On women and guilt
I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value.
You can mock me for going all Randian, but I think women REALLY need to get with this way of thinking. It’s an emergency. To wit: I couldn’t help but nod in agreement with Sandra Tsing Loh (for whom I once had the pleasure of cooking dinner) as she commented for this Observer piece:
It must be very confusing. We were the protégés of old-guard feminists: ‘Don’t have a baby, or if you must, have one, wait till your 40s.’ We were sold more of a mission plan and now you guys … Well, sadly, it all seems like kind of a mess. There is no mission. Even stay-at-home moms feel unsuccessful unless they’re canning their own marmalade and selling it on the Internet. You just have a bunch of drunk, depressed 45-year-old ladies going, ‘A-BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!
Not a day goes by when a female friend of mine doesn’t talk to me of her guilt - her nagging, perpetual guilt. One feels guilty because she loves her job and feels she needs the relief and adult interaction it offers in order to be a better mother. Another feels guilty because her kids are finally old enough to be at school and instead of selflessly giving to her family 100 percent of the time, she’s taking a few hours a day to do things for herself. I even have a friend who feels guilty for “only” mothering and running the family business full-time.
The Biblical story of women being cursed by the pain of childbirth seems to have built its plot around an inferior hurt. All of my friends who are mothers say that, no matter how much hell labor put them through, it was worth it and not something they thought much about afterward. But day in, day out, so many of them put themselves through the excruciating trauma of unearned guilt. This suffering is irrational and fruitless, and thus much more damaging than even the worst child delivery. Women, please knock it off. Your guilt isn’t helping you, your kids, your husband, the planet, or the plight of beleaguered women anywhere. It’s just grinding you down and wasting resources you should be spending on other endeavors. As writer Maggie Jackson says:
I work on pursuing my dreams and battling my demons. Happiness follows.
I think more men than women know and truly believe that they were made to be happy, joyous, and free. Women, instead, set to work making their own misery in order to feel worthwhile. But not all women: I’m reminded of an interview that Nigella Lawson gave after her mother, sister, and husband* all died of cancer. She remarried several months after the last death, with lots of people claiming it was “too soon”. Her take?
Some see me as a tragic heroine, and that’s what makes me acceptable to them. The idea that I might be happy is unforgivable. Well, I’m sorry. It’s better to be happy.
Women, listen to Nigella. It’s better to be happy. Nobody - not your kids, not your husband, not your God - gives you bonus points for unearned guilt. Figure out whether you really deserve the guilt and whether or not it’s telling you something important about your life. Then yes, battle those demons and pursue your dreams. The rest is just an exceedingly immoral waste of human life.
*John Diamond, Nigella’s late husband, helped me get my first start-up job as a web editor in the UK. On the topic of his wife’s happiness - or, as he put it, “who’s going to be banging Nigella after I’ve stopped” - he said, “It really doesn’t worry me. As far as I’m concerned, as long as I’m slightly tepid in the grave I’d hope she’d get round to it as soon as possible - metaphorically and literally.”
Filed under: Life
Jackie: John Diamond’s autobiography “Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations” had really struck me with its brutal directness and honest exploration of a man’s self and suffering. It’s a shame that such clear thinkers leave the world too early… But on the core of the post: I have often wondered where women get this guilt from. Mainly because I believe this is not “wired” but “learned” behaviour. For what could be the possible “evolutionary” explanation for guilt? So where do women learn from? From parents who criticise certain choices? If so, do mothers play a greater role in projecting and passing on their guilt more than fathers? (In my observation, broadly speaking, fathers indulge girls a lot more than mothers do, while mothers reserve attention for sons to a greater degree). From partners and spouses? In which case how is it that men, who are indulgent of daughters, feel it valid to push all this guilt on to their spouses and partners? For my part, I have lost count of how many friends’ husbands now refer to me as “the feminist” just for nudging their wives out of their mire of guilt. My reply? I smile and say it is a much better label than “the misogynist”. ;-)
Shefaly, I do wonder if this is a phenomenon unique to western women. It seems that, in other parts of the world, a woman’s role is so rigidly defined that it probably would not occur to her to feel guilty so long as she is delivering what everyone expects of her. (She may feel guilty for not enjoying it, but I suspect a strong sense of duty trumps guilt.)
Obviously I’m not saying that women having more choices than ever is a bad thing, or that women would be happier if they had fewer rights. But I think the guilt comes from possessing incredibly high expectations of oneself - higher expectations than women have had at any other point in history, perhaps. This can lead to not being quite sure whether or not one is doing the right thing at any given moment; when there is so MUCH one can possibly be doing, certainty becomes more elusive.
I keep telling my female friends: Give yourself a break. Be gentle with yourself. None of my male friends seem to need to hear this. Good for them!
Really good post, JD. I agree with you that most guilt is completely pointless. I tend to only feel it when I know that I’ve done something wrong, or behaved in a way that I’m not proud of - I find it useful because it prompts me to reconsider my conduct. But I totally refuse to feel guilty about how I live my life. Luckily, my life is notably absent of people who tell me that I should be doing something/not doing something.
