Last night I watched Maytime again. My sense of it was quite different from my sense of it four years ago. First, I realized how dated some of it was. The girl's young fiance makes her choose between going to New York to study voice and try to have a career, and marrying him. That wouldn't happen today, certainly not among Millennials of a certain socioeconomic class. The girl would go to New York, launch her career, then "pair off" with someone she might want to marry with the understanding that the marriage would be a partnership in which instance by instance, they negotiated whose career was more important (that year, that month). Even after children arrived.
The first time I realized that we were into new territory in that regard was when a friend's daughter (who was born in 1970, so she's more Gen X) decided to go to graduate school in a different city from where her fiance was living, which was where, eventually, they planned to settle. That would have been unheard of in my day. If you were lucky enough to "nail" a partner that you were madly in love with, everything else just sort of fell by the wayside if necessary. I was thinking, for example, of my giving up singing at 30. I mean there were a myriad factors, most notably that I wasn't really willing to put in the work to take care of my instrument (although by the end I was singing very well from a technical standpoint). But in addition to needing to earn a living and get a college degree in my off hours (getting a degree in music never occurred to me; my one exposure to music theory bored me to tears) and the fact that "political dykes" didn't "invest themselves in a patriarchal art form like opera", there was the relationship. My partner would never have countenanced my doing anything that took me away from her for extended periods. In fact, I remember one of our ugliest quarrels (during the 20 years of our time together that I recall as "happy") took place when, while I was enrolled in college, taking a course called "Women in the Law", I got a chance to go to a conference on Women in the Law (in Detroit of all places) over a weekend. She kicked and screamed and yelled and we didn't speak to each other for the days leading up to my departure. I think the thaw broke when I got back but I never did anything similar again unless it was something required by work.
And getting back to Maytime, of course no doubt today, the older teacher/mentor's attraction to his pupil and his request that she marry him (the subject comes up when she tells him how much he has done for her and asks what she can do in return) would be loosely categorized under the heading of "sexual harrassment" (and "marry" probably wouldn't have been the word used, although it might have been; he seemed more interested in "possessing" her than in a roll in the hay).
On another subject, yesterday I went to a free conference called "Aging Artfully". It was a series of lectures and panel discussions aimed at showing seniors how engaging with the arts (as a participant, not a passive viewer or listener) can keep a person young and engaged. I didn't learn much there that would help me with my quest for venues to produce concerts in, but there was much that I identified with: the need to be seen, how being "seen" makes you an artist, the need to feel safe being "seen", the need to feel grounded, the need to feel safe but that "unfamiliar" and "unsafe" are not synonyms (a big one for me), and how listening to music can calm people with dementia.
Actually, I probably learned more techniques that I can use with my partner, many of which I already use: playing music for her on Youtube, showing her paintings and photographs on my iPad, looking through her old art books.
And they addressed ageism. One man mentioned that people (including older adults!) make stupid and disparaging jokes about "getting old" and "old people" of a sort that no one (at least no civilized person who moves in the circles we move in) would make about a racial or ethnic group.
One disappointment. I saw clips of a number of senior choruses but no performance classes (free or low fee) for seniors. That is what I would be most interested in. Coaching for solo performers ending in a concert (even just for each other and our friends).
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
On Sexism
I rarely make these sorts of posts here (I think the last one was on same sex marriage) but I have been having thoughts on this subject for a long time, so....
It was fairly recently that I realized that the industry I worked in all my life (and that my mother worked in before me) - the janitorial, clerical, and scheduling aspects of publishing - was a predominately female one. (It is also one that is gradually disappearing, thanks to technology, which is another subject.)
A number of years ago I went to a book group at the Unitarian church that was discussing Cranford. The group was mostly, but not only, women, and was even more predominately made up of people over 50.
The woman leading the group spoke about the poverty of "genteel" older women (she was referring to women a generation older than I - I was born in 1950), many of whom lived in rent regulated apartments on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and many of whom, barely surviving on their Social Security, ate at the church soup kitchen. According to the group leader, most of these women had had jobs in publishing, jobs that paid very little, at organizations that did not provide pensions (now most of them have 401ks, but they didn't then). What she also said, which resonated with me, was that these jobs were never meant to provide a comfortable salary; they were jobs for "bookish" women as a stopgap between college and marriage, or for wives to work at for "a little bit extra". So for most of these women the years went by, no husband appeared, and they fell into poverty.
My own situation is not that bad. First of all, because of my interest in and aptitude for dealing with complex interpersonal situations, I was promoted into management, which pays slightly better. And the last two companies I worked for provided 401ks, one with a hefty employer contribution.
But what was an eye opener for me was realizing the extent to which my lack of interesting and engaging work stemmed from the attitudes toward women and girls when I was growing up, that were just in the air.
My mother prided herself, above all, on "being an intellectual." Likewise, her expectation for me was that I would be brainy, well-read, well-educated, and well-informed. It wasn't until decades later that I saw the importance of the word "be". Women were about "being", men were about "doing". I have noted more and more that one of the highest compliments one can pay a person is to say "she is very very good at what she does." I don't recall hearing this comment until fairly recently. People might have said "she is a good doctor" or "an exciting painter" or "a very special kind of teacher", but that was because medicine, teaching, and making art are important things. Most things that people "do", particularly for a living, are not all that important. They are a means to a salary, which is used to subsidize what really matters: family, friends, and enjoyable leisure.
I think the ingrained idea of women as doers began with the generation born from 1970 on. I mean there were plenty of doers in my generation, but it was not the norm, even for intelligent, well-educated women (and in those days "well-educated" meant a liberal arts BA from a good college, nothing more), so it was no source of self-deprecation not to be one.
