I’ve been reading Susan Faludi’s The Terror Dream and Elaine Tyler May’s Homeward Bound side by side—in part because the books have similar themes and I thought it would be interesting to experience them as a pair, and in part because I get to meet Elaine this weekend. Whoo-hoo! It helps to be best friends with her amazing son.
Anyways…
I’m only about a quarter of the way through both, but already my mind is being kind of blown. I’ve never read two books that make the link between the personal—in this case family and gender roles—and the political—war, violence, global insecurity—so amazing clear.
Faludi’s argument is that the attacks of September 11th sent Americans into a frenzy of traditional, regressive gender roles. Images of burly firemen saving damsels from distress were everywhere, feminism was framed as irrelevant and newly immoral, and all of us were led to believe that it was not just “normal,� but our patriotic duty to fall into stereotypical gender norms (ladies, make babies and spend money; boys, don’t cry or puss out).
Faludi writes:
Taken individually, the various impulses that surfaced after 9/11—the denigration of capable women, the magnification of manly men, the heightened call for domesticity, the search for and sanctification of helpless girls—might seem random expressions of some profound and cultural derangement. But taken together, they form a coherent and inexorable whole, the cumulative elements of a national fantasy in which we are deeply indebted, our elaborately constructed myth of invincibility.
May’s argument is not so different actually, though she published Homeward Bound—now a feminist classic—in 1988. She argues that Cold War era political ideology about containment and control was mirrored in the home, where domesticity was newly lauded and gender roles were reinforced by consumer and popular culture. She writes:
…public policy and political ideology are brought to bear on the study of private life, locating the family within the larger political culture, not outside it. This approach illuminates both the cold war ideology and the domestic revival as two sides of the same coin: postwar Americans’ intense need to feel liberated from the past and secure in the future.
Seems like a pretty cut and dry case of history repeating itself, no?
I’ll keep you posted on the patterns that emerge from these brilliant women’s books. Let me know what you think along the way (this might take a few weeks).
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I suppose you can look at every event in history through a gender prism, and to some people, that would be legitimate. I suspect that for most fair-minded people, it's a stretch to view the events surrounding 9/11 through a gender prism. The events of 9/11 did NOTHING to hurt feminism, thank you very much.
True, most of the NYC Fire fighters were/are male, but they were rescuing not just helpless women but helpless men that day, and they, themselves, were largely helpless against a well-orchestrated terror network (the mastermind of which is still at large, because, for unfathomable reasons, we targeted Saddam instead of the man responsible for 3,000 American deaths).
And yes, the people on Flight 93 who charged the cockpit were mostly male (no, that wasn't a myth -- give the devil his due), but women played a critical role, too -- so what? How does any of that translate into a regression to traditional gender roles? It doesn't.
I suspect Faludi might have been reacting to certain conservative columnists who, at the time, were pounding their chests and bellowing, "See? Men ARE good for something!"
I got news for all of them: men never had any doubts about that. And those conservative columnists who chose to look at the events of 9/11 through a gender prism were just as off-base as Faludi.
Now, if you want to talk about the "macho" posturing about Axis of Evil, etc., you may think that's an inappropriate governing philosophy, and you'd probably be right. But that wasn't a gender thing, either. Mrs. Clinton (for whom I will be voting in the PA primary next week) and a lot of women were pounding their chests, too. I remember being in Times Square the day Afghanistan was attacked, with the incredible police presence, heightened security, etc. The fear was palpable. Chest-thumping may just be a natural reaction after you've been attacked. But that doesn't make it a gender issue. (The dumb part -- the immoral part, from my perspective, was in later focusing on Iraq.)
How any of that translates into America regressing to hold up June Cleaver as the model for American women is just beyond me. When war was declared, there were plenty of women in the armed forces, and for the first war in history, we weren't just worried about "our boys" -- now we were worried about "the men and women in the armed forces." (Thanks to women in the army, we have elevated "our boys" to the "men" -- another example of women helping guys grow up.)
But it's helpful, or appropriate, to try to explain everything through a gender prism. Nor to stretch a point to further a thesis. There were a hell of a lot of other factors at work shaping what went on surrounding 9/11, far more important than gender.
Should have said: But it's NOT helpful, or appropriate, to try to explain everything through a gender prism.
Noah,
You may not think it helpful to explain everything through a gender prism. There are many blogs, books and other media that examine things through a different prism - they are easy to spot because they usually don't have "feminist" in the name. At feministing, the bloggers are committed to examining things through a gender prism so that we can understand how events affect women differently than they do men. 9/11 has had such pervasive effects on our country - I think examining the events through any prism you can come up with would yield compelling analysis. We can't discount the fact that it has influenced women in a specific way as it has affected Arab-Americans in a specific way, as it has affected consumption patterns in a specific way and as it has affected numerous other things in a specific way.
If you don't want to think about things through a gender prism, don't read the books. But don't dismiss it like it doesn't matter.
You make some great points Noah. I think what you miss about these books--and the gender lens in general--is that it isn't professed (or shouldn't be) as the ONLY way to see, just one interesting and telling way. Faludi herself talks about how many factors and sociocultural shifts playing into the events of 9.11, but she is particularly interested in gender. Further, some of the points you make--that there were men being saved by men etc.--are exactly her points. Why weren't these given equal time in the media? Why are women soldiers all but invisible unless they get captured or abuse prisoners?
Iris Marion Young has an article called "The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State" that's really interesting, and along the same lines.
Here is the link: http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/eide/files/young.pdf
Noah--
I understand your point, and if that were at all the way that Faludi frames her argument, I would agree with you.
However, I have read the book, and the argument is not that 9/11 happened because of gender, or that gender was weirdly stratified in REALITY--it's a deconstruction of the media response to a complex reality, and how their simplified response frequently gendered things. When you make your points about men also being rescued, and women also being on those planes, you are making Faludi's points for her. Nothing you said about the events actually contradicts or undermines anything in her book. Read it and make a more nuanced criticism?
I have yet to read Faludi's book, but have now put it on my list to read asap. What a relief to have some kind of explanation for the sudden cult of marriage and pregnancy that seemed suddenly and inexplicably trumpeted from the tabloids these past several years.
"Images of burly firemen saving damsels from distress were everywhere."
----------------------------
There's no "images" to it. It was reality. Young men boldly risked their lives rushing into a building (that could fall any minute) saving STRANGERS.
And what? This is somehow patriarchy at work?
Men dying saving women is patriarchal? Come again? If we lived in a patriarchy shouldn't we have 1million volunteer (i.e. unpaid) firewoman across the US instead of men?
If there had been one single female firefighter that died in 9/11 her face and name would have been EVERYWHERE. But since there wasn't it's a conspiracy.
Yeah the patriarchy is so evil they devised a plan for men to die to save women's lives--GOOD PLAN!
BTW: interest in the firefighters died VERY QUICKLY. Within months.
Jabes1966 as I understand it isn't that women were rescued, it's that more men were rescued than women, yet the majority of the images shown were of women being rescued by men.