Nigella Lawson is just the most grown-up woman in the public eye, I think. And John Diamond’s attitude was bang-on: if you love somebody, you want them to be happy. If I was dying I’d be actively trying to set Tristan up with somebody!
Bang-on, Jacq: Guilt can serve a very useful purpose, but when you feel guilty about everything, discerning when it’s valid must become harder.
I keep re-reading, year after year, this fascinating interview with Ayn Rand (I’m not a Randian, but gosh did she get a lot right): http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html. A quote from that:
Nigella thinks things through, which is so much more than can be said for 99% of the female commentators in the UK (take Zoe Williams - PLEASE). As for John, he would always tell me, “I’m not a nice person. Don’t remember me that way.” Nice or not nice, he was exceedingly generous with his time, attention, and encouragement - and during a period when the former was something he knew was severely limited. The world is poorer for his absence.
Jackie: On the contrary, this is a universal phenomenon and twisted to suit the purposes of a seller of goods and a member of one’s family alike. When Nestle launched instant noodles Maggi in India, it conflicted with the mother’s role as the food provider. So they had to relaunch after repositioning it as a snack food which moms gave their kids in “2 minutes” thus making the TV-mummy look efficient and caring about her role. At the time I was in school. We never had Maggi at home. But it did strike me as odd that TV-mummy did what the kids wanted her to (not so in our house, of course, or our friends’ but never mind reality). Likewise, a friend, who chose not to pursue her i-banking career in favour of being a mom full time, is often asked “So what do you do all day?” just because she happens to employ staff to clean and cook etc. Who asks? Our peer group, of course, and always women, with full time jobs, kids and immaculate homes.
So my point about the external sources is still on the table. The guilt is not wired, it is externally reinforced. Cultures may influence the form these enforcers take but it is always from the outside. How do we stop it?
By using your advice. In my case, I tell others not to be harsh on self, but I hold myself to very tough standards. I feel no guilt but oh, the resulting smugness can sometimes be unbearable, even for me. :-/
Frankly, I think this is always why I’ve rejected being a “woman” and everything that it entails and I’m consequently pretty happy. Sure, I get guilty - when I make an error at work, or don’t work hard enough, or take a shortcut rather than doing something wrong. I don’t feel guilty about hanging on my husband’s or parents’ pantlegs all day long or giving up all life goals to be someone else’s unpaid domestic.
I was raised in the 1970s and 80s in suburbia where women who worked were discussed with bitter scorn for their “selfish, unmotherly” ways, and daughters were told to not exercise too much lest they look “unwomanly” and that working for just a few years (like 3) was sufficient “paying [of] her dues” that would allow them to stay home forever after (NOT canning, or cleaning, or volunteering, or reading - apparently just sitting around on their butts). I do recall hearing many times that a Good Mother gives up everything for her children - she must be around them at all times and have no hobbies, sports, friends, clubs or other pursuits.
Always found it disgusting and always rejected it. Those ideas of femininity reminded me of slaves or blood-suckers more than individuals and mothers.
My work is very important to me and I don’t feel guilty about that at all - but I’ve also made a conscious lifetime set of choices to reject being put into the “wipe my nose/pick up my drycleaning/take care of me first and put yourself last” brand of womanhood.
I realized some years ago that what I wanted most in life was to “live like a man” - meaning, to make my own choices instead of being told endlessly what I “should” do and then to sit still dumbly and be abused for not meeting the standards of others.
Men just live their lives - married or not, kids or not - their lives are their lives. They’d NEVER accept being told that they are evil, unnatural monsters for enjoying hard work, or wanting to do the best job possible of a work task (instead of martyring themselves for another).
Frankly, I don’t even consider myself female. I’m human. This is still a shocking attitude in parts of the US (”you work? so you’re not at home at all during the day?”).
Sigh. Sorry, ladies. Sometimes men are right (or, here, smarter than we are).
Great post. I’m not much inclined to guilt at all, so it constantly amazes me how women seem to think they aren’t good people unless they’re hitting themselves about the head with tree trunks most of the time. I think they/we need to grow up, and take more responsibility for our own wellbeing. As long as you’re guilty, it’s impossible to be constructively happy, which saves a lot of time and effort. So I blame us, as well as everyone/thing else. Women internalise wrongs, whereas men, when they go wrong, more often externalise them and blame others. Both paths are very wrong, but the first one seems to be more socially acceptable than the second, these days.
It never ceases to amaze me how different the experiences of being a man (in the Western world) are than those of being a woman.
For example, here are some things that most men wouldn’t feel guilty or even worry about:
1) Dating someone 20+ years younger
2) Going on an extended business trip away from family
3) Spending an entire weekend doing nothing remotely productive
I don’t envy you women.
Chris: Not just in the western world, in the “east” too. :-)