"Women's Issues" and the Conservative "Woman Problem"

By Mary C. Tillotson

Can we do it all?

Joy opened a really interesting conversation last week about whether women and men should be addressed differently. She linked to a Forbes article by Sabrina Schaeffer noting “the odd contradiction that liberals proclaim men and women are essentially the same but target women as women aggressively … and conservatives typically will say men and women are different, but are reluctant to target women as a special interest group.” (Joy’s words.) I want to talk more specifically about the conservative “woman problem.”

“Women’s issues,” it seems, revolve around our childbearing capacity: abortion, contraception, flexible work hours. The so-called “war on women” initially rose over contraception (or, more specifically, the government requiring people to provide contraception free and ignoring their constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedom). It was further fueled by some stupid comments (“legitimate rape,” anyone?) that got more attention than they were worth. When it comes down to it, if we didn’t have wombs, there would be no such thing as “women’s issues.”

Good Housekeeping, you're drunk.

By Brianna Heldt
Just Showing Up

Did anyone else hear about the article running in this month’s edition of Good Housekeeping magazine, titled “10 Reasons It’s Good to Be Bad”?  While I have never, ever read Good Housekeeping in all my days, I’ve seen a couple of different people calling attention to this particular piece, so I did the obvious and natural thing: I read it.

And, ohmygoodness.  What is wrong with people?  The article reads like a who’s who of Worst Advice Ever–I can’t decide which suggestion is lamer, flirting with someone who is not your husband, getting mad and staying mad, or reading erotica.  And does anyone deny that it feels good to do bad things?  Who doesn’t love a little adrenaline rush from time to time?  I’m not sure we need an author or researcher to tell us that a lot of Really Bad Things are, well, a heck of a lot of fun.  Just ask any 16-year-old kid at a rave, or the 35-year-old woman who owns the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy.

It isn’t rocket science.  Sometimes “bad” things feel “good.”

But this idea that, as women in pursuit of happiness, we should be aspiring to these things is positively ridiculous.  The perspective of this piece more closely resembles that of a petulant child’s (who must have what he or she wants right this very second) than a grown-up’s with a journalism degree.  Consider this choice selection from the piece:

Great Expectations

By Julie Baldwin

Has it been scientifically proven yet that more women are Type A personalities? Or is it that we think we need to uphold a set of values that is not universal, but constantly ruining the fun in our lives? We need to be smart and saavy; we need to be gorgeous (models-as-standard) and athletic (fit, too); we need to be domestic enough to please other people's standards; we need to pay attention to our kids; we need to have our own fulfilling careers.

My mom and me: two Type As, different goals

The pressure to work in a job for career-purposes, the pressure to marry and then the pressure to have kids and the pressure to support those kids in their range of activities and schooling ventures... has life turned into a tea kettle for women? Are we all going to end up screaming when the water gets too hot?

Should People Talk to Women Differently?

By Joy Pullmann

I often get offended when I pick up on subliminal messages that have people treating me a certain way because I'm a woman. Now, I don't mind the perks of this—door-opening and seat-offering are awesome, especially when you've been pregnant as frequently as I am and such gestures offer real relief. I also like when men talk more politely or give me deference because I'm a woman. But it's pretty offensive to hear someone assume that I would think a certain way or need a certain tone of voice and approach "just because" I'm a woman.

At the same time, I like women's magazines. Pinterest is, to me, basically a free version of Martha Stewart Living, which I was hooked on at something like age 10. And I like all kids of other stuff deliberately marketed to women. LaraBars? Yes, please.

In short, I've got a lot of cognitive dissonance going on here. (Maybe it's because I'm a woman. Joke!) A bit of it was relieved this week when I read this Forbes.com post by Sabrina Schaeffer. She explains the odd contradiction that liberals proclaim men and women are essentially the same but target women as women aggressively. They're the people who will insist men have nothing to say about abortion and contraception. And conservatives typically will say men and women are different, but are reluctant to target women as a special interest group, or create messaging directly to women that isn't retarded (Mitt Romney, I'm looking at you). Schaeffer writes:

In our brave new world of gender equality, in which women and men are often encouraged to act the same, most conservatives still accept that men and women often view problems and prioritize them differently. As political scientist Steve Rhoads explains so well, sex differences are “hardwired” into our biology, and social rules and customs that the left might want to discard often serve a purpose. But in the political arena this understanding of gender differences seems to vanish, leaving Republicans regularly stumped when they face a question about the wage gap, work-life balance, or health care mandates.

Ok, so this (and the rest of her article—read it) makes sense. But it still feels awkward to me to say to myself, "Talk about this issue differently if you are talking to women." Differently HOW? Like mention chocolate and pink? That sounds demeaning to me. But if I agree with Schaeffer's principles—and I do—that means there are different ways to talk to women without pandering or patronizing. What those are, I don't know. I just talk.  

Disabled babies, moms, and men: can we please love them all?

By Mary C. Tillotson

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the baby with Down Syndrome who, it looks like, will not be aborted after all because some 900 families offered to adopt, thanks to Facebook and Fr. Vander Woude. If you haven’t heard, I think the Arlington Catholic Herald, my diocese’s paper, had one of the better stories.

I feel a particular connection to this story because my husband and I got one of the original emails; we’ve met Fr. Vander Woude and a friend of ours knows him well. I sent Father an email saying we might be interested but hadn’t had time to talk yet; by the time we were able to talk, we already heard about the enormously huge response and we weren’t needed. So it was exciting to watch the story go viral.

Changing Seasons

By Elizabeth Petrides
Guest Contributor

When I was a teenager, I knew that whatever I did with my life, it was not going to include getting married, having children, or teaching. However, God had other plans for me. I married a wonderful man in 1979, quit my full-time bookkeeping job when the first of our five children was born in 1982, taught piano lessons for 10 years, went back to college for teacher certification, taught full-time for 13 years, and completed a Master’s degree. How does a woman balance family life and career? One season at a time.

I learned this lesson once when I complained about feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities of caring for young children. An older and wiser friend explained that there are seasons in a woman’s life. She urged me to enjoy the blessings of each season, because the seasons wouldn’t last forever. She was right. During the 34 years we’ve been married, I’ve had just about every position a woman could have. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for my five children, had part-time jobs, worked full-time, and volunteered. When I look back on my life, it is the story of God’s grace and direction, not brilliant planning on my part. That said, there were a few deliberate choices that we made as a family that made all this possible.

The Girl Who Reads, Speaks and Survives

By Julie Baldwin

July 12 has officially been named "Malala Day" in honor of Malala Yousafzai, a now-16-year-old girl who was shot by the Taliban in an assassination attempt for going to school in October 2012. The New York Times reported,

On Tuesday, masked Taliban gunmen answered Ms. Yousafzai’s courage with bullets, singling out the 14-year-old on a bus filled with terrified schoolchildren, then shooting her in the head and neck. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack. All three survived, but late on Tuesday doctors said that Ms. Yousafzai was in critical condition at a hospital in Peshawar, with a bullet possibly lodged close to her brain. 

A Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, confirmed by phone that Ms. Yousafzai had been the target, calling her crusade for education rights an “obscenity.” 

“She has become a symbol of Western culture in the area; she was openly propagating it,” Mr. Ehsan said, adding that if she survived, the militants would certainly try to kill her again. “Let this be a lesson.”

This did not discourage the girl who wants to be a doctor. She spoke at the United Nations on Friday, July 12, 2013, in support of universal and compulsory education for all as a way to "wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism and let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons."