I’ve been neck-deep in non-internet things the last week or so, but I keep catching snippets of information on Maria Shriver’s “Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything” as featured on the Sunday morning news roundtable Meet the Press. (You can read the full report here, or watch clips from the show here). I haven’t caught up with it all myself, but it’s on my to-do list (along with grading 45 midterms and about a traz-jillion other things).
PilgrimSoul piqued my interest again with a link to an affiliated site Shriver has a major hand in: California Women. Along with all of the features you might expect, CW (which is really not only for West Coasters) has a page called “XX Effect” (cribbing off Slate?) which features blurbs from women–some famous, others only famous to us Harpies–in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s+ answering that hoary old question: “What Do Women Want?”
I have mixed feelings about this feature, and its accompanying forum. Not because any of the responses are “wrong,” but because I feel the question itself is a dead end. While the internet and the blog/forum interface have allowed a lot of individuals a place to share their personal thoughts and experiences with each other, a growing, mostly disconnected pile of individual (and individualistic) responses feels insufficient to the very real challenges that women face. There’s a place for CR groups, but I fear that “sharing” can too easily become an end, rather than a means.
Using Freud’s formulation seems like exactly the wrong thing to do–not only because it allows a wealthy, educated western white dude to frame the conversation yet again, but because it relies on the idea that there is this thing called Women that can be encapsulated or explained, and that needs encapsulation and explanation. (Deciding that Women are both a multi-headed, single-minded entity and still so very confuzzling is trying to have it both ways.)
It’s not as catchy, I guess, but I’d rather see a prompt like “What do think is the biggest challenge facing [American/Western/etc.] women today and what should be done about it?” or “What sort of legislation or cultural policy would most help women’s day-to-day lives?” Rather than airing personal grievances (not to say that all the contributors are; merely that the question leads in that direction), we’re focusing on larger problems and their causes–and most importantly, their solutions.
So, readers, I’m not going to ask you what YOU want, or what Women (y’know, them) want. But I am curious to know which issues–or perhaps I should say Issues–you think California Women, an advocacy group with a lot a star power, would do best to focus on.
Reproductive rights? Rooting out fat-talk? Crushing our corporate overlords? Passing the ERA? Re-education camps for Nice Guys and Mainsplainers? Reforming healthcare? Answering Freud’s question, after all? Di me.
Bonus Round: What do you think of the fact that the word “feminism” isn’t being used over at XX Effect?
Interesting point. Freud’s formulation doesn’t bother me much in its original context (after all, he was equally reductive about what men want, really), but I see why you find it inappropriate here.
As far as what we need? Reform labor laws. Incentivize men to take paternity leave. That way, the burden of raising children is evened out a bit, and men and women will be equal liabilities in hiring decisions. Give both more paid time at home in the US. Six weeks (which I believe is the norm?) is NOTHING. All the folks who talk about how family is the center of our society overlook the way that family and personal life (I include husband-wife relationships which can be harmed by the unequal burden) is consistently hurt by exploitative labor policies.
Reforming health care, with the inclusion of reproductive rights as a given, and crushing our corporate overlords sound like a great start to me.
A friends just linked me to this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/10/what_do_women_really_want.html
It’s a BBC reporter’s response to a polemic against the government based on ‘what women want’ and a tenuous survey interpretation. People throw the question around to give themselves more ‘grounding’ except they don’t realize they’re standing on a muddy hill without brush waiting for a mudslide to wipe them away. (No, that extended metaphor doesn’t really work for me either.)
When I saw that NBC was going to be doing Lady Themed programming it made me really sad. The need for a special programming drive to address the issues of any group is a terrible sign about that group’s larger representation.
I’m gonna go with stop asking this question like it’s such a fucking mystery. Because if you really can’t come up with any answers on your own, that’s pretty fucking telling.
I can see why they aren’t using the word “feminism”–they’re trying to make this relevant to all women, including all the ones out there who have an ill-informed allergic reaction to that word. But I’m sure y’all can guess how I feel about that.
you guys! remember that HILARIOUS Mel Gibson movie, where it turned out that what women wanted was to fall in love with an anti-semite who creepily read our minds? good times…
What do women want? To be treated like 1/2 of the population with equality vs. a special subset of the population that needs a specialized group discussing what women want.
