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How fantastic is life in plastic? I’m not talking about Barbie here, though of course the film’s defining moment is Gloria’s bitter feminist monologue: “I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.” I mean the longer-running cult of plasticity, popularised in the 2000s with the help of sociologists such as Anthony Giddens, which emphasised flexibility, adaptability and transferability as core “graduate attributes” and employment skills. From then on, success in the modern world required the willingness to juggle many things at once. The ability to do one thing well was not only outdated; it was enough to qualify you for a position “on the spectrum”.
The plasticity imperative was aimed at everyone, but some were quicker to adapt than others. Women, we were reminded, had been multitasking for years — and suddenly this made us marvellous. “Plastic Woman” was the protagonist of Hanna Rosin’s 2012 book, The End of Men: and the Rise of Women: during the past century, Rosin wrote, Plastic Woman has “performed superhuman feats of flexibility”, going from “barely working at all to working while married and then working with children, even babies”. She has embraced her liberation from “ladylike standards” to engage in everything from sexual adventurousness to demanding better salaries. Trailing far behind her was “Cardboard Man”, who “hardly changes at all”. Men have “lost the old architecture of manliness”, argued Rosin, without replacing it with anything more solid than “’mancessories’ — jeans and pickup trucks and designer switchblades, superheroes and thugs who rant and rave on TV”. Welcome to Kendom.
Rosin’s book expressed the insights of academic “crisis of masculinity” literature, and for all its oversimplifications, it had a point. Deindustrialisation had not only made the skills demanded by traditionally “male” jobs redundant by the late 20th century, but it had set the scene for a new kind of worker role that women seemed to glide into. This had less to do with a specific type of work, and more to do with a type of worker prized by the new deindustrialised economy. People have often assumed that women are better suited to service-sector jobs and care work than they are to the factory floor, but this doesn’t stack up; women for centuries have engaged in back-breaking physical labour in the fields, the home, and indeed in factories. Instead, in all sorts of workplaces, women fulfilled the criteria of the new model employee: one with a host of generic skills, whose expectations of continuity and stability were less firmly rooted than for the “job for lifers” of old, and whose workplace demands were tempered by gratitude that we were encouraged to be there at all.
For women in the Nineties and 2000s, working was seen as a privilege that our mothers had fought so hard to win. If work didn’t allow us to self-actualise to the degree Betty Friedan had promised, it was still better to be out in the world than suffocating in the “comfortable concentration camp” of the home. Or was it?
We are no longer so sure. Now perimenopausal and dreaming of retirement, the archetypal Nineties Plastic Woman finds herself “just so tired” by the demands of everything, everywhere, all at once that she has begun to wonder if it was all a bit of a con. Meanwhile, younger women are opting out of various aspects of the game, boasting of “lazy girl jobs” or deciding to remain childless. A new breed of “conservative feminist” argues that (other) women should re-focus their attention and affection back on the family and the home, reclaiming the fulfilment of motherhood from the bad press given to it by the Women’s Liberation Movement.
But amid this furious backlash against Girlboss feminism, the deeper problem with the cult of plasticity is obscured. It’s not about all the things we have to do, but about who we think we are. The promotion of Plastic Woman did not come at the expense of men — who, as many pointed out when Rosin’s book was published, were already well on their way to being plasticised. It came at the expense of the ideal of self-determination, which lay at the core of both the labour movement and the campaign for women’s liberation. What drove both movements, albeit often in different directions, was the desire for more control over one’s life: you might have to do a lot of hard and boring stuff, at work or at home, but that did not define who you were.
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Subscribe(Please note quoted by the author, not her view)
A good example of the antipathy towards men at the heart of much feminist thinking. It’s as if they can’t help but express their ill will, even when ostensibly being objective.
When challenged, feminists will tell you that it is all about equality, and a better world for all – but their words give them away.
Good point – but I hope you don’t mind if I stretch if a little further. Social justice activists, of whatever type, always begin by insisting on their human right to equality and social acceptance. This soon evolves into demands for conspicuous respect, deference and preferential treatment – mere acceptance and the granting of equality are no longer good enough and may even be dismissed as patronising.
