Crittenden to the Rescue: Saving Our Sexuality, Youth, and Traditional Gender Roles

I have been working on my book review for What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us/Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman by Danielle Crittenden. While doing so, I lost track of time and was unable to post my thoughts on each chapter. Below you will find my completed review.

Danielle Crittenden explores the dilemma faced by modern women in, What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us/Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman. In the epilogue the reader is bluntly told that what our mothers didn’t tell us and the only way to achieve happiness is to realize that, “It’s time to settle,” (182). It’s time to settle our sexual desires; it’s time to settle our professional desires and succumb to our innate duties as wife and mother; and for twentysomethings, it’s time to wrangle in a man and settle. Women are cautioned against pursuing their careers, postponing marriage and children.

Crittenden cites MTV, perfume ads, television shows like 90210, Ally McBeal and Jerry Seinfeld, women’s magazines, various books, an engagement announcement from the NY times, and the Gallop poll. Maybe she did this out of consideration for the uneducated reader who can easily refer to popular media and gain agreement. Maybe she just didn’t have the time to do some real research.

The first chapter , About Sex is when the reader receives their first warning against pursuing career interests instead of marital ones. Professionally successful women eventually have to take a hard look at their “thirty-five-year-old” reflection (because, according to Crittenden, thirty-five is old) and admit to themselves that they no longer “have the sexual power over men that they had at twenty-five,” (37-38).

As a final warning against sexual freedom, Crittenden even calls sexually active single women “cheap”, warning against the consequences of sexual freedom: “We might now be more free. But we enjoy less happiness, less fulfillment, less dignity, and, of all things, less romance,” (italics mine, 57). I suppose the women who were interviewed and wrote to Betty Friedan were lying and in fact found domesticity to bring them a wealth of happiness and fulfillment, felt dignified every time they had to change another dirty diaper, and found their lives overly romantic.

In About Love the reader learns that what our mother’s didn’t tell us is that our identity is truly formed once we have become a doting wife and a dutiful mother. Crittenden warns against the “price to be paid for postponing [marital] commitment” (62). The price is the possibility of never finding a man who will accept your professional ambitions. Crittenden summarizes an engagement story where a “lucky” twenty-eight year old woman who is “self-centered” in her decisions to put her career before love is fortunate to have found a “complacent” man who relocates to be with her.

The reader is reminded that if she hasn’t married by thirty, she will discover that “independence is not all it’s cracked up to be,” (64). Even worse, after thirty the lonely – but independent – woman will find herself “staring down the now mysterious tunnel,” and you can bet this is not the tunnel of love (65). By the end of the chapter Crittenden wants women to hurry up and experience the liberation of marriage, so that we may finally feel “relief” (75). Now that we will “know with whom we’ll be spending the rest of our years, who will be the father of our children,” we can rest our heads on our down feather mattress and rest peacefully. There is no such thing as divorce or infertility in Crittenden’s world. True love, romance, and equality between partners doesn’t fit in, and won’t matter once you are off the market – so long as it is before that dreadful age of thirty.

While in our twenties, according to Crittenden, we are not mature enough, “old
enough nor experienced enough” to pursue our professional lives (187). However we are just the right age, despite our immaturity and youthful naivety, to assume the demanding and responsible role of a mother. I personally believe that experience as a college student and in the workplace builds skills necessary to raise children: time management, organization, interpersonal communication, an ability to prioritize and so forth. The chapter concludes with the idea that the working mother is in fact “neglecting” her children (143).

By the end of this cautionary tale, Crittenden closes her argument by asserting that men and children for women are as important and life-sustaining as air and water (191). Crittenden spends 191 pages casting a life preserver out to the drowning and breathless modern woman, pulling them back onto her lifeboat. For it is only on Crittenden’s ship that the modern woman can truly sail into a life full of happiness and fulfillment.

Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us Love Wouldn't Wait

What I understood from this chapter is I am one lucky lady to have married four years short of my expiration date, according to Crittenden. I am even more fortunate that I was even able to find a willing mate, instead of a "Peter Pan" (66). Crittenden basically states that any woman over the age of thirty has expired and should give up her childhood dream of wearing a white dress next to a tuxedo-clad dream man. This thirtysomething is likely to spend the rest of her days dating recklessly, unsure of herself and her ability to love and find a lifelong partner. Further, she shouldn't complain as she was selfish in her choice to pursue her education and career dreams in lieu getting married and knocked up.

