any original research into the issue at all, but rather that “his colleagues” in Sociology, Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock, have conducted a study of 5,000 married couples. Instead of going on to present and analyze the conclusions and methods of this study, the article moves to a barrage of quotes from Rhoads and University English professor Susan Fraiman. Here we have two different perspectives, given somewhat equal time. As far as the values of modern journalism go, the C-VILLE article has done its “job.”
One of the reasons the often-shallow arguments of the right-wing in this country go unchallenged is precisely this kind of reporting, which takes the advocacy and opinions of putative experts or spokespeople to be valuable information. It’s frequently not information; it’s rhetorical prize fighting. It’s “Crossfire.” And it’s entertainment. I found myself wondering what a professor of politics and a professor of English literature have to tell us about women’s happiness at all? A sociologist, maybe. A psychologist, even better. But we are left by the article to assume that Rhoads’ argument has at least some kind of merit, based on the fact that Nock and Wilcox’s study has been conducted at all. Do other sociologists take the study seriously? On what basis? Is an analysis of “married couples” already biased? Is Rhoads’ use of the study in his writing critical or lazy? We have no idea, given what the C-VILLE has told us.
The research at issue and the analysis of the quality of that research is clearly something the C-VILLE thinks will bore its readers. Maybe they’re right. Regard-less, we all suffer when news outlets presume that facts, analysis and the presentation of original research are “above the heads” of average Americans. After all, the “culture war” sells. Why interrupt it with real information?
Nathan Piazza
Charlottesville
CORRECTION:
One of the Standards of Learning exam questions published by C-VILLE last week contained a typo. The original Ferris Wheel at the 1893 World’s Fair had a diameter of 250 feet, not 20 feet. If the notes and phone calls that came in are any indication, there’s a bunch of smart readers out there—smart enough to pass eighth grade, at least!