Will my baby granddaughter pay the price of my fight for equality? Sixties feminist JEANNETTE KUPFERMAN sees the emotional emptiness facing women today
The
moment I held Amber Ann in my arms — just minutes after her birth — an
unexpected cocktail of emotions nearly floored me; what can best be
described as a mixture of unbridled joy mingled with apprehension.
My
first grandchild was so perfectly formed, her eyes blinking in the
bright hospital lights, her little fingers intertwined with mine. Of
course, every baby is an individual miracle — but Amber was something of
an actual miracle too, as my daughter-in-law Ewa, who suffered from
endometriosis, had never believed she could conceive. Then, suddenly,
she’d fallen pregnant, announcing it on my 75th birthday in a West End
restaurant. I almost fell off my chair with excitement.
Much as I’d always longed for grandchildren, when I turned 70 I’d almost given up.
Both
my son, Elias, a historian, now 52, and daughter, Mina, an editor and
photographer, 50, married late in life, and I knew the chances were
diminishing. Yet here was Amber Ann, my son’s first child, snuggling
into my arms.
Sixties feminist Jeannette
Kupferman is terrified of the world her new baby granddaughter is
entering (Pictured in 1969, aged 28)
But
as she did so, the emotions were more complex and bittersweet than the
straightforward joy I’d anticipated. Of course, for now we can hold her
safe, nurture her talents and encourage her development — but what will
her future hold?
Just that morning
another headline had caught my eye about schoolgirls feeling pressured
to sleep with boys before they are ready. Not to mention the endless
stories about the increasing numbers of teenagers experiencing
depression, self-harming, eating disorders, atrocious bullying, sexting
and gender uncertainty.
It makes me
wonder what happened to the Brave New World we’d envisaged for our
daughters and granddaughters. A world of unlimited possibilities,
choices and equality for girls to become or do anything?
A world I — like many women — fought for in the Sixties.
Has feminism made life worse, not better, for today’s generation of girls?
Certainly, women have never existed in such a bleak emotional landscape.
The porn culture has virtually taken
over every area of life, perhaps born from those Sixties cries for
sexual liberation that you should have as much sex as you like, with
whoever you like.
Today, even the most
intimate acts are lived out onscreen. The ITV2 reality horror show Love
Island, mercifully now finished, is just the culmination of years of the
drip-drip effect of pornography; it’s bubble-wrapped candy floss with
poison at its heart. Those involved might as well have been robots as
there was precious little ‘love’ on show.
Meanwhile,
traditional roles have become ever more ideologically despised — so
much so that last week the very act of being a housewife or mother was
banned from advertisements for perpetuating ‘outdated’ gender
stereotypes.
For all the efforts of
feminism, and the enlargement of women’s opportunities, it seems it’s
also made that world more painful, complicated and unrewarding.
Burn your bras and wear miniskirts, we cried. Be free!
'The ITV2 reality horror show
Love Island, mercifully now finished, is just the culmination of years
of the drip-drip effect of pornography; it’s bubble-wrapped candy floss
with poison at its heart' (Pictured with her granddaughter Amber Ann)
But
aren’t young girls today just as imprisoned by the drive to bear their
flesh as the cliched Victorian wife in crinolines? It’s almost as
compulsory for a young woman to take a pouting semi-naked selfie today
as it was for a teenager in the Fifties to wear bobby socks.
It’s
somehow ironic that the one section of society which still dresses
modestly — women in ethnic and religious minorities — say they do so to
protect their sacred space as females.
Meanwhile,
the majority of other young women brutally expose their bodies,
catering to every tawdry male fantasy, as a sign of their ‘freedom’.
Who
could have predicted such an obsession with thinness or worship of
celebrities for the near-Frankensteinian outrages they inflict on their
bodies?
The growing sexualisation of
children continues with unsuitable tiny ‘bra’ bikinis and make-up and
sex education at an unnecessarily early age. TV and the internet expose
children to everything from crude language to sexual practices.
The
things I worried about as a mother — failing exams, unwanted pregnancy,
drinking too much — seem tame. How I fear for Amber Ann, in this age of
endless choice and freedom.
The
well-meaning battles we embarked on in idealistic youth have somehow
robbed young women of the soul of femininity. We’ve lost something
precious, distinctive and unique.
