Time Crunch: Time to Reevaluate How We Use Time

It’s Back to School, and I, like every other parent, is crunched for time and bowing under the weight of pursuing personal success and supporting success for her children.  Much of it all comes down to Time.

Time for school.  Time for homework.  Time to relax.  Time to get them to bed in time for enough rest.  Time for self-fulfillment, time for self-indulgence (mine are only 6 and 3 years old, after all!).  Time for physical activity.  Time for musical and artistic development or enrichment.  Time for play.  Time for cleaning up and putting away.  Time for reading.  Time for imagination.  Time to talk and question and answer.

That’s a lot of Time for a working professional mother like me who also needs a lot of Time for herself.  Time for work, time for overtime, time for the commute, time for my personal projects, time with my husband, time for sports, time for hobbies, my siblings, my friends?  Time… so much Time that the more I write the word, the less it seems articulate, or even real.

But the repercussions of Time are very real.  According to current social mores, if your child doesn’t start lessons in a particular instrument or sport at a young enough age, the child will probably carry a lag compared to others (unless the child has unusual talent in the domain).  If your child lacks the maturity for certain math problems, the poor grades of the time will negatively impact the child’s record and/or confidence and may be set back from hen as the child will maybe be excluded from the higher math class from then on.  If your child doesn’t excel at standardized tests, there’s a chance that the child won’t be able to stay in that school that has to keep its pass rate high enough to retain funding.  It’s even worse for working parents and, above all, working women who, with or without children, suspected to take away too much Time from her work to care for babies, children, or elders.

Yet, if our society shifted from this standardized, timed success towards a more spherical time in which maturity and naturalness enabled each of us to grow at our own pace and in our own way, we would all be greatly enriched by gifts of maturity and wisdom that life experience carries.  

In the past, I have made the case for incorporating our understanding of quantum physics into our lives, setting up a system that obeys natural maturational processes and qualitative growth instead of always reducing everything to the ticking of measurement and quantification.  In the past, I have argued that we refuse to minimize our lives to a Tayloristic, linear logic of “then and than” and move onto a more quantum, spherical approach to learning and achievement with greater emphasis on accomplishment and growth instead of squelched memorization and graded success.

When we allow ourselves to grow with experience, with scientific method of hypothesis and testing, when we leave time for play and imagination, our children are likely to learn more quickly and fully than when they plug away at hours of homework every night after school.  When we take time to debate and constructively argue, we stand to gain much more knowledge and wisdom than memorizing dates and trivia.  This might not meet the quantified and quantifiable expectations of “then and than” linear time, nor does anyone probably have any Time for it… but it is more likely to build better thinkers.  Children who have sturdier building blocks for learning and retaining their acquired knowledge both at school and during their free time.  Citizens who have  better grasp on how things (objects, systems, relationships) work and therefore a better hold on their own lives and the weight of their vote. 

As a working mother want for Time and worried about her children being able to survive in our “then and than” linear timing and Performance Society, I feel the drag toward ticking away steadily without question, marching to the beat of the drummer as best we can with no slack to ever consider a different tune, a more harmonious rhythm that would enable our societies to start to dream again a dream of progress, improvement, fullness, and sustainable growth.

 And if we mothers don’t have time to help imagine and build a better society, who will?

 It’s time for us to be freed up from the race-time imperative and give time back where we need it most:  debate, quality progress, sustainable growth, critical knowledge.

Talk to you next week for another bite from the apple,

Eve

21st Century Ambitions Should be Multi-Dimensional and Collectively Empowered

It was recently brought to my attention that Deborah Spar, Barnard’s president, wrote a response to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article, “Why Women Can’t Have It All”.  Spar brought up the point that women should continue to let their ambitions breathe instead of stepping away too soon from the table, as has coined it Sheryl Sandberg, or give up their ambitions before even entering the game out of dread for being unable to have it all and for the anticipated guilt linked to juggling so much.  Spar argues that women deserve to be boosted in their ambitions rather than focus on the perils along the way.

I agree heartily that every individual should have his or her ambitions and be able to pursue them as an individual, his or her own “way”. 

However, I can’t help but notice that, once again, the heavy lot of pursuing one’s ambitions in a somewhat hostile environment is conceptualized as an individual’s plight only:  to make it there where few arrive, at the highest rung, no matter the personal sacrifice, and to make it there alone.

