Jack's Essay: A Man Among Women - 9/23/05

I first met Patricia Hill Burnett twelve years ago. She was looking for someone to help her with her autobiography. I had no desire to do that, but had always wanted to meet her.
She was, after all, a legend. The beauty queen turned feminist who had become the state portrait painter of Michigan. We had lunch and to my surprise, before dessert I had agreed to help with her book.
Why? Well, she was charming and fascinating. But the real reason was the challenge. When you work on an autobiography, you in a sense have to become someone else.
Basically, that meant I had to become in some way a 75-year-old woman, to put myself into her mind and her history and brain waves. That wasn’t easy, but was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  Patricia and I are very different.
And I don’t mean because she is a woman and I am a man. She is a pure artist, entirely right-brained. She can’t remember names and dates, and I can’t draw a stick man. Yet I came, at least partially, to see the world through her eyes.
I saw enough to get a glimpse of what every beautiful woman had to endure. I felt what it was like to be seen as an  ornament rather than a person. An ornament, that is, who could also cook, clean and change diapers.
I felt her indignation when clients asked her to sign portraits with her initials, since, as one said, “it’ll be worth more if people think it was painted by a man.”
Helping a feminist of my mother’s generation express herself was one of the best things I ever did for myself.
And I think it made me a better man.

Comments

[Candace Christensen]

Jack summed it up in his last statement...this show could have gone on for hours and hours. It's a topic that most of us are dealing with each and every day..men and women. Had I been able to get through via phone, I would have asked: "Why is it we pay people to come into our homes and clean and care for our children and pay them..let's see..probably about $10.00 an hour and yet women perform these duties daily and are paid nothing? The sociological and cultural ramifications of the whole issue of our economy and what we value..very, very important..Very complex.

[Betsy Saneholtz]

This was a great show. It received 14 hits on my cell phone redial button. I didn't get through but I wanted to make two comments.

First, I have figured out why I do not like being referred to as a feminist. For many years I have felt guilt over not feeling comfortable with the term or with the company of others who call themselves feminists. I have come to realize that I am instead a humanist. Since I am a woman and since women have particular trouble with equality in this society, I fall squarely on the side of humanism which seeks to equalize the role of women. But I also know that if the structure of power were switched and women were in control of everything, a peaceful equitible society would not automatically be the result. There is treachery in humanity which is not gender specific. If the tables were turned, I would be working toward equality for men with the same level of intensity that I work now for women in this time and place.

Second, for the last eight years or so I have been working part time or staying at home to care for my children. I have a BA and MA but never went full board into developing a career. One day when the stress of taking care of two small children was getting me down, my mother, thinking she was helping me feel better about my state of mind said, "I can see why you would be depressed. You have two degrees and aren't using either of them." There are many problems with hearing this statement especially uttered from a self proclaimed progressive liberal democrat feminist. But part of me heard her and felt guilty about not working because I was "wasting" my education: as if I did not use the knowledge I gained from those degrees in raising my children, as if those degrees did not help me grow as a person, as if the only value in education was making payments on a degree to get a job. The comment dug under my skin and tore open a crucial basic view of this society which working and non-working mothers often uncover, and that is that education is a waste of time if it does not generate an income. The impotus to go back to work or keep working does not necessarily only come from certain careers or from supervisors or from lack of funds, but more often from this instilled view that if I am educated I have to make money with that education.

Thanks for a great show.