Open Writing

Starting with my mother, I’ve had a fondness for the opposite sex for most of my years. This predilection has shaped my life in powerful ways; most often, but not always, for good. It has been a constant, where many other obsessions have faded over time. On one level or another I have been fortunate to know English, Jewish, European, Indian, Chinese and American women well enough to be able to distinguish personality differences.

But of all nationalities, for me, the hardest to define are American women, yet it is they and their English cousins that I know most intimately. My first two wives were English, and my present wife of twenty-two years is American and Jewish; you don’t get much more American than being born in Brooklyn, New York, so I think I’m qualified. That there are personality differences between American women and their English or European counterparts is, I think, unquestionable. Each time I visit England or Europe the evidence is quite plain.

I have thought long and hard about these variations, but a simple definition eludes me. The closest I can come is that American women have a perception of themselves that is very clear to them, but not necessarily accurate to the rest of us. No matter how much their position in society “improves,” they continue to insist that they are being treated as men’s inferiors, and judged by a different set of standards. I think it is this striving to be acknowledged as equal, or perhaps superior to men that differentiates them from their sisters across the Atlantic.

As one example from a current, highly visible situation, Hillary Clinton, in her role as presidential hopeful, is accused of being aggressive and hostile. Her female supporters would say that if she were a man, this behavior would be characterized in positive terms as forceful and determined. Yet, by her own admission, she avoids conduct and dress that would appear “Too feminine.” Go figure that.

As a result of constantly striving towards their status goals, I feel that American women have evolved into a society of chronic complainers. Their list of wrongs is headed by what they perceive as a lack of job and education opportunities. Yet ten Fortune 500 companies are currently run by women, and twenty Fortune 1000 companies. In education, women now make up nearly half of the Ph.D. recipients in the United States, and 58 percent of all undergraduates, according to the U.S. Education Department.

In the most recent survey by the Washington, D.C. based American Council on Education, preliminary data show that 23 percent of University presidents are women, including those at such prestigious institutions as Harvard, Princeton and MIT. In four-year colleges, females hold 29 percent of the top spots. These data obviously don’t reflect parity with men at this time, but neither university nor company presidents are made overnight; their career paths start early in their education. So it is reasonable to expect that the ranks of female leaders will swell as a function of the high proportion of women now being granted Ph.D degrees.

Aside from the availability or otherwise of opportunities, some women elect not to pursue demanding careers in favor of child bearing; a choice that men do not have open to them. A proportion of other women voluntarily drop out of career paths for the same reason. So it’s irrational to expect a large and rapid rise in female appointments to top jobs in business, industry and education, but this is not to say that those fields of endeavor necessarily favor men.

In the American medical profession, the number of women doctors has steadily increased since Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to earn an M.D., graduated in 1849. The Boston University School of Medicine opened the first, all-women medical school in 1848, and it was 24 years before it admitted men. Now, the American Medical Women’s Association lists 10,000 physicians and students in its membership roster. In 2003, women applicants to medical schools outnumbered men for the first time.

Despite a powerful urgency that drives many young women to marry, this institution also evolves into a source of disappointment and dissatisfaction for many of them. At one time, disillusionment with the reality of married life could have been excused on grounds of ignorance of such aspects as sexual intercourse, child bearing, and the marital expectations of some husbands. But in these times of educated women, and the open society we live in, one could reasonably expect that even the most dewy-eyed female would not be taken by surprise.

Based on my own anecdotal knowledge, a significant proportion of American men have changed their attitudes and behavior towards the opposite sex in response to women’s demands, and to some extent as a result of sex discrimination statutes. A high proportion of young men I know are the family cook, and several men of advanced years have taken it up in response to their wives’ decision to give up that responsibility.

Increasingly, I see young husbands with babies slung on their backs as they go about their chores, and even fifty years ago I was actively and willingly involved in the daily care of my four daughters. Yet withal, married life offers no attractions to a growing number of women, some of whom are even opting to have children by artificial insemination, leaving one with the impression that they would willingly dispense with men altogether if procreation could be managed without them.

Considering the social changes that have benefited women in the US, one is tempted to speculate about what the future will hold. Given that the changes so far have apparently not brought any satisfaction, it seems very possible that future progress will only breed more disenchantment, and that women in this country will continue to echo the words of the plaintive Peggy Lee song “Is That All There Is?”

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