It has often been remarked that the woman’s movement allowed for women to enter the workforce… but only according to men’s conditions and rules; that somehow “she” had to be “a man plus some” to make inroads at all.  And while some women are changing the rules and gaining in clout (remember recent laments of “if only it had been Lehman sisters”), much of this world remains a man’s world.  Within it, individuals’ quest for selfhood and self-fulfillment has obeyed, and continues to obey, the andocentric “hero myth” in which the individual strikes out against all peril (albeit with many helping, expendable hands), kills/seduces the evil woman, all in order to achieve the ultimate prize or goal.  In this hero myth, the individual plays a linear, solitary, all-or-nothing game of singular purpose.  Modern women have taken on this myth for themselves, relieved to finely be free to pursue this hero myth from which they were entirely excluded for so long. 

The problem with this worldview is twofold.  First of all, such a singular purpose is not pertinent to many women (or men).  Second, much must be improved collectively, instead of condemning individual ambitions to being such a solitary struggle. 

1.        A singular purpose is incomplete for many

The hero-myth requires the hero-to-be to reduce his/her life to a single dimensional outlook. 

Yet, human reality and potential are far richer than that.  We are similar to quarks and could gain much by accepting that we are highly sophisticated, multi-dimensional, beings capable of embodying simultaneously multiple purposes and needs.  The tacit societal agreement to limit ourselves to linear paths (with a positive slope) and to singularity of being is neither necessary nor preferable. 

Yet, in the meantime, this worldview has led us down the slippery slope of exclusion.  How can it be that we are actually letting ourselves be convinced collectively that only 2 models exist:  having children or having a career… and that any alternative is symptomatic of inadequacy or symbol of infidelity (not engaged enough as a mother or not engaged enough as an employee).  How can it be that learned, insightful, thoughtful thinkers can follow a track that makes total abstraction of having children, a kind of Brave New World in which some will carry babies and others will think and act, dissociating entirely the stuff of life and some nebulous imperative of “ambitions”?

I’ve mentioned it in a past blog but I think the idea has not received the attention it deserves:  Kathryn Ann Rabuzzi wrote, back in the 1980s, about the need for a new myth:  the Motherself.  For men and for women.  It doesn’t mean having children nor does it mean giving oneself entirely to children.  It means erecting a model that is less solitary, less linear, less individualistic, and less uni-dimensional than our current hero-myth.  It means embodying more than one ambition (personal and professional); it means having a purpose that leaves room for others with us instead of making it a solo zero-sum game in which the winner takes all.  But, above all, it means society deciding to accept that quality of life nourishes quality of work; that productivity and performance will increase if and only if we allow each individual’s multi-dimensionality to bloom.

However, this is unlikely to happen as long as we shackle individuals’ challenges exclusively to individuals’ gains, which leads me to my second objection to nurturing the hero-myth perspective:

2.       Much can be improved collectively allowing individual ambitions to be less of a solitary struggle. 

In the midst of our performance society that so values domination, power and wealth (of an individual or dynasty), we are afraid of building with others lest it puts us at a disadvantage or doesn’t milk our own individual/familial achievements fully enough.  There are plenty of stories of parents writing their kids’ school papers or cheating to help their kids get ahead.  There are the voucher schools that weed the best&ambitious into one school, leaving the under-financed and under-privileged in another.  And so on and so forth.  This isn’t to point fingers.  This is to illustrate that we are all falling into the game of “I, against the world”.  And that, in our fall, we are losing hold of the sense of community a society requires and in which it’s a game of “I, empowered with the world”.

As a consequence, women’s ascension to meeting their ambitions are beholden to a solitary, zero-sum game (like the hero-myth but with even more demons to be beheaded than for a man).  It is often mentioned that women do not display the kind of solidarity that the “old boy’s network” has, and that oftentimes women are competitive with each other rather than helpful (or even simply empathetic)!  But it doesn’t need to be that way.

In each of my posts since last November, I have made the same plea:  in this 21^st century, it is time we, collectively, revalued family, intergenerationalism, interdependence.    We must revalue the collective, the constructive.  Pull away from the individualistic nuclear family and build our society, community.  Not like in a religion that dulls each voice to create unison but a community with humanist values that orchestrates a symphony or jazz session. 

Let’s face it:  it’s for false and contrived reasons that children be exclusively considered of negative value for a woman executive.  And there’s no reason every single woman must reinvent the wheel or take on singlehandedly every battle in tow in order to pursue her ambitions.  It is time that we foster a more spherical, holistic life scheme.  We must stop valuing only individualistic short-term performance and pursue sustainable development for people and communities. 

What does it mean “sustainable development for people and communities” and what are the steps to get there? 

And what does it mean concretely to shift from the hero-myth to the motherself-myth? 