Crittenden seems to mock the idea that woman have the ability to create their identifies in the absence of a man and children (60-61). I personally feel our identities change and grow with our experiences, and it is possible to have an assumed understanding of oneself prior to engaging in monogamy. My own identity has changed as I assume various roles and through the stories of my past and how I reframe and tell them, and live with or without them today. Yes, it is true that since I have been married some people may identify me as a wife, however that is not all that I am and I am sure that is not all my husband would want me to be. Imagine if we really lived in a world where all men expected a blank slate of a wife, a woman devoid of personality, that he could just pick up and mold into the wife and mother he considered acceptable and efficient. Some people may consider this manipulation, narcissism, and possibly a form of abuse.

Crittenden offers us an example of what's wrong with modern courtship, which she came across as an engagement announcement in the New York Times. She seems disgusted by this twenty-eight year old woman who put her career and interests first, things she probably worked hard to achieve, even going so far as calling the bride-to-be "self-centered" (62). This particular woman is self-centered, according to Crittenden, because she and boyfriend made a decision to break up as she was planning on pursuing her career in a different location. After awhile, he offered to come to her, leaving his own job, and then eventually proposed. Crittenden makes it sound as if the woman left him with no choice, as if she were the only woman alive. Crittenden also states that this woman is lucky to have found such a complacent man, an imperative trait that his fiance seemingly refused to possess.

I think this is an irresponsible inclusion as we do not know the full back story. Maybe the woman was actually devastated to leave her boyfriend, terminating their relationship, yet was offered the chance of a lifetime? What if it was more rational for him to quit his job, for example, maybe he worked as a clerk in department store and she just landed a six-figure position using her hard-earned college degree? It's also possible that she left without taking a look back, and her boyfriend realized he simply must win her back.

Basically, the moral of this chapter was that: 1). Don't wait until you're thirty to settle down, because then you are S.O.L.; 2). You can't fully form your identity without a husband and children; 3). If you want a lasting relationship, forget about your own dreams and aspirations, what you need to focus on is being "complacent" so that you may appear attractive and marriageable.

What Our Mother's Didn't Tell Us

Currently I am writing a review for the book, What Our Mother's Didn't Tell Us, Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman by Danielle Crittenden (1999). Because I found the book so interesting, I thought I would blog on my reflections from each supposed "truth" our mother's didn't tell us, according to Crittenden.

Today I am going to start by discussing the introduction and chapter one. Crittenden cleverly titles each chapter beginning with the word "About...." Chapter one covers what our mothers didn't tell us about sex.

Crittenden begins her book with a vignette from a luncheon she has been invited to by editors from a magazine who, according to the author, seemingly believed she would enlighten them as to why the modern woman was still unhappy, despite living in an era where she enjoyed more freedoms than the women before her.

The editors wanted to know why the working woman felt oppressed by her employment. Throughout the book Crittenden asserts that women can't have it all, which basically sums up what our mothers didn't tell us when they encouraged us to prolong marriage and children and work towards obtaining college degrees and landing our dream jobs.

Crittenden believes that "the elders of the women's movement" think modern women are spoiled and unappreciative of their achievments. She writes that women today are privileged and get equal pay, next to their male coworkers; have endless opportunities in the math and science departments as we freely travel through our educational pursuits; and that we "take for granted that our husbands will treat us as equals," (17). I am not sure of the accuracy of this statement as many women, especially within the educational field, are not awarded equal pay for equal work. I have a peer in one of my courses who is a computer science major and is admittedly one of the very few girls enrolled in the program. Further, this same student says she has experienced discrimination when applying for and gaining positions within a male-dominated technical field. Lastly, why shouldn't we expected to be treated as equals alongside our partners? Isn't that what a partnership is based on - equality?

The introduction leads us to believe that women today "have made different mistakes. [We] are the women who postponed marriage and childbirth to pursue [our] careers only to find [ourselves] at thirty-five still single and baby crazy, with no husband in sight," (20). Basically, what our mothers didn't tell us is that we can go get 'em, but at the sacrifice of our youth, love life, and child bearing age. Oh, and further, we are "unwed mothers who now depend upon the state to provide." This statement really bothered me. As I reflect on the successful women I know, I believe I can count on one hand those who were unable to have children and I wouldn't conclude that it was because they put their career first and got married late. One woman in particular married at an appropriate age - according to Crittenden - before she was 25. Her husband and her tried for years to have a baby, and when for medical reasons realized it wasn't ever going to biologically happen, she devoted herself to her career. Does she want children? I am sure. I am sure she yearns for them every time she finds out a friend or family member is expecting, but instead of being "baby crazy" and loathing in self-pity, she drives her BMW to deliver newborn baby gifts and enjoy holding the baby-powder scented infants.

