Leave it to a Vermonter to make some sense.
Joyce Marcel - "Love, Actually"
I ran across a book in the library today giving the late 1960's teenage girl some early 1950's advice on how to date. It was pretty corny throughout, and it definitely was totally patriarchal. Like how women were assumed to be passive and men more forthright during "necking and petting." Or how about how the only people who engage in pre-marital sex are lower-class folk, people with unhealthy family environments who needed love, attention-seeking individuals, and people who need psychological treatment!
Looking through the book, I gained a deeper realization how long American society has engaged in a "marketplace model of relationships" such as Rabbi Michael Lerner describes in his book The Left Hand of God (which I am finally reading after seeing him speak about it in February). Lerner puts forth the argument that the "real world" of the workplace trains us to be self-serving, to look for how each person can meet OUR needs, and that these tendencies translate over into our personal relationships as well, as a consequence of the importance of and massive amount of time spent at work. The psychological and social fallout from corporate capitalism. The jockeying for the "best catch." The internet dating websites and singles ads that reduce the individual to a string of comparable statistics to be maximized for your personal benefit...
Joyce Marcel mentions not the personals but the wedding announcements page of the newspaper: "The pictures of the younger folks getting married with stars in their eyes are fine," she writes, "but I enjoy best the pictures of couples celebrating 50 or 60 years of marriage. I want to interview them all. I want to sit down and ask personal questions about how they pulled it off - 50 years with the same person! How did they meet? What were the bad times like? Why did they stick it out? How do they deal with the terrifying fear of losing their partner? What can they teach us? What can we learn?"
I ran across a book in the library today giving the late 1960's teenage girl some early 1950's advice on how to date. It was pretty corny throughout, and it definitely was totally patriarchal. Like how women were assumed to be passive and men more forthright during "necking and petting." Or how about how the only people who engage in pre-marital sex are lower-class folk, people with unhealthy family environments who needed love, attention-seeking individuals, and people who need psychological treatment!
Looking through the book, I gained a deeper realization how long American society has engaged in a "marketplace model of relationships" such as Rabbi Michael Lerner describes in his book The Left Hand of God (which I am finally reading after seeing him speak about it in February). Lerner puts forth the argument that the "real world" of the workplace trains us to be self-serving, to look for how each person can meet OUR needs, and that these tendencies translate over into our personal relationships as well, as a consequence of the importance of and massive amount of time spent at work. The psychological and social fallout from corporate capitalism. The jockeying for the "best catch." The internet dating websites and singles ads that reduce the individual to a string of comparable statistics to be maximized for your personal benefit...
Joyce Marcel mentions not the personals but the wedding announcements page of the newspaper: "The pictures of the younger folks getting married with stars in their eyes are fine," she writes, "but I enjoy best the pictures of couples celebrating 50 or 60 years of marriage. I want to interview them all. I want to sit down and ask personal questions about how they pulled it off - 50 years with the same person! How did they meet? What were the bad times like? Why did they stick it out? How do they deal with the terrifying fear of losing their partner? What can they teach us? What can we learn?"
posted by tank at 7:19 PM
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