In response to last week’s posts on Virginia Woolf, which begin here, Melissa, who is the mother of nine children, writes:

Years ago in college I had to read Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and also in the same course Elizabeth Spellman’s Inessential Woman. Spellman’s thesis was that since we can speak of expressions of womanhood as being different in different times and places, the modern, Western ideas of what being a woman is are not essential characteristics. According to Spellman, when we say that women lack womanly qualities, and suggest that they then fail to be women, we are making a false argument since these traits are inconsistent over time and space, and therefore accidental. Instinctively I felt it was wrong, but could not suggest that in class. I needed this “Philosophy of Race, Sex, and Gender” course to graduate.

Later I read A Return to Modesty  by Wendy Shalit. The book had an adolescent flavor and was geared towards college girls but she was smart and both studied philosophy and questioned society. I don’t know if she had read Spellman, but she addressed the question of essential, inessential, and accidental traits of womanliness. She stated that there must be a set of traits that are essentially womanly because these traits (modesty, shyness, desire to please, compassion) run through all women in all times and places although the manifestation of these are influenced by things such as climate and local resources. Suddenly it was okay to suggest that some women actually are failing!
 
In college, but in a different course, I also read Reviving Ophelia  by Mary Pipher who was then a therapist treating women and teenage girls working through post-modern angst. She believed that this angst was caused by shyness, fear of appearing aggressive, and a desire to please others. She saw these traits as needing to be eradicated, hence the title in reference to the tragic character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.She was right that sexualization of teens, the objectification of women as sex objects, and the hunger of girls for male attention are killing the souls of young girls. But what she failed to understand is that these traits could protect them. Young girls with involved fathers would feel loved and not seek it elsewhere, especially so if they were shy and modest around boys and afraid to displease their parents. The angst arrives from not being able to protect themselves from the ills of society with the natural, essential traits of femininity. They were rejecting themselves and in turn subjecting themselves to the ills of a damaging society. Embracing these traits would actually save them and serve these girls into adulthood because they would strive to please husband and children and take pride in their work because it makes others happy. It is my contention that most women who work do it because combined with paychecks and awards and other carrots they can feel they have pleased others and have been thanked. That is really all they want, to be thanked for pleasing their bosses.

Laura writes:

These are great observations. It sounds like you were put through the feminist laundry in college. A woman could use a room of her own just to regain her sanity after all this brain-washing and spinning and drying: a padded room of her own.

The relativistic idea promoted by Spellman that there is no essence to womanhood is really an attempt to destroy that essence. Think of the effect that has on a woman’s mind just when she is embarking on adulthood. This utopian project has brought our society to a state of meltdown. Just think of what it has done to individuals and to their chances for personal happiness. As you say, “They were rejecting themselves and in turn subjecting themselves to the ills of a damaging society.” They were rejecting men as men and children as children at the same time.

“The angst arrives from not being able to protect themselves from the ills of society with the natural, essential traits of femininity.” This is an excellent point.

Melissa also says: “It is my contention that most women who work do it because combined with paychecks and awards and other carrots they can feel they have pleased others and have been thanked. That is really all they want, to be thanked for pleasing their bosses.”

Women do naturally desire to please. But, unless they are children or dim-wits, they know they can’t please everyone. Whom shall they please? The decision to abandon home for career is typically a mixture of selflessness and selfishness. This is why the issue makes people queasy. Many ethical issues are like this. If we could simply say every career woman is selfish or every homemaker is selfless, it would all seem easy and there would be no civil war among women. We cannot say these things with accuracy.

We can however approach the matter not from what is best for any given individual, but what is best for society. We can do this in the same way we might approach the issue of dumping pollutants in a major river. If one company dumps pollutants it might not be so bad and the water quality would be reasonably fine. But if lots do, we have a social and moral catastrophe.

Given the current state of things, every woman is implicated and every woman is potentially culpable. The river is a sewer. That’s why it is possible to justly say to every woman: Go home.  You have a duty to do it whether you like it or not, whether it is easy or hard. Go home.

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