Lilith, the Free - 2
In my first post, I talked about 3 areas where Lilith, the anti-wife and anti-mother of Jewish myth, tried to gain her freedom. I'll tackle the anti-wife, freedom from marriage issue first. I am using the name Lilith to describe what much of feminism has promoted at least since the 60s. What I am calling Lilith feminism has dominated the whole women's movement for decades now. I will explain why I believe that to be true.
In 1970, the phrase "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" became popular, even though most thought it to be outrageous. Here is a little history of the origin of that saying.:
Gloria Steinem had this to say in a letter she wrote toTime magazine in autumn 2000:
"In your note on my new and happy marital partnership with David Bale, you credit me with the witticism 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.' In fact, Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician, coined the phrase back in 1970 when she was a student at the University of Sydney. She paraphrased the philosopher who said, 'Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle.' Dunn deserves credit for creating such a popular and durable spoof of the old idea that women need men more than vice versa."
Irina Dunn later confirmed Steinem's version of events, in January 2002:
""Yes, indeed, I am the one Gloria referred to. I was paraphrasing from a phrase I read in a philosophical text I was reading for my Honours year in English Literature and Language in 1970. It was 'A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle'. My inspiration arose from being involved in the renascent women's movement at the time, and from being a bit of a smart-arse. I scribbled the phrase on the backs of two toilet doors, would you believe, one at Sydney University where I was a student, and the other at Soren's Wine Bar at Woolloomooloo, a seedy suburb in south Sydney. The doors, I have to add, were already favoured graffiti sites."
The message that came across loud and clear is that women do not need men. Men may need women, but we women can stand alone without the help of a man. We can be independent, not needing to rely on a male for support, either economically or emotionally. Yes, if we choose to be with a man, that is fine. We just do not really need men. Women can make it on our own.
In fact, in that same year of 1970, sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show began airing and ran until 1977. This show is credited with changing television. In it, Mary is a single woman in her 30s who goes to Minneapolis to get away from a failed love affair. She finds that she can make it on her own as a single, professional woman in the big city.
The theme song for the show is Love Is All Around. The last line of the song is.: You're gonna' make it after all. How was Mary gonna' make it? She would make it without getting married is what it boiled down to. In the series, she had some love interests, but she never married. The message is that if beautiful Mary could make it on her own, so can any woman. Marriage was optional, maybe even undesirable for women. Here is how Mary would make it, according to the song.
How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you're all alone
But it's time you started living
It's time you let someone else do some giving
She would make it all by herself. She was mature enough to not need a man. The only thing is that in the show, she had friends who helped her through all of her difficulties, especially her best friend, Rhoda. Also, the father figure, Lou, was always there to support her. So, she really did not do it alone, she just did it without a husband.
So, in a way, in large part due to that little fish and bicycle phrase and a television sitcom, Lilith, the anti-wife, was unleashed on society. Women were now encouraged to find a good life outside of marriage. Yes, many women had their own careers even before women like Mary, Irina Dunn and Gloria Steinem came on the scene. However, this was a new twist. Women now could avoid the entanglements of marriage and be their own, independent person. It's time women quit being little girls and started living as mature, independent women. Let someone else give of themselves.
Give of themselves in what? Give of themselves by getting married and having a family, I assume. That was what most women up until that time had aimed for as they matured from being little girls to being grown up women.
The assumption, which I believe to be false, is that married women are somehow not free. We married women are weaker and may need men to give our lives meaning. Independent, mature women can make it on their own.
Also, there is an assumption that women who follow a profession are "making it", whatever that means. A corollary is that women who are married are not really making it. Again, making what?
Whatever the "it" is or was, it was superior to being tied down to one man for life in holy matrimony.
Run the clock forward to 2000 and Destiny's Child song Independent Women. It was part of the soundtrack for Charlie's Angels. I actually like the song fine as songs go. I would take it as a kind of tongue in cheek description of the rich, beautiful woman who can buy whatever she wants and have any man she wants. Newsflash, girls. There are very few women who actually fit that category. The Independent Woman is largely a myth.
It is odd that women like June Cleaver or Donna Reed are considered to have impossibly unrealistic lifestyles. Yes, they are sitcom characters with certain values that are now out of fashion. However, look at the Independent Woman. Is she real, at least for the majority of women? I say that she is not. In fact, in an absolute sense, June and Donna are more real, since they model beautiful, even Christian ideals of love, self-sacrifice, and marital harmony.
The message is unrealistic at best and downright dangerous at worst. How many women are able to be truly independent like the song suggests? Very few people, male or female, are able to live according to the unrealistic and self-centered expectations shown in the song. Here are some of the words.
Question: Tell me what you think about me
I buy my own diamonds and I buy my own rings
Only ring your cell-y when I'm feelin lonely
When it's all over please get up and leave
Question: Tell me how you feel about this
Try to control me boy you get dismissed
Pay my own fun, oh and I pay my own bills
Always 50/50 in relationships
The chorus goes like this.:
All the women who are independent
Throw your hands up at me
All the honeys who makin' money
Throw your hands up at me
All the mommas who profit dollas
Throw your hands up at me
All the ladies who truly feel me
Throw your hands up at me
In the fantasy world of Hollywood, this song somehow makes sense. However, in the real world of single mothers and lonely, aging, single professional women, the words start to sound pretty hollow. They taunt vast numbers of women who tried to go it alone.