[e.g. The ever growing demands of the gay movement provide a perfect illustration of the process. What began with calls for the de-criminalisation of homosexuality has grown into demands that Pride month be universally celebrated, same-sex marriage be treated as equal to heterosexual (ie normal) marriage, that to be same-sex attracted confers special virtue and that criticism, or even scepticism of homosexuality or lesbianism should be forbidden].
Listen to these women: They are unhappy people and take it out on everyone else. I suspect that their personal problems come from their own mothers, who dominated them, and their fathers who just wanted peace and allowed the mother/wife to dominate them all. I am a woman, lived through the 60/70s femlib movement, watched it get highjacked by the crazies, and watched the confusion in the workplace by both sexes as they juggled to understand the new roles. I have, as a young Navy officer in the 70/80/90s and having lived through all of that turmoil in a male environment, become an unlikely advocate for men….and they need one. None of these women ever ask a beta male to go fight for them. They created the beta males by trying to make men more like women. These women need to examine their own behavior and how it creates their own unhappiness.
Excellent comment
Excellent comment
Just because a woman defines men a certain negative way and women a certain positive away doesn’t make it so.
Women can’t seem to grasp this fact, or if they do they ignore it because it satisfies their resentment towards men.
There seems to be an underlying jealousy of men that feeds a lot of women’s writings.
A jealousy of men caused by a wish to be more like men – that is, footloose and sexually irresponsible, unburdened by pregnancy and motherhood.
Result: population implosion and the end of Western societies, feminists and feminism included.
A jealousy of men caused by a wish to be more like men – that is, footloose and sexually irresponsible, unburdened by pregnancy and motherhood.
Result: population implosion and the end of Western societies, feminists and feminism included.
What really annoys me about lines like these is, that it’s almost exactly the other way round.
While most men I know are comfortable doing housework, taking care of kids etc….
It’s women who haven’t changed at all.
Yes, yes, they go to college to get those easy non STEM degrees, and those nice govt / admin / NHS jobs.
But very few women I know would agree to be the breadwinner, or even forego leisure and family time for a stressful 70 hour job. No change when it comes to child custody, alimony, dying in Iraq or Ukraine is for men. Hardly any woman would go for construction, truck driving, anything that might be physical or involve irregular outdoor hours.
Forget all that, you will find plenty of whining about women footballers not magically being paid the same, but women invariably take no interest in football, gaming, etc.
In terms of mindset, women are still stuck in 1900. Working in an office and collecting a paycheck doesn’t make you “modern”.
Women long ago became some of the worst soccer bores. Only a woman has expressed moral outrage at my indifference to the ‘beautiful game’. There are even female PC gamers but it seems some of them pretend to be male to avoid being a ‘female gamer’.
Women long ago became some of the worst soccer bores. Only a woman has expressed moral outrage at my indifference to the ‘beautiful game’. There are even female PC gamers but it seems some of them pretend to be male to avoid being a ‘female gamer’.
Good point – but I hope you don’t mind if I stretch if a little further. Social justice activists, of whatever type, always begin by insisting on their human right to equality and social acceptance. This soon evolves into demands for conspicuous respect, deference and preferential treatment – mere acceptance and the granting of equality are no longer good enough and may even be dismissed as patronising.
[e.g. The ever growing demands of the gay movement provide a perfect illustration of the process. What began with calls for the de-criminalisation of homosexuality has grown into demands that Pride month be universally celebrated, same-sex marriage be treated as equal to heterosexual (ie normal) marriage, that to be same-sex attracted confers special virtue and that criticism, or even scepticism of homosexuality or lesbianism should be forbidden].
Listen to these women: They are unhappy people and take it out on everyone else. I suspect that their personal problems come from their own mothers, who dominated them, and their fathers who just wanted peace and allowed the mother/wife to dominate them all. I am a woman, lived through the 60/70s femlib movement, watched it get highjacked by the crazies, and watched the confusion in the workplace by both sexes as they juggled to understand the new roles. I have, as a young Navy officer in the 70/80/90s and having lived through all of that turmoil in a male environment, become an unlikely advocate for men….and they need one. None of these women ever ask a beta male to go fight for them. They created the beta males by trying to make men more like women. These women need to examine their own behavior and how it creates their own unhappiness.
Just because a woman defines men a certain negative way and women a certain positive away doesn’t make it so.
Women can’t seem to grasp this fact, or if they do they ignore it because it satisfies their resentment towards men.