Now that performance seems to have trumped living, making us lose touch with much of the richness inherent in our humanity, we are increasingly losing our liberty and our control over our own lives. 

How can we, as a community, reclaim our many forgotten strengths to positively shape this new century into a beacon of light and a springboard for progress for all of us, not just the elite? 

These are the issues I will be exploring over this new academic year.  Join the debate with me and let’s make this world the way we want it to be.

Talk to you next week,

Eve

Our 21st Century Should Pursue Collective Progress, Not Individualism!

An article in Forbes last week was brought to my attention; “Why Millennial Women Do Not Want To Lead” by Julie Zeilinger, founder and editor of FBomb.org.  In it, she concludes that despite “impossibly high” standards of achievement for women vs. “upsettingly low” standards for men, women should not shy away from leadership for “their intelligence and integrity are more than enough”. 

OK, but part of women’s trouble is that they are pigeonholed for their intelligence and their integrity:  perfect for constituting the dossier, and then have others take all the credit.  Or being outcast for being overly ambitious. 

There’s no doubt that women are given a harder time (as Ginger Roger summed it up, “I did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels”).  But the problem goes much deeper, for it touches on a societal trait that transgresses questions of gender and sex:  it’s our societal love affair with shows of power, of domination. 

It’s suggested that women lead with intelligence and integrity.  But are we socially prepared for such a switch? 

Do we collectively value integrity?  Not so often; or at least we waive it when it’s a figure we like – why else do mafia sitcoms and movies make blockbuster ratings?  A couple of years ago, there was the joke what if Lehman Brothers had been “Lehman Sisters”?  But safe bets and risk-taming measures and regulations do not have rock star kind of value and are systematically refused by half of the American population. 

Do we value intelligence?  Street smarts, maybe; business acumen that can make someone rich and powerful, sure.    But nuanced thinking?  It’s often seen as “weakness” – just consider the last couple of presidential debates and elections.  Critical thinking?  It’s slowly disappearing from educational curricula increasingly focused on skills and trivia rather than a solid, well-rounded education rooted in knowledge and critical thinking. 

And what about some of the other values Americans learn in kindergarten:  kindness?  Sharing?  No, we still trump with whatever will stoke the dream of making it rich, fast, with cold razor-sharp calculations or with no effort at all.  No, in our current mores, fame and fortune are exciting; kindness and sharing are for the suckers. 

For some of us, it’s a no brainer.  Cooperation is a key asset for performance and for survival.  It’s a key part of Darwinism – survival of the fittest is not only about competition but knowing how and when to cooperate.  But explain that to a conservative American who accuses any positive collective measures put forth by Obama of being “socialism” (as if it were a great evil!).  The truth is we are societally in awe of the powerful and aim to get there ourselves, at whatever our level. 

Love is often leveled out to sex which is leveled out to domination

Work, which used to include loyalty toward a company-wide endeavor and allegiance to the workforce, is all too often leveled to outsourcing, productivity fragmented into individualized skill sets so that some few individuals can get ahead while the many more get ever lower

Profit, which used to be reinvested into a company to improve R&D (research & development) and boost its employees, is now often leveled to a few wealthy shareholders’ returns, widening the gap if the figures are good… and widening it further if the figures are bad as they will choose to cut heads before lowering dividends.

We are letting it happen because of our awe of the rich and powerful

And/or out of fear for our own personal survival, attempting to be part of the elite so as to not find ourselves entirely disenfranchised.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  We can have a very productive and healthy society if we move away from such dogma (performance society, still-life identities, monotheistic beauty…).

One of the legs of the women’s movement was making the personal political.  But we’ve lost control of what makes up “personal”.  At the time, it meant using collectively each individual’s experience to help society progress.  But through the 1980s, then on through the 90’s and 2000’s, the “personal” because a very “personal” singular recipe for making it on one’s “own”.  Every person has been composing with his/her “own” to get ahead, make it big, make a break… or just make it through the day! 

And where has this left us?  “Every second’s a calculation”.  Each woman strives to live the archetype of each facet of a woman’s life, simultaneously… locked into her “own”.

And our current societal model is exacerbating that:  Nuclear family as opposed to community.  A walking portfolio of skills as opposed to a company of people.  A still-life, projected identity for others as opposed to a solid self concept with a sense of our individual and collective worth.  Personal/individualized intelligence and integrity as opposed to having higher expectations of our society for an environment conducive to collective progress.

