I’ve been reading a few books recently. The first by Susan Cain, Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking is about how the cult of the extrovert arose in Western society, why we shouldn’t ignore introverts, and what we as individuals, teachers, parents and societies can do to nurture this half of the population. The second book, Anne Summers’ The Misogyny Factor, is about how after more than fifty years of second-wave feminism, our society is far from egalitarian, as illustrated by how our first female PM was treated and statistics regarding women’s status, earnings, and labour force participation. And then by feminist Susan Maushart, What Women Want Next.
Susan Cain reminds us that many of the achievements of human kind have been made by introverts like Einstein, Newton, Yeats, Chopin and Orwell, and that there would be no Charlie Brown, Cat in the Hat, ET, Google or Harry Potter were it not for introverts (I’m sure we could think of more women to add too). The sort of concentrated application to a task that introverts bring is essential to many breakthroughs and achievements in science, technology, art and music.
Cain looks at Kagan’s research into the behaviour of four-month old babies when stimulated by a range of sound, colour and other non-human stimuli which suggests a biological predisposition to introversion versus extroversion. Babies who were most sensitive to these stimuli (i.e. their pupils dilated more and they kicked their arms and legs about more frequently) tended to grow up to be sensitive and introverted. Those babies who were less stimulated by these stimuli had characteristics that were more likely to be extroverted and more comfortable in a crowd than alone or in a small group – with the caveat that later development depended on how the characteristics interacted with the environment. It’s been good to read about the strengths of and genetic basis for being quiet and shy for once, in a world that I agree does often glorify the brash. I note that it is more socially acceptable for the brash to be male.
Summers’ latest book is a timely reminder that, as Hilary Clinton has said, ‘progress is not success.’ While written when Australia’s Prime Minister, Governor-General, Head of State and Queensland, Tasmanian and ACT Heads of Government were all women, with substantial female representation in Cabinet as well, the book warned that within a year this could all change – and in fact largely it did, to the now well-cited situation whereby all of these women with the exception of our Head of State and ACT Chief Minister have now been replaced by men and there is only one woman in Federal Cabinet. Summers makes the very practical suggestion that each of us, men and women, have the power and responsibility to stop misogyny and sexism and we can do so online by refusing to bear silent witness to such behaviour: return the email, reply to the comment, ‘it stops with me.’
However I find Maushart’s a more effective society-wide, solution-focused approach to the challenge of how to decrease inequality in her book What Women Want Next. Yes, she says, women do have lower earnings over their lifetime, and are far more likely to undertake part-time work (Summers notes with disappointment that only around 67% of Australian women with primary-school-aged children are in fulltime work compared to 80% in Canada). Summers is an assimilationist who thinks that these figures need to change. But as Native American feminist Winona LaDuke has observed, women don’t just want a bigger slice of the pie, they want a different pie (or range of pies, I would say).
I haven’t seen any role models that have made me the least bit interested in ‘climbing the greasy pole’ (as Sir Humphrey Appleby said in Yes, Minister) according to the traditional definition of success if that means working five or more days a week; and there are very few role models who indicate to me that such climbing is possible with a lesser commitment. There are no part-time employees, women or men, in the next ‘rung’ up in my world, to mix a metaphor. I, like 60% of women (who may be either full or part-time), fall somewhere in the middle between the 20% of women who are happy to be home-centred and the 20% who give priority to paid work according to Hakim’s research, quoted by Maushart. ‘Why don’t women run the world?’ Maushart quotes Belkin as asking. ‘Maybe it’s because they don’t want to.’
Maushart makes her arguments with jokes and stories from her own life thrown in, and that makes her books easy to enjoy. Impeccably researched, as the other books also are, she made me both giggle out loud and share passages with Steve. She has sections on motherhood and marriage, happiness research and gendered examinations of anxiety and depression which made me feel better just to know that other women find it hard at this stage of life too. One study of mothers interacting with their preschool-aged children found that a mishap occurred every three minutes. No wonder I/we often find it such hard work (that’s a mishap every 90 seconds with preschool-aged twins!). And if autonomy, competency and belongingness are key to feeling fulfilled, it was no wonder I wasn’t feeling so in the last year.
I first started reading feminist critical thinking at university and enjoyed it and related to it from the beginning. Tossing around the thoughts and research of all of these writers is helping me chart my course through this stage of my life and also helping me to be the parent I want to be for Rhea and Lara, so that they can be nurtured to be confident, curious and caring little people now and into the future.
Will Lara or Rhea be quiet introverts like Steve and I? I can’t imagine what it would be like to live with a child who was very different to you, so if either of them are not, hopefully someone will have written a book to help me deal with that by the time I make the diagnosis.
I wonder what pie they would like their world to look like, and whether we will at least have moved that debate to the mainstream when they come to study these things.
