King's Question
Twisty Faster of I Blame The Patriarchy, after listening to NPR the other day, relays a fairly important point
Billie Jean King is interviewed on Morning Edition; she is perplexed that whenever a woman achieves anything, it is perceived as having an effect only on women. Since of course women — and our little hobbies — are too insignificant to have any public influence on Dude Nation. King notes that people come up to her all the time to thank her for what she’s done for “women’s tennis,” rather than for tennis in general.
I think Billie Jean King asking whether an achievement is "good for women" or "good for humanity" is a good way out of the "empowerfulment" trap. I'm enough of a small-l libertarian to recognize that ever individual is not obliged to act on all of humanity's behalf. But I'm also enough of an environmentalist to recognize that no global benefit accrues when one shifts one's waste stream elsewhere rather than actually reducing it. And so I'm pretty sure it's not enough to say "opting out" of a career to raise children and let one's partner support one is *empowering* unless you can make the case that it authentically benefits *everyone.*
And not to put too fine a point on it but that "opting out" example is kind of perfect because to make the claim under King's terms you'd have to be able to demonstrate how the arrangement benefits not just the opted-out partner but the partner who therefore assumes the entire financial burden at the expense of his or her family as well. And, while we're at it, are any children one opts out to raise really better off with *less* contact with their work-away partner and more of the stay-at-home one? And all that comes up before you get anywhere near whether one's own "opt-out" advances everyone.
And obviously "opt out" is only one example. And also obviously while King and Twisty Faster were talking about women the principle applies wherever kyirarchal modifiers are routinely appended to words like "candidate" or "athlete" or "filmmaker" or "student."
And finally I don't know how many of my readers were around when King was an active player but the world a year after she beat Bobby Riggs at tennis was measurably better than was the year before. And not just for women but for *anybody* who was previously doomed to the grievously narrow gender expectations of the era.
It seems to me that it isn't any individual's acts that are "empowering", but that they feel empowered by having the ability to make the choice to do them (as opposed to having that choice made for them by society or someone else). So it isn't the act that is empowering, but the ability to make the choice and claim it as their own choice. The act is empowered.
It is in making that claim - "this is my choice, and I have the right and the power to make it" - that one sees benefits for others, because it shows them that they, too, can make that choice (or indeed, choose the opposite).
In your example of the working family where one parent stays at home, the empowerment is in the right of the family to organise the division of labour as best fits the needs and potential of the family and its members. The decision to have a stay-at-home parent or for both parents to work, can be an empowered decision, or can be a forced decision (e.g. if neither parent is able to bring in enough on their own to cover the costs of living).
[Well, yes and no. An example I almost added, that maybe I should have, was an enslaved person who rises above his or her servitude and then becomes prosperous by trafficking others. The choice to do so would unquestionably be individually power-accruing, but not at all "empowering." At least not in the sense most people seem to mean when they use the term. Thanks, SDE. --fl]
i'll have to wikipedia billy jean king.
[Here you go, Kate. Thanks! --fl]
Of course I'm one of your few readers who remembers Billy Jean King, and the match with Riggs. It may have improved the world but, astoundingly, it's taken all this time (can it really be 25 years?) for Wimbledon to give equal prize money to women.
My mother bore and raised 10 children and was very much a stay at home Mom. However, about the time the youngest headed off to school, she was back playing tennis, a sport she loved her whole life. No one could have been prouder than her ten children when she won the County tournament in women's singles, doubles and mixed doubles--against women half her age. Later when she completed her college career that had been suspended for 30 years, we were even prouder. She loved the fact that Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs. She still does. Not to take anything away from my mother, I would say that King's victory over the comically boorish Riggs didn't hurt her perspective on what women could do in the world.