It’s even got to to the extent that a single mother in the US is one of the most isolated members of our society as described in the NY Times.   And firing-up the debate as to whether women can “have it all”.  But how can we when we’re set up for every woman to take on the entire battle single-handedly and separately, individually?  Another article showed mothers proudly taking no breaks (no maternity leave), having babies for whom they’ll have no time and for whom they have no intention of making any space… because they’re going to try to do it all… individually.  And, with such models, how will those children cope?  Individually! 

The solutions we need now is to get back to the original call for the personal… A shift for making the “personal”… collective!

What does that mean? 

-          Continue protecting family planning and pushing for universal healthcare. 

-          It means reconsidering the nuclear family and how we can raise future generations more collectively (to at least give them a more collective mindset while freeing up more time for parents to balance career and family).  As says the Nigerian proverb, and taken up by Hilary Rodham Clinton, “It takes a whole village to raise a child”.  This is a great way of summing it up – we cannot do everything each on our “own” – economically and energetically, it isn’t sustainable.  Even these powerhouse, “superwomen” cannot sustain indefinitely doing it all on her own. 

-          It also means reconsidering work, collectively.  As says one mother who took very little maternity leave, “there is no way to have a ‘blissful maternity leave and also stay in the game’”.  Work is more cut-throat than ever and, she’s right, a short absence can be an irretrievable set-back.  But, is that necessary?  Must it be this way?  This is our society, our world, it’s up to us to demand change – but we must do it collectively.  There is enough scientific research to convince us that a company is most productive when its employees are in a trusting and empowering environment and feel a certain amount of security and motivation.  If a woman wants to have a baby and not miss a beat at the office, why can’t she do it from a distance? 

We must break out of this narrow-minded idea of individual gain and remember there’s little lasting individual gain without collective progress. 

Let me know what you think.

Talk to you soon for another bite from the apple,

Eve

Refining What 21st Century Progress Should Mean

I’ve recently come back from a trip to India.  As would be expected, they have totally different points of reference when it comes to societal codes. 

On the one hand, living of life that we keep behind closed doors or in back yards, they live out in the open, before anyone’s eyes to see: washing clothes, combing hair, feeding children, napping…   For a Westerner, it’s rare to glimpse what is usually private, intimate… and left me with a rather friendly invitation to focusing on our common humanity and daily lives. 

On the other hand, the sexual and the sensual so ostentatiously flaunted in the West are, in India, more latent and discreet. 

This got me to thinking about the society I would like to build, the one I would like to welcome my children; I got to thinking about what constitutes progress and how it comes about.

Oftentimes, countries that are emerging have the luxury of adopting the technological advances of the first world countries, then improving upon them thanks to a combination of their own vision and the benefit of others’ learning curves.   Instead of following the same slow curve of progress as the initiators, these countries can jump start at the heights where others’ progress has reached.  For example, despite widespread poverty, nearly 74% of India’s population (over 880 million), own mobile phones (http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_why-india-has-more-cell-phones-than-toilets_1655351) and enjoy stunningly low rates for communications compared to many first world countries. 

But does this same “progress curve” rule apply to social and societal advancement?

Looking around some parts of India, I witnessed this:

But what did I discover on the cover of the Indian publication of GQ?

This is practically racier and more extreme than Western standards, which are already in great need of revision.

What I find disturbing is for “progress” and, I suppose, “freedom” to have the face of images that are so deprecating for women.  Should modernity be represented by visuals that suggest a woman’s main value amounts to her surgically enhanced breasts?  Is this what we should be aiming for?  Should we allow a great international media machine to pull countries with much potential and richness to slip into anti-progressive attitudes for women as a sign of advancement compared to traditional attitudes?

Is it progress for one’s body to be a commodity?  Is it progress for the person to be reduced to a sexual object?  I don’t mean to imply that beautiful women can’t represent anything other than sex.  But I do mean to imply that every time we mainstream and focalize on pornography (which used to have a reserved time, place, and function), we sideline the other hard-won aspects of woman-become-subject (vs. the “object” Simone de Beauvoir so aptly identified at the beginning of the 20^th century).  This ostentation also raises the pressure on overly busy women trying to “have it all” to unreasonable standards of Monotheistic Beauty & body in the seduction game, as well as feeds unreasonable expectations in terms of our sexual performance (as opposed to sexual fulfillment)…

The more extreme this ostentation becomes, the harder becomes the backlash of who reject such extremes.  Take, for example, the resurgence of French women choosing to veil themselves.  For some, it is a means to reject this sex-centeredness.  For others, it’s a means of survival in their environment (the creation of the group called “ni putes ni soumises” in 2003 brought attention to the regressive choice for young French women living in the “cités” to dress in bulky sweat suits or veil themselves to avoid being cast as a hoar and become an easy target for slander or even rape / gang rape).  Another example is the adoption of “women’s only” space on public trains and subways in India to help protect women from unwanted staring, fondling, or worse. 

