Assignment 2: Interview

For this assignment I decided to interview my mom, Janet Croft. At 47 years old she is a tenured faculty at the University of Oklahoma, the editor of Mythlore (a scholarly journal) and Oklahoma Librarian, and the author of several books, and I’ve always looked up to her as a good example of what a woman can accomplish in this world.

When I asked how she experienced gender growing up, she said: “There was perhaps more of an expectation that girls would go into certain careers and not others, and that girls would adhere to certain standards of femininity, like not asking boys for a date or dressing up more for school. We still had Sadie Hawkins Day in high school, the one day when girls were supposed to ask boys out! On the other hand, I was among the first group of girls in my high school that was allowed to take the intro to shop sequence -- metal working, wood working, and drafting -- and I don't think we were treated that much different from the boys... At the same time boys were allowed to take the intro to home ec sequence -- cooking, sewing, family management -- and I don't recall much in the way of tension except in some of the family management discussions. I think I went to high school at a time when things were in a state of major flux, and roles were becoming less rigid.” About her experiences with gender today, she added, “I haven't encountered much trouble in my professional career; librarianship is a female-dominated profession, and as far as the literary criticism goes, no one seemed to find it the least bit odd that my first book dealt with war.”

When I asked her about her history with feminism, she revealed that while she once joined a campus pro-choice group, she never voted while she was in college. But she went on to say that “equal pay and reproductive choice are major issues for me now, and I vote in federal and state elections.” I asked her if she thought that it was important for concerned feminists today to vote, and she said: “It's important for everyone to vote, but I wouldn't mind if the people who want to lock women into traditional roles would just stay home on election day! That said, I think one has to look at a range of issues; voting only based on "feminist" issues may not be the best way to bring about a just and equitable society. Though it's hard to picture such a society without a concern for feminist issues… still, you can't always get everything at once.” I thought this was an interesting (and perhaps characteristically second-wave) contrast to Bitch editor Jervis’s opinion that “Anti-poverty work, international human-rights work, and labor are all issues that are feminist issues, but they aren’t all about women,” (Rowe-Finkbeiner 103).

When I asked her to define feminism, she responded that “the classic definition is still the best—the radical notion that women are people, too.” She acknowledged, however, that the idea of feminism has changed since she was growing up, saying, “I think there is less expectation that you have to adhere to certain rules to be a feminist—that you have to burn your bra and never wear makeup or skirts and hate all men, or that you have to act like men to get ahead in the world. There's a lot more openness and variety now. I also get the impression there is less tension between lesbian feminists and heterosexual feminists now that there was in the sixties and seventies. On the other hand, there are too many young women who reject the term feminist and don't realize the debt they owe to the people who earned them the opportunities they have today.”

I agree with my mother that I’ve had more opportunities growing up than she did. When I was in high school, it would’ve been unheard of for me to be discouraged from taking a class based solely on my gender—in fact, because I was good at math, I was encouraged to pursue a college degree in mathematics or a ‘hard’ science. I’ve grown up in a time when it’s perfectly acceptable for a girl to ask a boy out—in fact, most people would say that it’s perfectly acceptable for a girl to ask a girl out.

Of course, there is still work to be done. At first I had trouble thinking of any one incident in my life that made me conscious of gender—but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’m made conscious of it in little ways every day. There are awkward moments, when boys refuse to go through doors that I’m holding open. There are sorority girls who stare when they think I’m not looking, just because I have short hair and don’t dress like they do. There are ads and magazines and TV shows that I can’t avoid seeing which tell me that I would look so much better if only I could drop 10 or 20 pounds. There are articles by people like Kingsley R. Browne, who tell me that women are more likely than men to give up, that there is no shame in a woman losing to a man, that women ideally achieve high status through their association with high-status men.

There is still work to be done. But how, by whom, and where? I like the third wave’s increased interest in culture (as Bust editor in chief Debbie Stoller says, “Pop culture is as influential on our lives as who is in the White House and laws,” [Rowe-Finkbeiner 94]). I like the idea of reaching out to people and trying to change their opinions through pop culture, rather than forcing our agendas simply by way of having the majority vote. However, in the end I have to agree that it’s still important for women—for everyone—to get out and vote; if pop culture were the final answer, how could Prop 8 have happened in a world that has The L Word?

Enough rambling for now, and I look forward to finally actually having class again,

-Sarah