“Emancipated Women”

Potsdam, 17.7.2015. Yesterday my wife and I visited a wonderful exhibition at the Old Gallery in Berlin. It was titled, “Impressionism versus Expressionism” and covered the period from about 1880 to 1914. Some 160 paintings by Lieberman, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Touluse-Lautreq, Dix, Heckel, Kirchner, Klee, Macke, Munch, Nolde, Pechstein. And, to top it all, a couple of van Gochs. A greater feast to the eyes can hardly be imagined. Personally I like impressionism better than I do expressionism. Each time I see these beautiful works they make me want to weep with happiness. But that is not what I want to write about here.

What I do want to write about is a short text posted on one of the walls by way of telling visitors what they are seeing. One of the things the two movements had in common, it said, was the fact that, at the time, “women’s emancipation was still far away.” Supposedly that explained why so many of the paintings showed women in “domestic settings.” Meaning, presumably, anything that does not involve a “career.” Women bathing. Women buying flowers. Women dancing. Women reading. Women rowing a boat. Women talking to each other. Women teaching children to do this or that. Women walking. Women flirting, perhaps considering whether or not to have sex with their avid-looking male partners. Women, women. Almost all of them doing what women have always done and almost of them exciting, good looking, and, judging by their looks, self-conscious and intelligent.

22_mediumIt made me think of my late grandmother, Francien Wijler, née Landsberg. She was born in Rotterdam in 1893. At the age of 25 she married my grandfather, Louis Wijler. She was the daughter of a middle class family, had taken a degree in French literature, and knew Greek as well as Latin. Her favorites were the scene in the Iliad where Hector takes leave of his wife and baby son as well as Napoleon’s love letters to Josephine. He, three years older than she, was a young, tough, somewhat prosaic man from the boondoggles who had never gone beyond “extended elementary school” (nine classes). She remained in her parents’ home until they wed. He was apprenticed to a chicken-feed dealer when he was just sixteen years old. By the time they met he had gone into business for himself and was well on the way to making himself rich.

The combination was, and is, not unusual. Young men used to leave school so they could earn their keep. Young women of good family had the privilege of studying so they could make eligible brides for successful young men. Or else, should they fail to catch one, earn their livelihood by teaching. Before finally going on pension my grandfather spent most of his time in the office or at the stock exchange where, to quote his memoirs, there was no end to “worry and stress.” His wife, by contrast, never worked outside the home. Instead she oversaw the household with an iron hand, (she had help, of course) and raised six children. At one point she had sufficient leisure to continue her studies. Eventually she took an MA. At home she had the upper hand in everything.

Though she could easily have afforded it, she never had a “room of her own.” She did not need one. With my grandfather at work and the children spending much of the day in kindergarten or at school, the entire house was at her disposal. Everything in it was hers. She could go out or stay in just as she pleased. It was she who spent practically all the money they did. It was he, not she, who used to grumble, only half in jest, that he was a kettinghond (dog on a chain).

In 1973 she forced him, much against his will, to move from the Netherlands to Israel where all her daughters and most of her grandchildren, some with children of their own, were living. She loved it and learnt Hebrew fairly well. He hated it and did not. Within four years of the move he was dead. Briefly, she was the most “emancipated” woman I ever knew. And so she remained until her death, which took place nine years after his. She used to tell me how, as a widow, she regularly visited his grave to find peace in the shade of the trees.

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No, she never did heavy outdoor work as men did and do. No, she did not sweat her skin off in a steel factory as men did and do. No, she did not work in an office. The dienstmeisjes (servant girls) apart, she never had anyone to order around. And she did not envy women who had a “career.” At the time she grew up, and in fact until 1960 or so, it was taken for granted that a proper man should support his wife and family as they deserved to be. Briefly, assisted by a large open account she had at Rotterdam’s largest department store, the Bijenkorf, she spent her time doing exactly as she pleased.

Back to the paintings. With the exception of peasant women, poor creatures who share in the misery of their menfolk, very few of the women shown are at work. Of those who are, all without exception are young, low class, presumably not too well educated, and probably unmarried. Most are employed as servants, waitresses, vaudeville dancers, etc. That explains why the only ones shown wearing anything like pants are the ones dancing the Can Can. The rest seem to have leisure on their hands. None is doing physical work out of doors as men did. None are shown sweating their skin off in steel factories. None are shown sitting in offices and filling in forms, which is what office workers usually do. Or putting on a soldier’s uniform.

Since then things have changed. Unless a woman does exactly as men do, she is hardly considered human. Least of all by her “emancipated” sisters. Had my grandmother been a generation or two younger, indeed, feminists would have kept pestering her by asking why “she did not do anything with her life.” As, incidentally, they did pester my mother in law, another highly intelligent woman who spent most of her life looking after, read dominating, her husband, her family, and her home.

By the feminist gospel, “emancipated” women must wear pants (although, recently, that demand seems to have been relaxed a little; a topic for another post, perhaps?) They must imitate men and have a “career.” They must imitate men by working out of doors in trades that demand physical effort. On the rare occasions one of them does so, usually only for a brief time, the media go ape in admiration. They must imitate men and work in factories. They must imitate men and work in offices. But that is still not enough. Women must imitate men by driving trucks, buses, and taxis as well as heavy earthmoving equipment. Women must do sports just like men (all sorts of sports, without exception, have been invented by men).

To top it all, to “enrich the concept of citizenship,” as one feminist put it, women must put on military uniform. They must go to war, participate in combat and get themselves killed in nice, friendly places such as Afghanistan. If they have children, well that is just too bad (for the children, of course). Let relatives, or hired personnel, take care of them! No doubt if men started jumping from roofs, “emancipated” women would follow their example. As, in the case of bungee-jumping, they already do.

A hundred percent pure penis envy, if you ask me.