But, in a modernized and/or modernizing world, surely we needn’t resort to veils or segregation to shield ourselves from an unhealthy objectivizing gaze?

Artist Shreyas Karle collecting data for the “closed space fantasy meditation” and studying “camouflage to get around censorship”

I usually balk at these types of innovations because, for me, men should learn to control themselves and change their gaze rather than forcing women to cover themselves.  There is no reason for making the woman simultaneously the victim and the one to pay amends while the actual perpetrators are shielded from any responsibility.

After all, is progress about makeshift protection or about reevaluating the rights and obligations of each empowered member of a society?

But for this, we need to get collectively clearer on exactly what “empowered” entails in a progressive society.  I have already voiced my opinion on this subject, but India’s hesitation between the dynamic progress of human industry and superficial Western codes of sexual liberation has helped me realize other adjacent issues to be addressed and unintended consequences to measure:

·         Where is our frontier for intimacy?  There was an article a year or 2 ago about young women getting piercings in the vicinity of their pubis to reassure themselves there were still some parts of their bodies seen by a select few.  We exhibit more and more of ourselves, enabled by social media to spill out all of our private lives over the world wide web… creating a greater need for exhibitionism and approbation… and in turn leading us to build our sense of self and worth only through the other’s gaze.  Intimacy is a means for reclaiming our own prerogatives and preferences.  But when it is eroded, our defenses and confidence erode as well.  To give a concrete example, check out the youtube “am I pretty?” in which young women, even young girls, ask the internet to rate their beauty.  They are clearly tying up their self concept to others’ gazes while diminuing their intimacy and personal territory. 

·         Where may we safeguard a harbor for desire?  For longing?  Love and lust are increasingly commoditized and beholden to our consumerist expectations of instant gratification whereas the bylaws of more lasting and fulfilling relationships seem to build according to a slower dance.  We should start giving the market of love a little more substance and a little less “eye candy”.  But as long as love is misused as a way of confirming our self-worth and societal acceptance (like in the “am I pretty?” videos) instead of self-discovery and growth, we will be demeaning one of the world’s most important renewable resources and sources of hope and welfare.

·         What is our responsibility for protecting our children and How far can we allow media to go with its soft to hard porn without it creating new social norms that cross a serious (albeit unintended) line of fostering children’s sexual exploitation (cf. The See Hear Speak Campaign)? 

These are the kinds of questions no one wants to consider for fear of taking away liberties.  But the other day, when I was walking in the street in a Parisian suburb with a dress whose skirt flowed just above the knee, I felt quite uncomfortable and isolated as young men made suggestive remarks and the other women nearby were veiled.   Could it be that if we toned down ever so slightly our race to sex-centeredness, we could preserve our right to dress lightly in full confidence?  It’s time for us to establish our own conditions on these questions before we find ourselves all locked-in a bind, far from the real liberty and progress we’re seeking to preserve.

Let me know what you think.

Talk to you next week for another bite from the apple,

Eve

In this 21st Century, We, Men & Women, are Entitled to Demand "Having it All"

Just back from a trip to India, my intention was to comment on some of what I saw there… but that
will have to wait; I want to weigh in on the Slaughter article and the reactions covered by the Atlantic Monthly & the New York Times.

I agree with much, though not everything, of what Anne-Marie Slaughter writes in her article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”. In the past, I have actually made many similar points in this blog. For example,

- The workplace is out of synch with the realities of non-professional life, has given into quantity of hours/face time over the high value of quality of work; that for professionals to optimize performance, downtime, and time for other aspects of life (hobby, family, leisure) are key contributors to professional performance (for men and women, with or without children). I have also proponed pursing an “integrated I” (for men & women) to counter what Slaughter refers to as a “fetish of a one-dimensional life”.
- I also agree that the expected career curve needs to be revised considering the number of
decades we’re each going to invest in our careers: the idea that a few months of maternity
leave slows a woman’s potential and/or represents a lack of investment in one’s career
(apparently it represents an 11% gap that grows over time) is a flimsy excuse, not
a reflection of reality.  It’s utter nonsense (or simply discrimination) to decide such a short
leave out of 40 years plus of work should put such a hard lid on a woman’s career
development! Especially considering that the big fad is “mompreneurs”: women who start
their own businesses in order to have the flexibility of seeing their kids and having a career.
If someone can balance the bottom line of an entire business on her own while leaving pockets of time to spend with her kids, an employee is also likely to have the capacity to handle both while remaining performing… But such is not current corporate wisdom and mothers are generally suspect unless they exhibit total devotion. This is not just a glass ceiling, this is a glass cage!
- I even go further by arguing that, beyond kids needing their parents, adults spending time with kids (their own or someone else’s) is in itself an asset in terms of the insights it brings, the empathy
& relativism it fosters, and the joy it produces (children’s laughter is infectious), not the
mention our enrichment from the questions they ask and the solutions they provoke.

