“Why is it,” my coffee companion wondered, “that you women seem almost eager to give up the gains of feminism?”
As the father of a bright 14-year- old girl, he must ask himself that question all the time, I thought.
“Because we want to be adored,” I answered. “Because, maybe, when the chips are down, it’s the pretty girls who survive.”
I startled myself with my own candor, but later, I thought, perhaps things hadn’t changed that much since Elizabeth was queen of England, and Mary putatively ruled Scotland, in the 17th century. Whereas Elizabeth’s precocious acumen and independence worried every man around her, Mary, who charmed men with flirtation and beauty, was universally admired and adored.
William Shakespeare, of course, created the original young, helpless female character. Ophelias abound in the school where I teach young adolescents. The wealthier ones join the “emo” group of kids, and you rarely see them when they aren’t either crying or laughing (thoughtful consideration seems somehow beyond their range). The poorer girls often engage in girl wars, screaming and sometimes even physically striking out in locker rooms and hallways. They spend afternoons in the principal’s office, sobbing through conferences with administrators.
Of course, there are girls who engage in neither emotionality nor fights; they quietly do their work, and we teachers struggle to make sure they get the attention they’ve so richly earned. Sometimes, a girl demonstrates her skills and intelligence assertively in class, but you rarely see these girls in groups. Middle school’s a tough world for a bright, independent girl.
But at a recent bridal shower, I wondered about us grownups. There we were, 10 middle-aged women, celebrating the slender, beautifully gracious bride. She’s marrying the perfect man, apparently, and she’s no sluggard herself: She can afford a well-appointed home and vacations abroad on her salary as a technical writer.
But we all look pretty good. We wear alluring makeup, clothing designed to make the most of our assets, and, as women of the 2010s, we shave or pluck, it seems, everything. We visit the gym more often than our male partners. Most of us have found that slender ladies with big hair simply have an easier life than chubby ones.
Perhaps we don’t live all that different from either the women of the 17th century or my Ophelia girls, I thought.
Then I remembered Rawlings, Wyo. Tim and I stopped there for lunch on our vacation drive to Seattle, and we sat at the diner’s counter. I fell into a conversation with a very wrinkled lady next to me. She and her husband spend several months of each year at the reservoir north of town, in a sort of semi-permanent camping facility. They have a trailer there, and everyone’s friendly.
I must’ve looked doubtful about Rawlings’ charms, because she attempted to prove that it was a great place for a vacation. She showed me the tourist brochure, pointing out all the sites of interest, including the mansion, the hot springs, the prison museum. But she’d never actually visited these places herself. “He won’t go,” she nodded in the direction of her cowboy-hatted husband.
“So why won’t you go alone?” I wanted to ask, but the question seemed frankly unanswerable.
I thought about my 10th “fourteener” climb of last summer, with some women friends. None of our male companions was along: Mine was working; Linda’s was cycling in New Hampshire; Dawn spends summers alone on top of Trout Creek Pass.
I wish we could have taken the wrinkled lady along. We’d have shown her she’s just fine, even without her man.
Eva Syrovy (evasyrov@) of Colorado Springs is a special education teacher. She blogs at .
