In preparation (or in procrastination) for writing a new show about feminism, drinking and rape culture, today I read Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg. This is that book you heard about a couple year ago that discusses women in positions of leadership, and offers advice (along with Stats and personal anecdotes) to women in business. I read it expecting to find some serious gaping holes and errors. I expected it to argue for women to be more aggressive in the work place— for women, in other words, to be more like men. I expected to find it ultimately unsatisfying, choc-full of sweeping generalizations, with sentences like, “women are naturally….” and so on. What I expected was the kind of brand-named band-aid, offering essentialist accounts of white feminist woe, in a digestible, marketable, un-intrusive self-help book, representing feminist concerns about as much as 50 Shades of Grey speaks to the BDSM community.
My experience of the book was different. I won’t go so far as to say very different, because a few of my diatribes above still ring true. However, it wasn’t as two-dimensional as I had feared. I’m reading Lean In in order to understand the role of “Lean-in feminism” in relation to female drinking— specifically college drinking culture. In Drink: The Intimate Relationship between Women & Alcohol, Ann Dowsett Johnson points to women’s desire to “keep up with men” in business as one of the factors to growing female alcoholism. A book written in a similar style as Lean In, Drink seemed to me to point problematically, but perhaps accurately to certain trends in feminism that have been detrimental to women. If we believe the statistics: women, on average, cannot drink the same amount as men. They cannot ‘keep up’ in this realm. And yet, the social pressure in the workplace— along with imagined dinner meetings, post-work deals made over drinks, or other romantically misogynistic scenarios that involve men in smoking jackets and women in the kitchen— these social expectations, well, they expect us to keep up. And don’t books like Lean In further encourage this? Of course Sheryl Sandberg would probably argue that she’s not talking about drinking, she’s talking about eduction, about habits in the workplace, in meetings, about how we socialize women and men to treat, respond and behave toward women in positions of power. It would seem unfair to take these genuinely well-intended (and much needed!) pieces of advice, and say, “look look! It doesn’t apply to EVERYTHING”; Sandberg never claimed it did.
But there is a dangerous trend, it seems to me, with Lean-In feminism. I think because it operates kind of like an oxymoron. We are supposed to be more assertive, confident, ask for raises, take risks… but we also aren’t supposed to be afraid to cry, we aren’t suppose to give up kids or family, we shouldn’t aspire to “do it all” (which she argues is essentially impossible).
Sandberg’s book for me succeeds in that while it doesn’t break the glass ceiling, it certainly points it out. And in pointing it out, it says, can we please stop ignoring this ceiling please? Can we stop hurting each other, and criticizing women, and start working together to work on breaking this fucking ceiling? Her’s is a book that offers basic ways to understand the latent, yet persistent sexism that perpetuates in our society. By Lean In, she seems to mean “Don’t give up, speak up! Lean in.” All of this is good advice.
Last night I went to a comedy night with my partner. While most of the comedy was lovely, raunchy, silly, smart, or pushing playful lines, a few jokes hit me like a kick in the chest. One in particular sticks in my mind. The comedian made a joke that breakups are easier for women because it’s easier for women to have sex after a breakup. Vulnerable women seeking support are like a wounded deer in a pack of hungry wolves, apparently. I didn’t laugh. I still don’t really get the joke. On the ride home, I talked with my partner about that and a few other jokes I saw as sexist and racist; annoyed that these few jokes had tainted what had otherwise been a really pleasant night. I didn’t understand why anyone would make jokes that hurt people. Jokes that are so hateful. He responded that he didn’t think anyone was hurt by the jokes.
I was suddenly reminded of Sara Ahmed’s feminist kill-joy. Ahmed states, “Feminists might kill joy simply by not finding the objects that promise happiness to be quite so promising. The word feminism is thus saturated with unhappiness. Feminists by declaring themselves as feminists are already read as destroying something that is thought of by others not only as being good but as the cause of happiness. The feminist killjoy ‘spoils’ the happiness of others; she is a spoilsport because she refuses to convene, to assemble, to meet over happiness…. Does the feminist kill other people’s joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy?” (65).
Am I a feminist kill-joy because I couldn’t laugh at the racist and sexist jokes? Because I saw that I, and people I loved and cared about, were the butt of this joke. That those jokes were built on the backs and with the blood of women and people of colour. I am reminded of a friends well-intentioned comment after I explained the concept ofthe new show: “well that doesn’t sound very fun.” And I’m frustrated by a sudden realization: that I live in a small community of people who have fun without hurting others. People that find cool ways to go dark, to go serious, to address topical concerns and to be joyous in these proclamations. I don’t accept that feminists have to kill joy. I know so many that work every day to create it.
This all might seem like a bit of a tangent. I guess in realizing my participation in the small community of socially and politically conscious art makers, I’m equally realizing the need to state what I might arrogantly (ironically ignorantly) suggest is obvious. In other words, I can see the glass ceiling, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be pointed out to others. Most people don’t even think it exists. This makes me sad. But sadness, as opposed to what Ahmed obliquely suggests, does not negate happiness. Aren’t we adult enough to allow the two to come together in a dance of complex emotions? There is nothing ‘happy’ about my political show, but that doesn’t mean you won’t laugh. There is nothing ‘sad’ about it either— that doesn’t mean you won’t cry.