To tell the truth, what really surprised me was not so much Slaughter’s propos; it’s the reactions they drew. Half the writers didn’t even get the gist of her piece, which, for me, is as follows: with societal mores so much aligned with corporate capitalistic ideals, Americans cannot hope to “have it all”… but with a little more pragmatism, these mores can evolve and create a more propitious environment for a better work-life balance for everyone.  It’s a very positive proposition, even if it will take time.  But many reactions concentrated on details… and ended up either defending the status quo (“of course you can’t do both! It’s a spoiled child’s dream of ubiquity to think you can; adults make choices and stick to them”) or arguing it’s a non issue because many already “have it all” (even though each admit to an awful lot of regrets along the way).  Over all, many reactions showcased great inertia in terms of reframing our society and the potential we want to achieve.

I am not aligned with this criticism. There is a real, fundamental problem and it’s counterproductive
to dismiss the debate for details.  What is missing from Slaughter’s analysis are testimonials from other men and women than those among the elite.  What’s missing is the voice of second and third tier classes.  People like me who have great degrees from great schools, who aren’t trying to be number one but who want to have a good job and build a career… but who face everyday discrimination and suspicion of not being committed enough because I leave work at a reasonable hour to get home for my “second shift”.  People like me who have good heads on their shoulders, have acquired experience, have real value to contribute… but who discover an exceptionally low glass ceiling because we have kids and don’t want to entirely outsource parenting.  My argument is that I don’t see why I can’t expect to have an interesting job (not spectacular!) + a decent wage + a decent life balance.  That’s what “having it all” means to me.  And any of those journalists with their cushy salaries and their flexible, mobile professions can come to me when they pretend “having it all” is a fictitious and elitist predicament.  Why should we settle for less?!  Who dare feel comfortable with the idea that I and other people like me should be sidelined only because we have multiple priorities?!  I am fighting daily in this trench.  Slaughter is touching a major need eve if she isn’t the most legitimate spokesperson.  We need a good dose of realism/ pragmatism and catapult ourselves into the 21^st century with a demand for the society we want.  A society that’s a little more lucid about what actually constitutes worth and value.  A society that believes anew in progress.

Let me know what you think. 
Talk to you next week for another bite from the apple!
- Eve

The Unintended Consequences of Pursuing Flawless Beauty

Last fall, the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City held a special contest :  play casino to win.  But not to win money, to win cosmetic surgery processes ! Yes, in the “Nip, Tuck and Lift Sweepstakes”, the lucky winner would gain $25,000 for plastic surgery.

Not surprising considering our society’s focus on beauty (even though the lucky winner chose the cash prize instead of the surgery).  Just consider the many shows like “Extreme Makeover”, “The Swan”, or “I Want a Famous Face” in which the contestant’s unattractiveness is brandished and then exorcised by an extreme makeover.  The principle is clear: it’s decided she must look like someone else rather than herself for any hope to seduce or even have a regular life that is no longer so unhappy or full of rejection.

In our performance society, beauty is an arm, an asset, even a debt to be paid and without which an individual can be severely handicapped.   Professor of Economics Daniel S. Hamermesh recently published his studies in Beauty Pays in which he found that being less attractive can actually make you earn 10 – 15% less whereas remarkably thin women can earn $2,000 more each year than the average woman on the job.  For thin men, their salary averages less than $9,000 per year compared to their heftier colleagues.

Across Western society, there’s a great amount of anxiety about body image.  One 2012 study in New Zealand showed 86% of the 1500 women surveyed think about their weight daily.  In the UK, 75% of women and 80.7% men talk in ways that promote anxiety about their body image by referring to perceived flaws and imperfections, and children are increasingly younger to begin worrying about size and shape.  For example, according to the APPG Report on Body Image released this week, by the age of 14 half of girls and one third of boys have been on a diet to change their body shape (8 years old is the average age for a girl’s first diet).  Teenagers are particularly susceptible, pushing 70% of teenage girls to avoid participating in certain activities - including going to school - because of body image anxiety.

