Tectonic Shift
In a 3.2 N.Y. Times column about Colm Toibin‘s The Testament of Mary, a forthcoming one-woman stage show starring Fiona Shaw and based on Toibin’s novella, Maureen Dowd quotes a line that sunk in:
“All my life when I have seen more than two men together I have seen foolishness and I have seen cruelty,” Mary says about the disciples of her martyred son. “But it is foolishness that I have noticed first.”
For some reason this line woke me to what I believe is probably a very sincere longing on the part of many strong women today. They don’t just want more economic opportunity and increased power in business realms. They don’t want just a fair and equal voice in civic and cultural affairs and in government. With ample justification they feel genuine contempt for the way men have been running things over the last several centuries, and they’d like to basically take over and run the show their way and get it right. They want to live under a sane, less warlike and at least a semi-rational matriarchal society. I swear to God the older and wiser I get the better this idea sounds.
If a fundamental matriarchal power-grab would mean replacing bullheaded pistoleros like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the nihilistic Republican Congresspersons who don’t have a constructive or a fair-minded bone in their bodies and who would rather pull the temple down on everyone’s head than accept reasonable solutions then bring it on. And anything else you can throw in. Women are crazy in their own ways, of course, but they couldn’t mess things up any worse than Boehner and the rightie wackos have. Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren winning the White House in 2016…you name it.
Postscript: I have only one nagging hesitation about what I just wrote. I worked under exec producer Linda Bell Blue at Entertainment Tonight in ’98, and it was the most horrifically political and terrifying work environment I’ve ever known in my life. It was all about petty office power games and anxiety and who’s up and who’s down. Nothing in that environment was the least bit calm or serene. It was all about performing in front of your co-workers in order to convince them that you wouldn’t say anything bad about them when they weren’t around. Women were always conferring in their offices with the doors closed, and the subject was always other women who were huddling in their offices, etc. I naturally wanted to keep getting paid but I hated it there. Half the time I wanted to take gas so I wouldn’t have to deal with all the bullshit. I was 40% upset when I was canned but 60% relieved.
We have found the host for next year’s Oscars! If not, at least please make sure and forwardthis to the dimwits who wrote this year’s show.
The Testament of Mary was a great read. Highly recommend it.
I don’t believe most or many strong women want to run the world – it’s more about having an equal voice at the table. I’ve worked in a mostly male environment, and a mostly female environment. They both had drawbacks – but any place of work is going to have petty bullshit, regardless of gender composition.
The female alternative to Boehner and McConnell isn’t Hillary and Elizabeth Warren. It’s Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann.
Given that choice, I’m marginally happier with the status quo.
I would bet that Entertainment Tonight is even worse these days under that great survivor Linda Bell Blue.
So often you have to lead with the latest on some dumb reality show personality. At least they haven’t had Honey Boo–Boo as a special guest host….yet.
Up north ,here we even have a spin-off –ET Canada. Nancy O’Dell appears at the end with a plug for what is on the mother show.
Women are certainly willing to work harder than most any man, I’d say. Probably because they tend to do so anyway, often juggling work, home duties including taking care of the kiddies, and keeping hubby happy when called upon. Single women often work harder as well, usually for a lot less, and with children that have been left with them, often with little help, particularly monetary — even if the father in question has money to give. I’ve seen this happen more often than you might think. It’s tremendously annoying and I wonder if most men would even be up to taking on the same stress and demands. Could strong and intelligent women rule better? Hell yes. That said, the chief downfall of women is that they love to gossip and the term “bitch” is not entirely uncalled for when some women become the boss. Still, women can most assuredly be more canny and intuitive than men, gifts which could go a long way in navigating shark infested waters.
Irrational people believe that we live after we die, that politicians who agree with them are heroic, and that the best way to fight the damage of stereotypes and generalizations is with..nicer stereotypes and generalizations.
It’s like trying to freeze water in your stove by putting it on the lowest setting.
BOTTLEMAN SAYS….
Or oven. Stove or oven. It don’t make no difference. It don’t make no difference at all.