Yes, there are many women who sacrifice the ideal of marriage for a different ideal of service to God and fellow human beings. Yes, there are many women who tried to be married and for one reason or another, things did not work out. However, that does not account for the tendency in our day for young women to avoid marriage altogether. They are acting out the kind of message found in the song Independent Women. Some people call this progress. Others call it what it is - an almost total disaster for large numbers of lonely, single women who cannot find a real man to spend their old age with. Many of these women are also raising children on their own, and cashing government-issued checks.
Here is the Urban Dictionary's definition of the term Independent Woman.:
A woman who pays her own bills, buys her own things, and DOES NOT allow a man to affect her stability or self-confidence. She supports her self on her own entirely and is proud to be able to do so.
Man 1: DAMN I ALWAYS HAVE TO BUY MY GIRL STUFF!!!
Man 2: Sorry I don't know how that feels...I have an Independent Women.
Man 1: WORD? Does she have and independent friend??
See here that there are men who would love to be taken care of by a rich woman. I'm not saying that it is bad for a woman with money to help out or even support her family. That concept is ancient, even. The Proverbs 31 princess in the Bible was also a shrewd businesswoman. So, I am not saying that men have to pay for everything while women get a free ride.
The issue with the Independent Women has to do with women being taught that they do not need anyone, let alone a man, to do anything for them. Remember 16th Century John Donne's poem No Man is an Island?
'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
The IW is in danger of becoming stranded on a desert island, all alone in the great sea of humanity. From "no man is an island" we progress towards "women can be islands, entirely unto themselves." The metaphorical and mythical Lilith would call that freedom. In fact, it is very possible that the bell will not even toll when the true IW passes from this life to the next. She will have to go it alone.
Yes, there have been powerful women throughout human history who have been independently wealthy. I don't think that they are like the ideal independent woman portrayed in the song Independent Women or Dunn's famous phrase. Women like Queen Victoria or Isabel la Catolica were wealthy women, but they were also married to strong men. They did not reject their role as wife and mother. They ruled as matriarchs caring for their people and advancing the interests of their realms. They did not use their power selfishly. Unfortunately, this kind of royal matriarchy is out of fashion. Progressive Lilith does not like women who dare to be Princesses or Queen mothers.
If the message of Independent Women were followed to the letter, then a woman may have all the sexual partners she wishes to have, but without a slavish attachment to one man. No one can tell her she is doing something wrong in making the choices she makes. She has money which empowers her to do as she pleases. This is a far cry from what has been understood traditionally as a strong, independently wealthy woman. It is poles apart from what used to be thought of as a strong woman - the matriarch of the family who ruled her household well.
I found an interesting article from a Jewish woman's website. It is called Sarah in the Bible. It shows how ancient the concept of strong, matriarchal women is. This kind of woman is undervalued, and even despised in our day of progress towards the free Lilith ideal. Here is what the author, Rachael Gelfman Schultz, says about the matriarch of the Jewish people.
"Biblical Sarah, Abraham’s wife and the matriarch of the Jewish people, is a strong and independent character. When she cannot have children, Sarah takes the initiative and gives her maid-servant, Hagar, to Abraham so that he can have children through Hagar on Sarah’s behalf."
The author goes on to explain, using other examples from her life, how Sarah could show such strength as a woman in a patriarchal society. While I do not agree with everything in the article, I find it interesting that someone else sees Sarah as a strong, matriarchal woman - something that I have thought for a long time.
Many Christian commentators seem to think she was a weak-willed, super-submissive women with little or no personality of her own. I don't see that at all. In fact, that is how I see women in patriarchal societies - strong matriarchs who rule their households sometimes with great power and influence. Sarah was a strong woman who believed God and chose to submit to her husband and the calling he had from God. The fact that she was a strong woman makes her submission even more astounding. She had character and faith. (1 Peter 3:1-6) Many Christians turn the 1 Peter passage into a kind of fetish, saying incredibly stupid things about how women are supposed to act in order to be just like Sarah. Many fail to look at the real Sarah of the Bible to find out how she really acted and the kind of woman God was commending as an ideal woman.
On the other hand, Lilith seems to have set herself free at last in the form of the progressive, independent woman. Check out the online resources that tell about the Lilith myth and maybe you will see what I am trying to say.
Of course, I have to add that not all independent women are living promiscuous, selfish lifestyles. In fact, there are many Christian women who believe God has called them to be single and celibate for one reason or another, at least for now. I lived that lifestyle until I was 28. For me, it was a bit like the Norwegian bachelor farmers - pure, mostly - which may or may not count as pure. I just have to say that I love being married.
Also, there are many career women who also give themselves to their roles as wife and mother.
Lilith is a specific kind of independent woman, one who does not believe in marriage.
More later.
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