Hey girlfriend. Switch on your headset and listen to this:
my fresh new March issue of The Atlantic
just arrived via snail mail and boy am I glad. That “Which Religion Will Win”
cover story is interesting and all, what with nothing less than the fate of the
world at stake, and I guess it’s important to know about China’s
Firewall and America’s ongoing real estate crisis.
But let’s face it: that’s all just
fishwrap for the real meat. “Marry Him! The Case for Settling” by Lori Gottlieb,
informs us lovely ladies of the urgency of matrimony, especially when Mr. Right
turns out to be Mr. Just So-So (go for it anyway, ‘cause time is running out
and you probably won’t be able to do any better).
It’s a must read!
I’ll admit, though, that I don’t
understand why it took more than 5,000 words to tell me what I’d already read
in an 800-word feature in my March issue of Cosmo
called “ ‘Mr. Wrong Turned Out to Be So Right.’ ”
In Atlanto (that’s my pet name for the mag – more feminine, no?) Gottlieb
says: “Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based
on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his
halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics.” She also says you should go ahead and
get married when you’re young, “when settling involves constructing a family
environment with a perfectly acceptable man who may not trip your romantic
trigger—as opposed to doing it older, when it involves selling your very soul
in exchange for damaged goods.”
Duh.
Here’s how Cosmo
put it: “These chicks took a chance with guys totally not their type… and hit
the love jackpot.”
We hear from Laurie, 25, who says
of her mate, “We have mismatched tastes in movies, music, clothing, food, you
name it. But somehow, he understands me better than anyone else, and we love
that we don’t have to conform for each other.” And Christie, 18: “My boyfriend
had a crush on me for years before we actually started dating. I thought he was
a really nice guy, but I wasn’t attracted to him. He has always struggled with
weight issues and had some trouble asserting himself… Now I know that bigger
guys make great teddy bears, and I never feel bad about ordering dessert!”
The
similarities are enough to make you wonder: is Atlanto yanking Cosmo’s
chain? Come to think of it girlfriend, I’ve been noticing some serious Atlanto voguing in recent months,
starting back in March 2007 when they dipped into Sex/Self Help/Relationships –
a Cosmo staple – with “She’s Just Not
That Into You” by Sandra Tsing Loh. Then there were those Fashion/Consumer
stories in April 2007 (“Carried Away” by Lynne Yaeger) about designer handbags, and
in December 2007 (“Rightsize Me” by Virginia Postrel) about blue jeans.
And don’t
get me started on the Cautionary Tales – a Cosmo fave -- with Caitlin Flanagan, Atlanto’s Henny Penny for all things femme, giving us: "The Age of Innocence" in April 2007 (cautionary tale about the perils of college); “The Sanguine
Sex” in May 2007 (cautionary tale about the perils of abortion); and “Babes in The
Woods” in July/August 2007 (cautionary tale about the perils of My Space).
Girlfriend, couched though they may
be in the larger “meaning” of the thing and larded with erudition (lots of
knowing literary, socio-political and cultural references), at their core,
these are Cosmo stories, the bread
and butter of the single girl’s mag trade.
Don’t
get me wrong. I’m always up for a good read about loveless marriages, handbag
trends or college coeds gone wild. But is it just me or does anyone else feel
like that ground’s pretty well covered, in oh, say 40 or 50 glossy magazines
available on any well-stocked news rack, not to mention 10,000 or so websites.
Could it be that this primo Atlanto real estate might be put to
better use doing what the mag promises on its website when it says “readers
turn to The Atlantic for intellectual stimulation, innovative
opinions, and an environment of open dialogue on subjects ranging from foreign
affairs, politics, and the economy to cultural trends.”
Okay, so I get it. These are
cultural trend stories with a capital W.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing, though,
if the trends they chose were deeper than the LA River? Like, say, widespread
clinical depression among women over 40, or the recent surge in murder-suicide
domestic violence here in LA where I live. Or even the ongoing gender-based
wage inequity that persists in America.
But where’s the fun in that? If the women won’t be the dancing bears who will?
Oh well, enough of this serious
stuff. Time for my spa treatment. Kiss kiss.
Ciao.
http://feministing.com/archives/008579.html#trackback
I haven't read a lot of back issues of The Atlantic, but I imagine that this tripe has to be in their top three most appalling articles of all time. In what can only be described as anti-feminist porn, writer Lori Gottlieb argues that women who find themselves single at the embarrassingly old age of 30 should stop being so uppity and settle for "Mr. Good Enough."
Seriously...imagine all the bad science scare-tactic articles that Susan Faludi debunked in Backlash and the Independent Women's Forum had a baby. A fucking ugly baby.
And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.
Oh, I know—I’m guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren’t widely representative, that I’ve been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I’m talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying. In fact, take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you’re not worried, because you’ll see how silly your face looks when you’re being disingenuous. (Emphasis added)
Really? Because this is how worried my face looks. Perhaps, as someone who is turning 30 this year, I'm some sort of anomaly because I'm not desperately running around looking for the nearest douchebag to propose. But something tells me I'm not alone. (Also, someone may want to clue Gottlieb in about, you know, lesbians.)
In fact, what's particularly hilarious about Gottlieb's article is that the evidence for her "thesis" is largely hackneyed commentary about old sitcoms and romantic comedies. Gottlieb cites The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Friends, Sex and the City, Will and Grace, Say Anything, and Broadcast News in an effort to convince us that single women over 30 will end up as depressed as she is. And I don't say that to be cruel; it really does seem like Gottlieb is using this piece to explore her own unhappiness:
Now, though, I realize that if I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life, I’m at the age where I’ll likely need to settle for someone who is settling for me. What I and many women who hold out for true love forget is that we won’t always have the same appeal that we may have had in our 20s and early 30s. Having turned 40, I now have wrinkles, bags under my eyes, and hair in places I didn’t know hair could grow on women...And even if some men do find us engaging, and they’re ready to have a family, they’ll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children.
Ouch. Someone needs a little Stuart Smalley in their life. And if having to read through Gottlieb's personal neuroses wasn't bad enough, we're also subjected to quotes from her (decidedly asshole) friends.
Then there’s my friend Chris, a single 35-year-old marketing consultant who for three years dated someone he calls “the perfect woman”—a kind and beautiful surgeon. She broke off the relationship several times because, she told him with regret, she didn’t think she wanted to spend her life with him. Each time, Chris would persuade her to reconsider, until finally she called it off for good, saying that she just couldn’t marry somebody she wasn’t in love with. Chris was devastated, but now that his ex-girlfriend has reached 35, he’s suddenly hopeful about their future.
“By the time she turns 37,” Chris said confidently, “she’ll come back. And I’ll bet she’ll marry me then. I know she wants to have kids.”
Yeah, I just can't imagine why a woman wouldn't want to be with this charmer. But in all seriousness, we all know that the media likes nothing better than a woman telling other women how miserable they're going to be without a man. And that's what makes nonsense like this so dangerous - its potential reach. Gottlieb has already been on the Today show touting her article and going head to head with (sigh) professional matchmakers. Who knows how much more media attention this piece will get. Shit, she'll probably get a book deal out of it.
But no matter where this article ends up, it doesn't change the fact that it's pure crap, mixed in with a little sour grapes. (I'm betting it makes Gottlieb - who is so clearly dissatisfied with her life - just nuts that there are all these "disingenuously" happy single women out there. Better that they're matched up with losers than pursuing their own lives.)
So, to Gottlieb and all the others who think that us "old" straight gals should go back to the men we once rejected just so we don't end up miserable spinsters: STFU already. That kind of scare tactic nonsense may have worked in the 80s, but we're having none of it.