We’ve known about this for some time and benefitted particularly from Naomi Wolf’s great work exposing the “Beauty Myth” back in 1991… but Western mentality continues to be stunned by it and duped into servility. 

And because our performance society is exponentially growing with the media age, most everyone is getting cornered into building their projected identity, a kind of still-life identity they package and market… but which causes people to suffer all the more out of either fear or frustration of not having a body that’s adequate and/or in phase with whom they want to be (project to be) and how they want to be accepted.  With current technology and science, we’re able to resolve some of the issues to give us our best chances for feeling good about ourselves and for succeeding in what we choose to do.  After all, when a product isn’t selling, we change the packaging to help it hook more consumers.  It’s all fair play in our practice of “marketing me”.

That’s why so many speak with admiration of these kinds of procedures as Self Empowerment.  “She did it for herself,” they say.  “She was no longer embarrassed about herself.”  “She really gained in self confidence.”  And others comment, “all the power to her!”

And all of this is so pervasive that instead of liberating women from the beauty myth, we’re simply turning to men as a relay, “call it victor’s secret”.  Alan White, a professor of men's health at Leeds Metropolitan University, said: "These findings are worrying but not surprising. There's been a big increase in the numbers of British men having cosmetic procedures such as a nose job or removal of breast tissue; that's gone from almost nothing to quite a significant industry over the last 10 years. All this fuels the idea of the body beautiful and encourages a quick fix.

But is this really a story of Self Empowerment?  Or is this actually emptying us out of more qualitative possibilities?  And what are the unintended consequences?

1^st problem:  beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.  This leaves us beholden to others’ tastes and expectations rather than our own.   Furthermore, this acceptance (or ostracism) is unpredictable for, as David Riesman pointed out already back in the 1960s, the “other” can just as easily change his/her mind.  As a consequence, the fluctuations of subjectivity (or even just cattiness) end up making the quest for beauty actually disempowering.  It is never one’s to own.   

Relooking “coaches” and “consultants” say that changing one’s appearance is only cosmetic and doesn’t change “who you are” (still the same person) it seems clear that deciding to look like not oneself must come at a great emotional cost – even if the person enjoys the new attention, its seems probable that the relationships built post-relooking are tainted by the fact that without this look (disowning of one’s former appearance), the relationship would never have began.  That seems like a lot of unnecessary baggage to carry.  This strategy is stated to help people feel in greater phase with their true selves.  But it really amounts to picking oneself apart to look more like what we believe to be a gold standard to beauty.

2^nd problem:  beauty is ephemeral.  As ever evolving beings, our morphology and physical aspects continue to modify, leaving punctual beauty a tale of constant maintenance.  Be it cosmetic surgery or medicines, each have a “shelf life” and require regular renewal – and, of course, a renewed budget.   Furthermore, Vivian Diller, psychologist specialized in beauty and self-image, has found it’s a slippery slope: one surgery generally leads to more.  Getting eyelids done can highlight the need for neck surgery, etc.   A thirst for perfection is rarely quenched.   As a consequence, we become caught in a cycle of preservation and conservation… and, above all, a cycle of dissatisfaction and perfectionism… rather than nourishing our own interior beauty, growth, development.

3^rd problem:  current quests for beauty fragment the body.  If you look at the cover of almost any women’s magazine, you’ll see suggestions and promotions on how to change your buttocks or your thighs or your double chin or your breasts.  There’s a new product out that’s working wonders called Cellulaze,  a laser technology which can help you “zero in” on cellulite in order to banish it.  Here’s the sell:  Perfecting bits and pieces of our bodies, one piece at a time.  What a tayloristic idea of the body!  Studies have shown that people report increased satisfaction with the body part on which they had surgery but results are mixed on whether plastic surgery boosts their self-esteem, quality of life, self-confidence and interpersonal relationships in the long term.   

The point here is that we should be focused on the whole of the body, with a holistic approach to the body to go beyond only the physical and momentaneous to incorporate the many facets of the person.  Consider the Japanese economist Takuro Morinaga who has proposed to tax good-looking men due to their “seduction monopoly” and therefore help more homely men find wives by giving them a financial advantage in the seduction game.  Sounds a little crazy but the debate is now open and even being considered by Daniel Hamermesh mentioned above as a means to fight workplace discrimination based on looks.

