Made in Manhattan

Check out Maureen Dowd's interesting essay entitled "What's a Modern Girl to Do" in today's New York Times Magazine. Maureen Dowd's essay probes the dilemmas confronting feminism in 2005. The most interesting thing I found in the essay was the following excerpt that talked about the role that movies are playing in shaping modern attitudes about feminism:

"In all those Tracy-Hepburn movies more than a half-century ago, it was the snap and crackle of a romance between equals that was so exciting. You still see it onscreen occasionally - the incendiary chemistry of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie playing married assassins aiming for mutually assured orgasms and destruction in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Interestingly, that movie was described as retro because of its salty battle of wits between two peppery lovers. Moviemakers these days are more interested in exploring what Steve Martin, in his novel "Shopgirl," calls the "calm cushion" of romances between unequals. In James Brooks's movie "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, playing a sensitive Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid, just as in "Maid in Manhattan," Ralph Fiennes, playing a sensitive New York pol, falls for the hot Latino maid at his hotel, played by Jennifer Lopez. Sandler's maid, who cleans up for him without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman, in looks and character. His wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm and fears she has lost her identity.In 2003, we had "Girl With a Pearl Earring," in which Colin Firth's Vermeer erotically paints Scarlett Johansson's Dutch maid, and Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," about the attraction of unequals. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson, the sister of the prime minister, falls for his sultry secretary. A novelist played by Colin Firth falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese. Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection rather than of affection."

According to Dowd, the battle of the sexes has reverted from the 1970s highwater mark of feminism to a 1950s-era "Ozzie and Harriet" social structure. Earlier this year, while doing research on the role of women in films, I discovered the 1954 film "A Woman's World" starring Lauren Bacall and Fred MacMurray. "A Woman's World" is about three 1950s-era couples who are competing with one another to prove that they are the right couple to fill the position of a general manager for a prestigous auto manufacturer. The film is extremely witty, and I highly recommend it not only as an excellent film experience but also as a historical look at an era in our past when a man's career was enhanced by the "perfect wife". Watching this film from the perspective of 2005 is like watching a movie about the dinosaurs. Speaking as an American born in the 1970s, I have no experience with the social and marital worlds presented in "A Woman's World". Like an archaeologist uncovering a long forgotten past, I had trouble relating to the film and the bygone era it represents. And no matter what Maureen Dowd writes in her essay, this era is still bygone. We live in a world where 35% of births in the United States are to unmarried women and where the rising cost of living requires parents of any marital status to work outside the home (In the United States in 2005, both parents are employed in 60% of 2-parent families with children).

Thorny work-family-marriage issues confront each person to some degree at some point in life. No one has discovered a silver-bullet solution to these age-old challenges. The key thing is to read, absorb, think (yes, think!) and come to your own conclusions about how you want your life to be structured.