My
own life — one where loss, hardship and struggle has always played a
part — has taught me that simple pleasures matter just as much. And
that’s the message I want to now share with my granddaughter’s
generation. We’re in danger of losing the essence of womanhood in this
brutal landscape.
A war baby, I was
born while my mother, Eva, was an evacuee, and only returned to a grim
post-war East London after my father, Nat, who eventually became a
clothes manufacturer, was demobbed.
Though
we had little money, I went to an exceptional primary school where a
few inspirational teachers made all the difference, encouraging me to
believe it was only education that would make for a better future.
'A war baby, I was born while my
mother, Eva, was an evacuee, and only returned to a grim post-war East
London after my father, Nat, who eventually became a clothes
manufacturer, was demobbed' (Jeannette as a six-week-old baby with her
mother and father in May 1941)
Later,
I walked miles alone every day to my grammar school, and had a freedom
few young girls today have as they are pressured into extra-curricular
activities or hooked on phones: freedom to think, imagine — just be.
Those
school years weren’t only about doing well in exams. It was about
enabling yourself to reach your full potential regardless of the job you
would end up doing.
When boyfriends
came along (aged about 14), via the youth club and jiving competitions,
there was no compulsion to have sex. We wouldn’t have dreamed of
anything more than kissing in the cinema, and sending passionate love
letters.
Virginity was still expected
until an engagement was announced or some commitment made, and I had the
sort of father who would stand waiting for me on the pavement after a
date. A boy had to make some effort at courtship even to get that first
kiss.
Contrast this with the recent
scenes in EastEnders where a teenager agonises over whether to strip off
in reply to her new boyfriend’s ‘sexting’ and is given conflicting
advice by friends, as if it would be the most normal thing for a young
girl to do.
Would I want my
granddaughter to think this was normal — even desirable? I feel so sad
for young girls who will never receive a beautiful love letter or go on a
romantic date with no strings attached.
I
didn’t receive any sex education at school, apart from basic biology. I
had the rather awkward talk from my mother, but we picked up most of it
from our friends and forbidden books.
What
we did know was that — whatever the urge — you did not go ‘all the way’
as a pre-Pill unwanted pregnancy was not only a disaster for the girl,
but a tragedy for everyone involved.
'After studying social
anthropology at the London School of Economics, I became a dancer and a
model for a while, escaped to New York and briefly worked as a research
librarian. Then I made my parents very happy by marrying my late
husband, Jacques, a painter, finally returning to London and having two
children by the age of 24' (Pictured in with her mother, Eva Holding,
and her baby son Elias, in 1965)
This
attitude appears inhuman now, but I’m not sure it hasn’t gone too far
the other way, making for uncaring short-lived relationships with teen
girls often the victims.
I suppose the
main difference is we had boundaries. We knew what was expected of us,
even if we kicked against it. I meet so many young women who don’t and
they grow up feeling confused and unhappy. We argued with our parents —
often bitterly — but we still listened to them. We threatened to leave
home, but mainly didn’t, even if, like myself, you were a rebel.
I
annoyed my father with my black eyeliner, long fringe and tendency to
associate with ‘unsuitable’ poets and jazz musicians. But throughout, I
wanted to please my parents.
There was
no ‘diet industry’. Three square meals were put on the table daily,
including thick soups, meat, potatoes and two veg, puddings with custard
— and jam sandwiches to keep you going in-between.
We
ate every bit and, amazingly, kept our tiny waists and figures without
gyms or starvation, probably because we walked miles every day, danced a
lot and junk food was unknown.
In my childhood, chubby babies were admired and even plump teens were reassured it was ‘only puppy-fat’ (which it usually was).
Back
in the era before liposuction, women weren’t made to feel insecure
about their figures. Obesity was unknown. How ironic that in our era of
juice diets, toxins, and superfoods, women are fatter and unhappier with
their bodies than ever.
After studying
social anthropology at the London School of Economics, I became a
dancer and a model for a while, escaped to New York and briefly worked
as a research librarian.Then I made my parents very happy by marrying my
late husband, Jacques, a painter, finally returning to London and
having two children by the age of 24.