Passing an equal rights law would be a damn good start, as would giving equal healthcare (and reproductive) healthcare access to all.
@bluebears: OMG, that was so fucking funny! I bet Mel would be able to tell I was thinking about how me and my friends killed Christ and then faked the Holocaust! Also that he seriously needs to go to AA!
It’s sort of a waste of time, though, if only women read or watch this sort of thing, and really, do you know may men who are likely to do so?
The Freudian question is in a whole other realm than the sort of things that have been raised here-it’s personal development vs. public policy. And unless this group of California women is very diverse and includes women across the economic and educational spectrum-and even, as I learned this week, the ability spectrum-as well as racial and ethnic heterogeneity, it will be the usual rich, educated, privileged folks speaking up for those who have no voice and might, just might, have different concerns.
@MM: Very true. I watched this last night and it was all white, college-educated men talking about how they feel when their white, college-educated wives outearn them. It’s a VERY narrow approach, at best, and at worst was just another group of privileged people yakking about their privilege.
Of course, the viewing demographic for this IS that group of people. I just wish the producers had interviewed people who were NOT like their viewership, to provide a more nuanced, broader portrayal of women’s lives in America.
@becky: I just want a man to call me sugartits.
@Becky
Yeah I saw a segment of that part where they were talking to men about how they feel when their wives out earn them. All I could think was: you know what I want- to have someone ask me what I want/need without then turning around and asking a man if that’s okay with him.
They’ve been covering this crap on the Today Show and the other morning they (Matt, Ann, Al, etc.) were all asking each other “who wears the pants” in their relationships, har har har!
Even when they’re discussing the advancement of women, it’s framed in sexist terms.
Right, because high-earning, self-sufficient women are either radical, and deserving of news coverage, or oddball, and therefore the butt of the joke. FAIL.
Just want to say that the actual A Woman’s Nation report (not the xx factor site) has actual information, rather than just bland non-questions. There’s some really good data and essays (though I haven’t read it all yet).
Sitting here at the computer I’ve been thinking about this.
* at first, I don’t have a problem with this question being asked (there are some issues that are women [not a definitional meaning of the word!] specific)
* then that became, but is this being used as a way to disempower women from broadly engaging further in society?
* then that became, why is it usually women that are required to speak on *their* issues?
* and this became, but what happens when a a non-woman starts speaking about an issue that affects me, and is making outlandish statements about what should happen.
So I think, in a very broad way, I would like things that impact on people (whether directly or indirectly) in a society to be taken seriously.
There is a recognition of the plurality of views within and without various populations of a society when engaging in a democratic process.
When discussing these issues, even when having a strong opinion about an issue or issues, that people are open to different ideas, and are able to change their opinions.
I’d just like to say that I agree with you all and also that I am considering a human rights campaign for the End of Morning Television Shows That Discuss Important Issues With Such Surface Flippancy I Have Thrown My Shoes At the Goddamn Smug Anchors’ Faces More Times Than I Can Count and I Am Lucky That TV still works.
I’d like to see a show that asked, “What do disabled people want?” or, “What do transgender people want?” I feel like the question, “What do women want?” is a set up. It creates a situation where every single answer is going to differ, thereby creating the illusion of discord which allows the status quo to remain because, “if women can’t agree on what they want/need how are we supposed to give it to them?”
And the website certainly does appear to be asking the question, as other commenters mentioned, “What do privileged women want?” Which doesn’t really seem to answer the question real thoroughly.
While I think this question is very problematic, for all the reasons outlined here, I think the individual answers to this question are very interesting and intelligent. And I am pleased that it is a discussion about the needs/wants of women that is not framed around buying things! and nice smelling laundry soap!
Also, though, what is with all the ‘XX’ crap of late? I guess I am saying this from my own privileged and my nice bubble of like-minded friends, but I thought as a feminist community we were working on not excluding transgendered people.
Take note Slate & Shriver: It is not hip, it is insulting!
@TMae: Completely agree. Well put.
@rainy_day: I never thought of that, but should have. XX does seem totally short-sighted given the broad spectrum of womanity.