Another Article that Shames Women into Accepting Traditional Gender Norms

In this article from what another commenter here termed the “Daily Hate Mail”, Anna Pasternak continues the long-standing tradition of shaming women who don’t conform to the traditional model of Western womanhood. I know that similar articles have been covered here before, but the definition of femininity that Pasternak promotes here is so constraining and, for most of us, erroneous, that I couldn’t resist the opportunity to pick it apart.

She opens her article by recounting a couple of her dating experiences with men who are clearly insecure when faced with a woman who is successful in her career. A doctor tells her that she is “not in touch with her femininity” because she doesn’t “flirt or wear much make-up”, and a “successful, high-profile entrepreneur” tells her that she is “so in control [that it’s] scary”. Instead of pointing out the rather obvious fact that these men are trying to hide their own insecurity with their moralizing, Pasternak takes their comments to heart and embarks on a quest to embrace her “core femininity” (which translates here as retrograde ideas about what it means to be feminine).

Firstly, Pasternak and a friend deem self-sufficiency as an unfeminine trait, blaming even such seemingly harmless tasks as making their own travel plans and setting up Christmas trees for their feelings of unease. I booked a plane ticket today, and I don’t feel any more or less feminine now for doing so. By declaring that making decisions for herself and her children on her own is “unfeminine”, she promotes the popular anti-feminist notion of the proper woman being childlike, which seeks to make adult women constantly and wholly dependent on men. Even in 2008, helplessness and subservience are still being promoted as facets of “proper” femininity.

Also, she tries to give her readers beauty advice but contradicts herself so much that the piece becomes incoherent. Her wardrobe consultant, Kira Jolliffe, gives her some actually good advice, like wearing clothes that make you feel attractive whenever possible as opposed to just for special occasions. However, she falls into the double bind of dressing “femininely” (which she never really defines) without any visible effort.

Jolliffe’s other concrete piece of advice is for women to use “really expensive body cream” in order to get in touch with their bodies. Personally, I prefer other, less costly methods of getting in touch with my body, like jogging, dancing around my living room in my underwear, and masturbating. Sure, if expensive body cream is your thing, I won’t deny you the pleasure. However, I can’t help but see the explicit suggestion of an “expensive” beauty product as the tool for establishing a positive connection with one’s body as suggesting a dependence on the product (along with the assumption that the readers can afford said body cream). She also recounts a conversation with a cosmetic surgeon about the supposed need for women to “get in touch with their soft side” that results in Pasternak receiving Botox injections.

Her conclusion parrots the words of many an anxious anti-feminist that women must be passive, compliant, and loathe to compete with men, Under the guise of self-actualization, Pasternak promotes a vision of what it means to be female that denies the needs and goals of real women and cultivates an unhealthy dependence on men and products (notwithstanding the fact that the money earned from her career is necessary to procure the products she deems necessary to attract the men upon which to depend). Jolliffe tells her that “femininity is about authenticity”, but Pasternak is arguing here that all of us who are not happily passive, submissive, and domestic women need to deny our true selves and conform to that definition of femaleness.