another completely aggravating moment in the science of women

[rm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/fashion/11talk.html

I hate the New York Times with such a seething passion. And the whole medicalization of the state of being female.

Because having close friends is why girls obsess on their problems and are unhappy. It couldn't possibly be every single media image they see telling them worry about this stuff. Oh no, we make it up, and then spread it like contagion.

I know it must seem at least marginally weird to some of you when I get all defensive about hideous articles and studies that seek to define the female condition, since my experience of it is at least marginally atypical from my privilege to my sexual orientation to my playing with gender.

Certainly, I know I worry that my own distance from perhaps a more typical female experience comes from some sort of internalized self-hatred or bias that is rooted in these utterly grotesque attempts to understand the female by science and the media (and what is up with that? We're a slim majority on this planet, so why in bloody hell are we always treated like exotic and poisonous birds).

But regardless, I know that I feel the pressure of my female gender in nothing so much as the ways in which I am expected to be broken. But I am not broken in those ways. And I have to believe, fundamentally, that this is not a result of my own peculiar gender identity, but my very strong suspicion that everything these studies tell us about girls and women are lies.

Because if they weren't, I couldn't be all these people I am, and I would have folded in on myself a long time ago.

Comments

[blackbird-song.livejournal.com]

We're a slim majority on this planet, so why in bloody hell are we always treated like exotic and poisonous birds

This is a question I've been asking since I was disabused of the notion (at age 5) that women ruled the world. Since then, I've been cracked and sometimes broken by those inflicted stereotypes and studies, but I also know enough to keep trying to put myself back together and reknit the cracks.

"Co-rumination" in its literal sense (as opposed to the appropriated meaning promulgated by the psychologists mentioned in the article) is a very useful tool. Perseveration is not, and I think that they're conflating these phenomena. It's certainly possible to spiral down into a vicious and destructive cycle by rehashing the same thing over and over, and it is also true that some people have a harder time than others with getting stuck in such patterns.

None of this excuses the NYT's clumsy over-drawing of the issue, or the heavily implied message that girls should just shut up about what's bothering them and should only seek supervised (read: censored) solace or advice from their peers. We've been getting that message that women should shut up for centuries. How on earth is this news? How on earth is it anything other than a further backlash against the progress made by women since they gained the vote?

I'm glad that you've maintained your skepticism about these studies, and congratulations on refusing to be broken or to fold in on yourself. Thank you, also, for pointing us to this article. It is always useful to see both what we're up against, and that there are intelligent people who denounce it for the rubbish that it is.

Catherine

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

When I first saw this article, I thought they meant 'rumination' like, cows chewing cud; I thought it was about some bizarre eating-disordered behavior where the young women all chewed the same food. I am not kidding, it didn't occur to me that they meant 'girls talking to each other'.