Over thirty-five years ago in my college dorm, an extraordinarily beautiful 19 year-old woman lay down on her bed to die in a black cocktail dress and pearls . An empty bottle of sleeping pills was found by her body and a brief suicide note. Her last words - I know I will never be more beautiful than this.
As the year draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on unfinished items in my life that cry to be examined. This is one. This suicide is what first pulled my attention to the Feminist movement and all these years later, pulls me to look at feminism today.
I come from a family of women - aunts, sisters, daughters, nieces, and now granddaughters. The message we have received from our culture has been remarkably the same. My mother and aunt's generation - you don't have to go to college, you're going to get married. My sisters and my generation - go to college, your husband will want an educated wife. My daughters' generation - go to college and grad school maybe, because you'll probably need it to pay the bills and to find the kind of husband you should be marrying. And for all of us, be beautiful, appealing, act soft and comfortable, even if you're not. Be conciliatory, acquiescent, agreeable, take care of your figure, your hair, your face. That's what women have to sell and you only have so much time to sell it. Market it, honey!
On the one hand, my daughters do have it better. Enormous strides have been made in all areas of higher education, business, politics. Young women can look out and say, everything is possible for me. Chances are they won't have to sit there, as I did in the early 70s, and have their male boss yell at them that they are taking away a good job from a man who needs it to support his family. Capped off with-"your husband has a really good job - you don't need to work". No, they probably won't have to experience anything that unsubtle. But they will struggle with unequal pay, lack of advancement and sexist jokes.
On the other hand, the message - BE BEAUTIFUL - is even stronger and coupled with BE YOUNG. As we have moved into the boom years of being a consumer economy, the objectification of womanhood has intensified to a frightening degree. To keep girls from birth to old age on a hamster wheel of consumption, the marketing barrage tells them they are too fat, hair isn't fashionable, clothes aren't right, they're too old and it shows. Consume, consume, consume and you may get it right. Feminine insecurity is big business. After all, if you're not perfect your husband is going to dump you for the little hottie in sales. Eating disorders, maxxed out credit cards, comestic surgery. You'll get it right sooner or later - hopefully, later.
So I worry about my granddaughters and the messages they'll absorb. I worry about all of our daughters and granddaughters. Will your 8 year-old ask you if she's fat? Will your 12 year-old want "plumped" lips or her nose fixed for her birthday? Will your 13 year-old fret over whether or not she has perfect thighs according to Seventeen magazine? Will the wardrobe battles, wear you down and out? Will your 19 year-old just see an unending road of old-age decay ahead of her?
A consumer economy is run on monumental lies to keep itself running. All our daughters are at terrible risk. Love them, keep them safe, let them know that they're beautiful just because they are who they are. Unmask the lies to them every day.
The young woman who killed herself so long ago will never know if she had a beautiful mind or heart or spirit. All she had was a beautiful face, her black cocktail dress and her strand of pearls.