Letters to the Editor

• Women did a number on themselves, Newsweek just handed them the ammunition

  [Read the article: The damage done]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  The infamous Newsweek 'terrorist stat' was toxic only because women made it so. The effect of the publishing of that false stat has been long-lasting not because of the way it 'caused' the public to see women, but because it revealed a fault line in the way women saw themselves.

  The statistic 'seemed' or 'felt' true because virtually all mass entertainment representations of dating, sex and marriage render women over 40 almost completely invisible. About half the roles in Hollywood movies feature men over 45. Less than 10% feature women over 40. The unvoiced but inescapable conclusion is that women under 35 are the prize, and if a woman hasn't landed a man before she reaches her expiration date she is unlikely to do so. But the more insidious message is not simply that she will be without a man, but that she will cease to *be*. Women over 40 are not poorly/erroneously represented in film-land - they are barely represented at all. They've disappeared - they quite literally almost cease to exist. Hollywood's message to women is not just 'you won't find love after 40' but "you don't matter - it's not just men that won't see you or care about you, *no one* will see you or care about you."

  And women, instead of just saying "bah!" and going about their busienss, internalized the message. Instead of ignoring it they bleated "we're not worthless!" but always with the little codicil in smaller italicized typface ....."are we?" Like a nation of Ayn Rand anti-heroes, women refused to shrug off the obviously false and ridiculous statistic...it seemed it's falseness could only be 'proven' if the powerful media that uttered it retracted it. In other words, women put more weight on the opinion of the liars that published the false stat than they did on the evidence of their own senses. Look around you- now as then, most couples are within 5 years of one another. Yet somehow women always eagerly snap up any assertion of their inferiority. If women started braying that all men are worthless until they are 38, I know what men would do - they wouldn't wail and run to the bookstore and read dozens of self-help books to see how they could improve themselves and land a woman. They'd ignore what they know not to be true. End of story.

  The real problem with the Newsweek stat wasn't it's wrongness so much as women's willingness to give into to any provocation to feel anxiety over not being enough - thin enough, smart enough, calm enough, young enough, smooth-skinned enough, natural enough, stylish enough, buff enough, etc.

  The Rosie O'Deonnell rejoinder ("it doesn't matter if the Newsweek stat IS true, it *feels* true") was almost accurate - what she should have said to really capture women's self-flaggelating reaction to that stat was "It doesn't matter if it's true, I fear others believe it *should* be true".

  Why are women so quick to buy into the notion they are flawed and need fixing, especially if a man is the one doing the elucidating? if I hear one more person quote the self-evident isms of "He's just not that into you" I'll scream - since when is what HE is into the number one consideration about whom *I* want to spend time with? Why aren't women asking themselves "am I really that into him, or just preferring to react to his rejection because it's easier than thinking for myself?" or put another way "Why am I wasting my time even thinking about someone who doesn't want to spend time with me?" Rejection should be a sign to move on, not buy hundreds of dollars worth of cosmetics, clothing, diet and advice books in an effort to mold yourself into a person some unknown 'they' will find more something - more thin, more pretty, more young-looking, more stylish.

  Happiness is a decision -- and one that the eager consumers of the terrorist stat seem unable or unwilling to make. Perhaps women have not been at the helm of moving the marketing levers long enough to recognize the voodoo so successfully practiced on them - the capitalist's cry that happiness is something magically bestowed once the right combination of products is purchased. Perhaps when women are more accustomed to power they will be less easily influenced by the fear-mongering of the powers that be.

  I agree with Richards - I too am burn out on the expensively accessorized self-hatred of Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw -- but I don't find 'comfort' in Liz Tuccillo's triumphant trumpeting of the new stat from 1996 that a 40-year-old woman has a 40 percent chance of marrying. For heaven's sake - I am 42 and if I really want to get married, I have a 100% chance of marrying. I certainly won't let some stupid weekly newsrag tell me what my 'chances' are of acheiving my goals based on some methodologically flawed and analytically unsound opinion poll - that would be like making financial decisions based on astrology.

  The new statistic does not need it's own parade. It needs a nation of women who, when presented with such tripe as the terrorist statistic, respond with a simple "Huh. Pass me that paper clip, please."

  It's not any more newsworthy that 40+ women are achieving happiness all over the place than it is newsworthy that 40+ women were once falsely ridiculed as too invisible for even a terrorist to bother with. Women over 40 aren't any more or less desirous of love, sex and compansionship than men over 40. As a whole, both groups have an equal likelihood of finding it. Certain sub-groups have more or less likelihood depending on factors such as motivation, beauty, intelligence, financial resources, geography, etc. But the relative success or failure of each dependent variable is not news either way. Just life.

  Permalink Tuesday, June 6, 2006 01:04 PM