Cinderella

I got to wondering today how much a part of a woman’s appeal is the opportunity for rescue.

Of course, there are people who are genuinely drawn to strength in women. Not strength as in invulnerability, because nobody is invulnerable.

But it’s struck me lately that the times I’ve inspired the most interest from both men and women in my life has been during vulnerable periods. My $130K combined school and credit card debt mode, with the financial pressures and identity crises associated, was one high period for me, in that regard. Anorexia and insomnia also brought both men and women to the forefront, who saw something inspiring and worthwhile, worth helping and befriending.

Of course, stripping was a major bonanza, tilted of course in the male direction. There’s a lot of perceived vulnerability about peeling off layers, even if you feel strong doing it. Also, I was selling a diminishing asset. Kind of like representing bankruptcy attorneys in a market that’s getting stronger or venture capital attorneys in a market that’s getting weaker. Even where I’m repping someone with lotsa business, I know things’ll get worse for them if the market’s going against them.

But the difference is, BK attorneys know the market will weaken again and VC attorneys know it’ll eventually improve. But for women selling flesh, at least those of us over 25, the market is usually going in one direction, at whatever speed. Some of the smarter peelers, at the top of the game, are able to establish a spinoff career, make a decent investment or two, or put enough away for a rainy day. But the customers know the deal. For the majority of professionals, the forties and fifties are the most productive and highest-earning decades. Being in a profession where, absent unique circumstances, that’s by definition not the case: that’s vulnerable. They’ve got their eyes full of the T&A, but the decreasing derivative is part of the equation as well.

I have a lot of issues with Hilary’s politics, but I have to believe at least some of the negativity towards her stems from her unwomanly balls-out strength. She’s been down, she’s bounced back, and conspicuously without a white knight – hers was busy at the time, saving himself. Sure, she’s used men, including that one, but in the way men use each other.

I’ve heard from a number of people, in the context of friendship and business, getting someone to do you a favor is the best way of getting them on your side. Not the other way around, like you’d think. I’ve taken a lot of favors in my day, and must admit many have been from men. And yes, this act (among others) seemed to create a stronger bond.

Looking at male and female stars, either red carpet or tabloid or both, we always buy the magazines with the female victims on the cover. The men are interesting when they falter, which they do, but don’t become cult hits in the same way.

Even the words used for men vs women. “Bitch” has been “reclaimed” by some because it has an aspect of strength to it. It’s a way to refer to a chick with balls in a way that doesn’t sound anatomically laughable. But of course, it’s mostly an insult. The male equivalents, that you’d use in the same context – “dick,” “bastard” – don’t insult a guy in part for being strong. In fact, the worst kind of insult for a guy is that he’s weak – a “pussy” or “you ____ like a girl.” Anyone who watches “Scrubs” knows that the protagonist’s hero, when he wants to put him down, calls him by a woman’s name.

So an interesting layer to this is: what happens when you add “liberal” to it? Well, a lot of good things. Individual rights and equality of opportunity make for a nice mix with much of feminism. But the conflict is with unequal distribution of vulnerability. Those with less should take on, I believe, additional responsibility to contribute in some way to those with more. But whether or not this is happening, the mere fact of being less vulnerable, as a woman, becomes even more suspicious when viewed through a lefty lens. It’s a failing.

As a man, not so much. A man’s building up of emotional and material resources is perceived as family or corporate loyalty or both. He is not (necessarily) selfish, but is doing what he needs to do according to his gender script to enable himself to provide.

For a woman, providing isn’t all that. The view that a woman needs to arm herself in order to do that isn’t close to as persuasive. It’s kind of… selfish. Vain. Unfeminine.

Admittedly, a lot of this post is coming from my own vulnerability. Mostly stemming from things that happen online. Luckily, I don’t have the same frustrations IRL. Maybe because I’m more vulnerable in the flesh, or because my offline friends have better radar. But that’s not fair, because five or six women I’ve met online have excellent radar, flesh or no flesh, and have given back so much. And, now that I’m thinking about it more, it’s probably more like nine or ten. There are some people in a group I’m in who have blogrolled almost everybody else in the group but me. But there are others – a number of others -- who choose me to reach out to offline. I need to pay more attention to the latter than the former, certainly. The fact that I don’t – that’s my shit.

But I think it’s a bigger issue than just me and my neuroses.

The slippery slope is this. What makes a woman less vulnerable? Well, success. Self esteem. And sometimes age. Not old age – that’s a whole separate issue. But most of us, out of our teens and sometimes out of our twenties, feel like we’ve exorcised a few demons. We tend to have more stability, even if we’re not really stable, more acceptance of our physical selves and sexual selves. We’ve made decisions about what we’re going to do about drugs, we have reached some level of knowledge about our parents, we know who we’re attracted to and mostly we’re OK with that.

So the problem is, when the positive things about aging for women get us punished, along with all the other things about aging that get us punished, that doesn’t create a very positive scenario for us as we age. We suffer from the mainstream reaction to perceived deterioration in physical beauty, and we are less able to use our physical selves as a magnet for attraction. Any vulnerability we have is less attractive if we’re perceived as less attractive. But at the same time, if we’ve gained some steel in our backs from hard miles, what happens when that too is punished? Now we’re doubly unfeminine.

The trouble with Cinderella is that being Cinderella isn’t available to every woman and eventually will become unavailable to every woman. What comes next? Is there a happy ending in not needing to be rescued? Wanting love, comfort, happiness… but not needing rescue?

There should be.