My wife just linked me over this comment from the Spearhead by CorkyAgain, along with her own comment: “Sounds like your extended family.” It does, in a lot of ways, and that’s relevant because it played a big role in how things got to where they did. I’ll shade over some of the details (mostly to remove identifying information), but the gist of the story is this:
My mother’s family is one of the most… non-radically? feminist groups you could possibly find. I say “non-radically” because mostly they aren’t man-hating lesbians or anything, and they’re pretty reasonable people. But I think this tale is also one of how less radicalized feminism can have detrimental effects.
The family is, for want of a better term, “academic aristocracy.” My maternal great-grandfather (mother’s mother’s father) got his PhD from Harvard and was the dean of a university science department. My maternal grandmother, his daughter, got a bachelor’s degree in the 1940s, back when it was still pretty uncommon for women to do that. She met my grandfather while pursuing it, and he went on to make some major discoveries in the same field and later to head a government research laboratory. His grandfather (I believe; I’m a little fuzzy) was also a professor. The two of them had four daughters.
The four daughters were, of course, baby boomers, raised in the era of feminism. Given that their mother had earned a degree at a time when it wasn’t common, it shouldn’t be any surprise at all that three out of the four sisters have college degrees. I’m actually not sure about the 4th; I think she never got one, but she easily could have. Instead she married a man who got accepted to med school without an undergraduate degree (but decided not to go) and they lived a happy hippie life together. Out of the 4, I think she’s the only one who’s achieved any measure of true happiness. One of my aunt’s has a PhD now (and is married to a professor), another is a teacher with a master’s degree. My mother also has an undergraduate degree that has never once been used in relation to the job market.
My grandfather, of course, doted on his four little girls. The family wasn’t super rich, but they were fairly well to do (and he did well enough that he left my grandmother pretty well off when he passed away). And, of course, he was a relatively liberal guy raising four daughters in the era of feminism – four women who now think they’re the hottest things out there.
As for my father, he was always around as I was growing up, and he and my mother are still married (practically unheard of for boomers, I know). Unfortunately, however, his father died when my father was a small boy. He was essentially raised by a single mother. My father’s a good guy in his own way and taught me some great life lessons, as a father should. But being raised without a father impacted him greatly, and later impacted myself and my brothers (and yes, my sister, too).
The point of all of this is that I grew up in a very feminized family. My maternal grandfather kept that side of the family mostly in check while he was alive (he was definitely the patriarch of the family, and a pretty alpha guy). But after he passed things started slipping. My grandmother, god bless her, is a wonderfully nice and proper woman. But she doesn’t have what it takes to rein in four women with super-inflated modern American egos.
Don’t get me wrong. They’re all smart women with decent life histories and they’re not bad people. They’re also nowhere near as awesome as they think they are. Family gatherings have degenerated over the years from true, solid family gatherings to group wank-fests about how awesome the four sisters are. Of course, it’s four women involved, not four men, so it can’t even stay that. In the background there’s always the catty infighting over who’s the best. My kids did such and such. Did you see how her kid was dressed?
Don’t bother trying to call them on any of it, though. Didn’t you know? Our family is far too enlightened for that. We look past all the external appearances and judge people for who they really are on the inside, of course. Except not really.
I’ve noticed that, in general, the women who proclaim the loudest that they don’t play the female status games are the ones who are most ruled by it. Normal women who accept it are at least honest about it, and can sometimes even overrule it. The women who refuse to acknowledge it can’t even try to fight it.
As a result of all of this, my siblings and I were all raised in a detrimentally feminized way. My sister really is a radical man-hating lesbian (perhaps without the lesbian part, but I’m honestly not sure). She’s 36, childless, and miserable. My brothers are ridiculously beta and well into their careers as Average Married Chumps. I was well on my way to that fate until my wife helped me understand that it wasn’t what she wanted.
I spent too much of my life listening to all of these women list exactly what they wanted out of men and life, and then tried to give it all to my wife. The thing is, none of them really want any of it. Two of my aunts are definitely the pants-wearers in their relationships, and they’re miserable (even though their husbands are FANTASTIC catches on paper). My father is reasonably alpha in comparison to my mother, but only by the accident of having Asperger’s Syndrome. My final uncle is definitely the alpha in the relationship (even if he is a dirty hippie), and my aunt who married him is by far the happiest of the lot.
My cousin’s aren’t immune from the carnage. One cousin has chosen to live her life almost exactly as they told her she should. She has a useless degree and lives her life following an environmental cause. I think the cause itself is ludicrous – but unlike most in that camp, she’s actually living the life she preaches, and I respect her for that. Nobody else in the family does. They smile and grin over it, because she’s doing exactly what they’ve said she should, but they all think she’s dirty and beneath them. Another cousin lives his life under a domineering woman who desperately wants him to just turn her over his knee, spank her, and set her straight. If he did it, I think they’d have a pretty happy marriage despite some real difficulties. I think he manages about 30-40% of the time, or they’d probably have divorced already. He’s doing better at it than my brothers, at least.
Nobody really enjoys the family gatherings much anymore except for my grandmother, and she’s the only reason I still even go to any of them. At her age, it’s about all she’s really got. Oh, they go on and on about how great and wonderful our family is, and how family is the most important thing. But when family’s around, they mostly just act annoyed. When family actually needs help, they mostly just ignore it, act irritated, or very grudgingly help out.
This, my friends, is a portrait of your “educated elite.” My son is not yet a year old, but I agree with CorkyAgain – when he’s old enough, I hope he spends his time with family he enjoys, but most of all I hope he doesn’t spend it with family he feels forced to see. I hope his family is there to help him when he needs it, to point him in the direction of a truly happy and healthy life, and to enjoy his successes with him – not to tear him down behind his back and play silly status games.
Still, I can’t complain too badly. Unlike many of my generation, I grew up in an intact family and reaped a lot of the benefits thereof. And I had the good luck (or good sense) to marry a girl who could show me a better way when the right time came.
