If You Liked the Barbie Movie, You’ll Like This Book
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I think this book is a lot like the Barbie movie. One can see it as an epic example of male bashing and disapprove of it, or one can see it as an indictment of the patriarchy and ache with recognition. I fall into the second camp.
Here are some passages that made me ache.
When thinking about the uneven expectation for who would provide childcare within her marriage, the author wonders if her job really was more flexible or if it was perceived that way because she was the female partner. As is her mode throughout the book, she gives us research on the topic:
“Eve Rodsky, the author of Fair Play, pointed out that the very idea of a woman’s job being more flexible is a myth. ‘We found in our studies that if a woman is a lawyer and a man’s a doctor, she says her job is more flexible,’ she notes. ‘If you flip it and she’s the doctor and he’s the lawyer, guess what? She says her job is more flexible. There’s just such a different expectation over how women are supposed to use their time that we become conditioned to spending our time in service of others…’”
These societal expectations are ever so interesting on a scientific level but galling as things get personal. Part of the author’s own divorce story involves coming home at one A.M. after completing a sixteen hour round trip out of town to do research for her work. Upon entering her kitchen, she found an overturned trash bag spilling its mess all over the floor. Of course, she cleaned it up. The next morning when she pointed this out to her husband, he did not apologize for leaving a mess or thank her for cleaning it up. Instead, he chided her for NOT thanking him “for watching the kids.”
That whole dad-babysitting-for-the kids routine is old. It’s exhausting. And ever so annoying. He was an equal partner in creating the child. He needs to be an equal partner in raising the child.
Later the author tells us, “Do you want to know how I finally got my husband to do his fair share? Court-ordered fifty-fifty custody, that’s how.”
She also tells us her story “[isn’t] compelling or unique; [she] was simply one of hundreds of thousands of women who saw their lives falling apart from the commonplace pressures of society and patriarchy. It wasn’t violent abuse. It wasn’t another woman. It was trash on the floor, sticky counters, and please please please clean the bathroom, over and over, until [she] couldn’t take it anymore.”
Some may find the author to be a bit whiny. They may find her examples of unhappiness a bit underwhelming. I felt this way at times even though I am a divorced woman with a personal story similar to the one told by the author. I felt this way even though my own stories are a bit whiny and underwhelming. But I am a member of a society who looks down on women who leave even if I understand it 100%. Even if I have done it myself.
Lyz Lenz left a marriage where she was an unequal partner. And she wrote about it. It’s not bashing men or even bashing marriage. It’s reporting on what it’s like to be a woman in a patriarchy.
I applaud her for having the courage to write this book. And I am very glad to have read it.
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