My
unease at the consequences of the search for equality started to bubble
to the surface in 1979, when I wrote my first book, The MsTaken Body.
Many of its predictions have come true.
My
unease at the consequences of the search for equality started to bubble
to the surface in 1979, when I wrote my first book, The MsTaken Body.
Many of its predictions have come true
Inspired
by my own teacher, the great anthropologist Mary Douglas, with whom I
studied at University College London, I could already see that the women
banging the drum for equality were going too far.
The
spiritual joys and physical pleasures of womanhood had become
‘mechanised’ as I put it then; things that needed rectifying with
political schemes to make us more like men, or medical treatment to
quell our hormones and control our childbirth pangs.
Even birth has become too dominated by ‘choice’, overly technologised in the extreme.
Once
a midwife came to your home to help you through birth. Now, the quest
for equality — and medicalisation and male involvement in this once
female domain — means many women have lost confidence in their capable
bodies.
Although it’s seen as a great
advance to involve fathers more in pregnancy and labour, and to have
surgical teams on standby to assist in any birth, in some ways this has
eroded women’s belief that she can do it alone.
Can
it then be any coincidence that a growing number of women are terrified
by what was once the natural way of things, and are having induced and
difficult labours?
What was once a
woman’s space has vanished. I felt so strongly about this that I trained
as a National Childbirth Trust teacher and breastfeeding counsellor,
teaching at Hammersmith hospital for a time, to try to help women
rediscover the joys of this most natural, female act. It was an uphill
battle.
I have learned, over the years,
that the ‘stereotypical’ roles of femininity can give a sense of
identity and security unmatched by anything in the corporate or
professional world.
Having babies and
showing domestic prowess doesn’t mean you have to be limited or stifled.
On the contrary. And not having children — either through choice or
circumstance — is no barrier to these nurturing, feminine roles.
The
spiritual joys and physical pleasures of womanhood had become
‘mechanised’ as I put it then; things that needed rectifying with
political schemes to make us more like men, or medical treatment to
quell our hormones and control our childbirth pangs
After having my children, I got two further degrees, taught briefly and then built up a career as a writer and broadcaster.
Simultaneously,
I tried to run a traditional household, cooking, entertaining and
finger-painting with my toddlers. I often worked through the night and
sometimes succumbed to the strain.
But I
was there for my children. The overarching lesson of my life is that
the people in it matter, and my ability to be there for them — as a
woman, wife and mother, in all the many and varied expressions of both
those roles — is vital.
I learned that
life turns on a sixpence, and sadly you can lose ones you love. I was
widowed young, aged 44, when Jacques died of cancer at 61. As a mother, I
did overload my daughter with activities at times, encouraging her to
aim high, perhaps placing a bit too much emphasis on work. But that was
all part of the ‘Superwoman’ having-it-all ethic, which we now know
isn’t true.
I’ve long been happy and
secure enough in myself that I will don a pinny, scrub a floor and make
jam, not seeing it as a threat to the other professional and public
roles I have.
We’ve forgotten that even everyday tasks can nourish the soul — and you can find contentment in the boring certainties
Indeed, I find it relaxing, almost spiritual in a way, to express myself as a woman in these traditional ways.
We’ve forgotten that even everyday tasks can nourish the soul — and you can find contentment in the boring certainties.
I
hope my little Amber Ann discovers this, too. Whatever she becomes, she
can create a good home-cooked meal, sit quietly in the garden with a
book, or enjoy a day at the seaside with her own children.
I hope she has the faculty to be excited by some wonderful music, or transported by a ballet or painting.
I
want her to feel euphoria because of the rare richness and uniqueness
of life, and because of pride in her own innate womanhood — not be
sozzled with booze or worse, ending up destroying body and soul in some
demeaning, meaningless sexual encounter.
A
rich and rewarding life isn’t one necessarily filled with endless
choices. I hope she will have the luxury of more time than most girls
today, to have a stillness and peace that will encourage creativity and
daydreaming.
I want her not to be imprisoned by all those supposedly ‘equal’ choices out there, but to be loyal to her true self.
As
a loving grandmother, my wish for her is not only to be kind, resilient
and resourceful, but above all, confident as a woman in every single
sense of the word.
No comments:
Post a Comment