Dr. Feem,
Doyle’s main point in her article about the “Effortless White Woman” is not in the lines you quoted in your article, “The Death of Gender Equality.” Much of what you quoted were not Doyle’s assertions; rather, they were reiterations of what society and culture teach women to believe — and what some upper-class feminists have told women to believe. They weren’t what Doyle herself was advocating.
Her main point was that the myth of the Effortless White Woman is, in fact, just that — a myth.
In her article, she implores us to stop internalizing the ideal of the Effortless White Woman, because it’s not at all practical. Stop believing that there is something wrong with us if we can’t achieve that impossible goal. Instead, let’s put our energies where they would be better used.
Stop hating — ourselves and other women — for not making a myth come true.
In your comeback article, you seem to do a lot of finger pointing regarding which faction is responsible for various phases the women’s movement has experienced. Who is responsible for imprinting the ideal of the Effortless White Woman in our minds — our parents, the media, men, the culture, our religion, or whatever. I don’t think nailing the culprit is of primary importance or productive. I’m betting that all of them played a part in one way or another, and they continue to.
What is of primary importance is realizing and accepting that the Effortless White Woman is an impractical ideal for most of us — and a waste of time if we try to aspire to it. We need to teach that to ourselves, to our daughters, and, ultimately, to each of those groups above.
Here it is in a nutshell in Doyle’s own words:
“…it is safe to say that, since at least 2016, formerly apolitical women have come smack up against the brutality and unfairness that misogyny entails, the system that keeps them subject to violence and career derailment and the casual, daily diminution of their personhood at the hands of men. It’s become increasingly clear that life as a woman is [a] dirty, stressful, unglamorous business, and to think that you can rise above with a little meditation and a juice cleanse has become laughable. When you live in a garbage dump, no amount of detoxing gets you clean.
The poreless glamour of a Gwyneth or an Ivanka seems more and more like a lie, and a harmful one, meant to indoctrinate us into the idea that everything could be easy if there weren’t something wrong with us.”
The reality of being a wife and mother, or a single mother, raising children, holding a job or moving up on a career trajectory, managing a household, including the budget, is NOT a walk in the park. Somehow, we are supposed to do this effortlessly?
I believe Doyle is saying that Gwyneth and Ivanka are not doing other women any favors by spreading propaganda that making all of that effortless is easily within reach for everyone. To paraphrase Katharine Hepburn (accurately quoted in the comments below the original essay):
“You can’t have it all, so pick your priorities.”
But what if each of us could afford a small army of assistants — personal assistant, bookkeeper, personal trainer, dietician/chef, make-up artist, hair stylist, nanny, housekeeper? It STILL would not be effortless because we’d be busy commanding and managing that army!
However, we women, as a group, can reinforce and support one another’s achievable goals, and we can celebrate our achievements. One of the first achievements to undertake is to knock the ideal of the mythical Effortless White Woman off her pedestal.
Who will join me?