But who decrees who is ugly?  And shouldn’t these men be working on their inter-relational and interpersonal skills to help themselves find a wife or a job rather than trying to quantify an ugliness handicap?  A person is a whole, not just a morsel.  We should synergize our personal resources instead of reducing and fragmenting ourselves into isolated bits and pieces.  After all, who can really determine the reasons behind one person earning more than another?  Maybe it’s only a question of beauty… but it’s likely that poise and confidence play an even bigger role.  As long as our attention is diverted to perfecting bits and pieces, we can’t build overall confidence. 

4^th problem:  normalized beauty as a prerequisite.  As David Le Breton has pointed out:  our society gives us the impression that we are responsible for our looks / the face we show.  Going even further, sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky has remarked that there is no longer anything tabou against wanting to improve one’s image… and that, on the contrary, what is now becoming “obscene” is to appear old or ugly considering the options we have at our disposal. 

The farther we push this folly of perfection, the more locked into it we will all become.  I am a regular-bodied woman somewhere between slim and not quite so slim.   What I would call “normal”.  But I have already found myself in group conversations in which all the women were slim to skinny and “joking” about going together to Morocco for promotional liposuction.  That these particularly thin women feel compelled to pursue liposuction is already disheartening enough; but what pushes my buttons is the ideal they’re seeking would make me abnormally fat.  On another occasion, an entirely different group was conversing one day about breast enhancement surgery, listing the women (most of whom were professionals, educated, married, and mothers) who had undergone the procedure – each time with some great rationale:  she had become so embarrassed, she hadn’t felt like a woman anymore, or having small breasts made her feel handicapped, abnormal.  And everyone applauds the great self empowerment the enhancement surgery has brought her. 

But did anyone consider the causes behind such self-dissatisfaction?  How does a “self” get so caught up in breast size?  And, if everyone carries a cup C, D, or E (because bigger is again abnormal), how will any selves be able to avoid it in the future? 

Another example:  Asian women’s eye-shape surgery and leg lengthening.  There’s debate as to whether it’s for meeting Western beauty ideals or if it’s their own beauty ideal but, to me, it illustrates clearly the self-rejection for which our Beauty god is being misused. 

For please don’t misinterpret my message:  beauty is a wonderful and enchanting aspect of our human lives.  So is feeling we look attractive.   So is seduction (even if more and more scientists are unveiling that attraction is also greatly determined by auto-immune system compatibility and other biological traits).  It would be naïve and even a shame to pretend beauty doesn’t or shouldn’t play a role in our lives.  The issue here is that Beauty has become Monotheism… and that we need to re-empower diversity.   

The current Beauty Monotheism is a great cloning machine that is anti-diversity, anti-difference, anti-individuality (a great paradox as we pretend that individuals play the beauty game to fulfill their individuality!).  We may use the individuality & empowerment excuse but the fact is that it’s conformity at work.  More and more often, we see other ethnicities in movies and modeling … but somehow they all look alike.  Even the beauty pageants in India are prepared and judged according to Western (and Caucasian) characteristics. 

As far as I can see, it’s our performance society forcing us to hook more “consumers”, and which can be counterproductive for our real need for deep and enriching relationships with others.   

But must we please and seduce EVERYONE?  I’ve already written about the “Confirmation Maze” and this trouble of needing positive feedback from everyone on their projected, still-life, identities. 

And must we be only consumables?  Bit by bit?

Monotheistic Beauty doesn’t follow such rigid standards when it comes to inter-human relationships… although it could become that way if we have never doted ourselves on anything with more quality and worth than just appearances. 

Above all, these short term fix-it strategies push us into a position of dissatisfaction and a posture that is very unforgiving of ourselves and of others (who, in turn, are unforgiving of us). 

And here’s the big question:  should the mission of our societies in which each citizen is expected to contribute come down to this type of quest for not just perfection but flawlessness? 

Is that the value that can best serve us?  As a society?  As a species?

Flawless beauty is divisive, stoking competition and egocentricity, it’s a centrifugal force that is far from optimal in a polis where we come together and cooperate according to ideals (gesellschaft) rather than tribal confirmations tied only to blood lines (gemeinschaft).

How can our society move forward when a disproportionate amount of time, energy, and other resources are being hostage to flawlessness? 

I will develop this further in later blogs but suffice it say here that this Monotheistic Beauty is a false god who will necessarily betray us individually… and, more importantly, collectively.  Let us put our minds, our resources, our intelligence, our companies’ Research & Development to more constructive products and services than quick-fix, enslaving beauty.

Talk you next week, for another bite of the apple! 

- Eve