As I enter the last third of my life, I often feel heartache that I have not done and don't do anything that is interesting (either to do or to talk about), certainly not in New York where superachievers are as numerous as cockroaches.
The other day, I realized that I did what women were supposed to do when I was a young adult. I chose "being in love". Today the media are full of articles about the "planned" marriage. I hear young (and by "young" I mean those people born after 1970) talk about self-actualization in a partnership, parenting, money, sex, but never about "being in love". It sounds almost quaint, like a mild mental illness that didn't used to be thought of as one, but now is.
When I was 25 I fell in love with someone (who happened to be female) whom I saw as exciting, bold, and slightly dangerous, and who was, of course, much older. A charming ne'er do well who knew her way around Lesbian Bohemia (and various corners of the visual arts world) and had no time for such bourgeois things as keeping a job or maintaining order in the home. And she was in love with me. I was a pretty girl who liked pretty things; not something easy to find in the 1970s Lesbian community. Eventually I sort of grew up: I worked my way up the ladder in publishing (never a chosen career), learned how to clean and decorate an apartment, how to cook, and how to plan our leisure time the way I planned a publication's production schedule. In many ways we had a wonderful life. We traveled, had lots of friends and lots of pets.
Things are hard now. The city is full of Gen Xers (now both men and women) with high powered careers and mates chosen the way you would buy a house or a car, and that is who you see. That is who owns the conversation about what it means to be a person. That is who writes the OpEd pieces.
So I chose love. Now, love means holding the hand of someone 80 while she struggles to walk. Buying groceries. Doing laundry. Arranging social services.
I'm an old fashioned girl. I don't have a proud answer to the question of the millennium: What do you dooooo? But I have someone who tells me she loves me (even - still - that she is in love with me) every single day.
It was fairly recently that I realized that the industry I worked in all my life (and that my mother worked in before me) - the janitorial, clerical, and scheduling aspects of publishing - was a predominately female one. (It is also one that is gradually disappearing, thanks to technology, which is another subject.)
A number of years ago I went to a book group at the Unitarian church that was discussing Cranford. The group was mostly, but not only, women, and was even more predominately made up of people over 50.
The woman leading the group spoke about the poverty of "genteel" older women (she was referring to women a generation older than I - I was born in 1950), many of whom lived in rent regulated apartments on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and many of whom, barely surviving on their Social Security, ate at the church soup kitchen. According to the group leader, most of these women had had jobs in publishing, jobs that paid very little, at organizations that did not provide pensions (now most of them have 401ks, but they didn't then). What she also said, which resonated with me, was that these jobs were never meant to provide a comfortable salary; they were jobs for "bookish" women as a stopgap between college and marriage, or for wives to work at for "a little bit extra". So for most of these women the years went by, no husband appeared, and they fell into poverty.
My own situation is not that bad. First of all, because of my interest in and aptitude for dealing with complex interpersonal situations, I was promoted into management, which pays slightly better. And the last two companies I worked for provided 401ks, one with a hefty employer contribution.
But what was an eye opener for me was realizing the extent to which my lack of interesting and engaging work stemmed from the attitudes toward women and girls when I was growing up, that were just in the air.
My mother prided herself, above all, on "being an intellectual." Likewise, her expectation for me was that I would be brainy, well-read, well-educated, and well-informed. It wasn't until decades later that I saw the importance of the word "be". Women were about "being", men were about "doing". I have noted more and more that one of the highest compliments one can pay a person is to say "she is very very good at what she does." I don't recall hearing this comment until fairly recently. People might have said "she is a good doctor" or "an exciting painter" or "a very special kind of teacher", but that was because medicine, teaching, and making art are important things. Most things that people "do", particularly for a living, are not all that important. They are a means to a salary, which is used to subsidize what really matters: family, friends, and enjoyable leisure.
I think the ingrained idea of women as doers began with the generation born from 1970 on. I mean there were plenty of doers in my generation, but it was not the norm, even for intelligent, well-educated women (and in those days "well-educated" meant a liberal arts BA from a good college, nothing more), so it was no source of self-deprecation not to be one.
As I enter the last third of my life, I often feel heartache that I have not done and don't do anything that is interesting (either to do or to talk about), certainly not in New York where superachievers are as numerous as cockroaches.
The other day, I realized that I did what women were supposed to do when I was a young adult. I chose "being in love". Today the media are full of articles about the "planned" marriage. I hear young (and by "young" I mean those people born after 1970) talk about self-actualization in a partnership, parenting, money, sex, but never about "being in love". It sounds almost quaint, like a mild mental illness that didn't used to be thought of as one, but now is.
When I was 25 I fell in love with someone (who happened to be female) whom I saw as exciting, bold, and slightly dangerous, and who was, of course, much older. A charming ne'er do well who knew her way around Lesbian Bohemia (and various corners of the visual arts world) and had no time for such bourgeois things as keeping a job or maintaining order in the home. And she was in love with me. I was a pretty girl who liked pretty things; not something easy to find in the 1970s Lesbian community. Eventually I sort of grew up: I worked my way up the ladder in publishing (never a chosen career), learned how to clean and decorate an apartment, how to cook, and how to plan our leisure time the way I planned a publication's production schedule. In many ways we had a wonderful life. We traveled, had lots of friends and lots of pets.
Things are hard now. The city is full of Gen Xers (now both men and women) with high powered careers and mates chosen the way you would buy a house or a car, and that is who you see. That is who owns the conversation about what it means to be a person. That is who writes the OpEd pieces.
So I chose love. Now, love means holding the hand of someone 80 while she struggles to walk. Buying groceries. Doing laundry. Arranging social services.
I'm an old fashioned girl. I don't have a proud answer to the question of the millennium: What do you dooooo? But I have someone who tells me she loves me (even - still - that she is in love with me) every single day.
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