Innocence Denied

My daughter, my only daughter, is twelve years old. She is almost as tall as I am, has glasses, shoulder-length brown hair, and retainers on her teeth.

She is in the sixth grade at a Catholic school, and is fairly innocent of the ways of the world, as much as is possible with two older brothers who taught her to mainline The Simpsons way too early. But other than that, I think I've held the line pretty well.

In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, in response to something she heard on the news she asked me what a "prostitute" was. She read an article in the entertainment section earlier this week on Friends, and she asked me what it was about, and then, perhaps because the article referenced it, she asked me what Sex in the City was about. I told her briefly and said, "Some people call it Sluts in the City."

"What's a slut?" She asked. Completely seriously. She had no idea what it meant.

So anyway, I have this no-so little girl anymore who loves her friends and sports and music and the theater. She is at the age where she is, quite obviously, looking around her and trying to figure out who she is supposed to be as a person. As a female person.

So she watches me - always too closely, as kids do. She watches the mothers of her friends (always cooler than me, and that's okay.) She watches her female teachers.

And in her spare time, she watches old movies, and she curls up with books. This week she read An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott, and, coupled with her reading of Alcott's other books, and the Ann of Avonlea book, I can see her observing those girls and women, too. In another time, certainly, but in the context, smart, independent, strong women going off and doing their thing, striking out into the big city or into where ever life takes them, resolute, thinking well of themselves because they are - good people. Because they are, simply people.

So there she is, and I can see her watching all of this, and in some way modeling herself after the qualities she likes the best. She likes the fantasy, probably not even possibly realized since about 1953, of being the gal who sets out for the big city, willing to write great articles and thick novels, or try out for the Big Show, or, as she said to me one night, "Just come home to my apartment, sit at my piano, and play jazz."

A fantasy, yes. But not a bad fantasy.

But, of course, there are other places to look, and as hard as I try - yes- to protect her from this, and shield her eyes - she sees it. She sees it in some of her classmates, who are on the fast track to Popularity, and have been since 1st grade. She sees it if she flicks on a video, or listens to some kinds of music, or happens upon a certain movie, tv show or add.

And what do they say? They say - here's who you are, as an American female in 2004.

Be, essentially, a courtesan. That's where your life and priorities should be - in preening and flaunting your sexuality, and centering your life on when you get laid, by whom and how often.

My heart breaks, because it is so horribly diminished. My anger grows because I fail to see, with this as the fruit, what cultural feminism has brought our daughters. And I go back upstairs, resolute, to not give up, and to teach my daughter, as my mother taught me, to refuse to be defined by this oppression, for that is what it is. There is no freedom in this. And ultimately, there is no joy.

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A clarification I put in the comments, and will repeat up here:

I'm a feminist. Some of you terribly wise commentors may not believe it, but I am.

But my comment was on the practically negligable impact of what some of us thought feminism was supposed to be about on the portrayal of women in culture.

My point is similar to a joke I heard someone - maybe Dennis Miller - make in the aftermath of the Woody Allen/Soon Yi business.

"Woody Allen's been in therapy for thirty years. Here's my message to his therapist:

Good job!"

I think it is questionable whether the form that feminism has taken on the cultural stage, within the context of an aggressive commercial culture has made it more or less possible to critique negative imagery of women in culture.

My stance would be that the direction has taken has made it less: In the name of freedom - not just for women, but for all of us - limits are the only unpermissable thing.