Another woman I know married late, when she was in her middle thirties. She chose this because she did want to finish her degree, and always promised her husband, who is younger than her, that they would start a family soon enough. Come to find out, she never planned on fulfilling that promise, and they ended up divorced, for many reasons. In this case I would argue that the man suffered from being "baby crazy," but Crittenden doesn't ever mention anything about men's role in the unhappy lives of the modern woman.

The central theme to Crittenden's book is the "modern problem with no name," which is that, "[w]hile we now recognize that women are human, we blind ourselves to the fact that we are also women," (22). This brings up a whole other conversation about women, I think. for example, is she eluding to penis envy? Are we so wrapped up in our three-piece suits that we forget we pee sitting down? Has she even considered that some biological women find themselves more comfortable communicating and asserting a masculine identity? This is a difficult debate as it is true, we are all human, and some of us are women, but what does that mean? I think Crittenden is insinuating that means we return back to our traditional roles, take our our grandmother's aprons, and were them fashionably all day every day.

Apparently, according to the author's research, almost all women will find happiness in a husband, children, home, and work. This means that most women don't want to explore a hobby or have time for themselves. Further, the women who prefer to live alone and find "companionship" with "their friends and cats...should not be confused with the average woman." Sorry you successful, driven, cat-crazy women. You aren't normal, according to Crittenden. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Let's move on to What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us About Sex. "Sexual liberty is not the same thing as sexual equality," (31). I agree with this, and also with her basic assertion that women who exercise sexual freedom without expectations, who engage in one-night stands, often (but in my opinion not always) face more severe stereotyping than their mail co-conspirators. BUT, I think the stereotyping and name calling comes more from other women than it does men. I lived with three men at one point and never heard one of them call a girl a "whore" or "slut" after she left the next morning. On the contrary, I admittedly was the one passing blame and judgement on behalf of the girl, and know that at least the women I hang around with have done the same. Is it jealousy? The fact that this woman held her head high as she paraded out from closed doors following a night of Jager Bombs and cheap white zinfandel, when I couldn't (because I was involved with someone)? Do we envy her sexual freedom?

I also never really heard the men I lived with scheme about their planned sexual conquests of the evening the way women often do. If you put a hidden camera in some of the apartments I have pre-gamed in prior to a night of going out, you would know what I mean. As we put our finishing touches of mascara and lipgloss on, slip on our sexy stiletto heels, and sip our beers and pinot grigio, we have all at one point or another declared that our goal for the evening was to at least make-out with so-and-so. When I explained this to one of my more prude friends, she gave me a weird look and snottingly asserted that none of her friends were ever like that. "Well," I said, "maybe my friends and I were a bunch of whores." I laughed, because I didn't mean it and actually felt bad that maybe she felt less enlightened than my friends and I did.

Throughout the chapter Crittenden goes back to her assertion that women who put off love will claim that there is a "shortage" of men (37). Her evidence is from a woman she knew in her early twenties who was dating three men simultaneously. The serial dater couldn't understand why some women were bitter about the shortage of men, until she realized all those women were just too old (thirty-something) to grab a man. I have friends between the ages of 27-50, and none of them seem to be encountering a shortage of men. Crittenden also states that to be single and sexless, you will undoubtedly envy women of the past, who withheld sex until marriage. Where does she get this fact from?

I think my favorite part, the part of the chapter that was most entertaining, came when she called on all women in their early-twenties to band together and get married young, to protect the sanction of marriage (42-43). Her personal opinion s that "a young woman's actions intimately affect the lives of other women." therefore, according to Crittenden, if you are young, sexy, and unmarried, you pose a threat to married women and are also depleting the male resources available to the thirtysomethings.

Crittenden's sources tend to be magazines which she believes are adding to women's frustrations, MTV, Beverly Hills 90210, and her personal opinion. I found that she often made gross overstatements about women, especially when she warns women against delaying marriage. According to her, anyone beyond her late twenties is unmarriageable and helpless. She ends the chapter telling the reader that women (the reader) is "less" happy, "less" fulfilled" has "less dignity" and "less romance."

I couldn't help but wonder at what age she got married and what her marriage was like. I look forward to researching that.

Stay Tuned!