There seems to be an underlying jealousy of men that feeds a lot of women’s writings.
What really annoys me about lines like these is, that it’s almost exactly the other way round.
While most men I know are comfortable doing housework, taking care of kids etc….
It’s women who haven’t changed at all.
Yes, yes, they go to college to get those easy non STEM degrees, and those nice govt / admin / NHS jobs.
But very few women I know would agree to be the breadwinner, or even forego leisure and family time for a stressful 70 hour job. No change when it comes to child custody, alimony, dying in Iraq or Ukraine is for men. Hardly any woman would go for construction, truck driving, anything that might be physical or involve irregular outdoor hours.
Forget all that, you will find plenty of whining about women footballers not magically being paid the same, but women invariably take no interest in football, gaming, etc.
In terms of mindset, women are still stuck in 1900. Working in an office and collecting a paycheck doesn’t make you “modern”.
(Please note quoted by the author, not her view)
A good example of the antipathy towards men at the heart of much feminist thinking. It’s as if they can’t help but express their ill will, even when ostensibly being objective.
When challenged, feminists will tell you that it is all about equality, and a better world for all – but their words give them away.
I suspect that after late twentieth century feminists won the war for equality, the daughters of feminists felt compelled to opt for the new found “wonderful opportunities” that were previously the preserve of males.
.
Equally the full-time grifters in the sex/gender space needed to find other “causes “ to moan about – in order to keep their salaries coming in e.g. Stonewall.
.
Hopefully the tide is turning, and women will start to do what they feel works for them – rather than follow the instructions of the “grievance grifters”
Hopefully most will decide to have nothing to do with men.
They have definitely decided not to have anything to do with the responsibilities hoisted on men by the patriarchy.
What would you have them do ?
This is a sentiment expressed by bitter and lonely people of both sexes.
Rather that allowing for self actualization it is ultimately self destructive.
I recommend Dr Jordan Peterson; his writing and online lectures as an effective therapeutic.
That’s just silly & insane & yes, just plain stupid. Women & man are complementary and will be forever more. You’re just not doing it right.
I believe it’s too late for her and has been for many years.
Old and single.
Resenting couples and especially men.
I believe it’s too late for her and has been for many years.
Old and single.
Resenting couples and especially men.
And will die out. Splendid – and good riddance.
Oh, but I forgot sperm donors ! Lots of kids with two mums, thus growing up to be lunatics.
They have definitely decided not to have anything to do with the responsibilities hoisted on men by the patriarchy.
What would you have them do ?
This is a sentiment expressed by bitter and lonely people of both sexes.
Rather that allowing for self actualization it is ultimately self destructive.
I recommend Dr Jordan Peterson; his writing and online lectures as an effective therapeutic.
That’s just silly & insane & yes, just plain stupid. Women & man are complementary and will be forever more. You’re just not doing it right.
And will die out. Splendid – and good riddance.
Oh, but I forgot sperm donors ! Lots of kids with two mums, thus growing up to be lunatics.
Hopefully most will decide to have nothing to do with men.
I suspect that after late twentieth century feminists won the war for equality, the daughters of feminists felt compelled to opt for the new found “wonderful opportunities” that were previously the preserve of males.
.
Equally the full-time grifters in the sex/gender space needed to find other “causes “ to moan about – in order to keep their salaries coming in e.g. Stonewall.
.
Hopefully the tide is turning, and women will start to do what they feel works for them – rather than follow the instructions of the “grievance grifters”
The gap is between a who-I-am world and a what-do-I-do world.
In the more traditional world, the what-do-I-do is dominant – general, sergeant, scientist, teacher, butcher, baker. The who-am-I is suppressed except for close confidants. People at work are known by the job, where you wouldn’t know whether they’re married, or what their hobbies are, even what your first name is. Personal is secondary and private. You are known by what you do and what you have done.
In the who-I-am world, everything revolves around self-promotion and self-actualisation. You buy things to fulfil your who-I-am dream. Everything becomes personal. How you look, how you are referred to, is about controlling the who-I-am, oversharing personal details, feelings above function, skipping out of duties and commitments because that’s not who-I-am. Criticism becomes ‘aggression’. Words become ‘violence’. Who-I-am shuffle papers and designs and policies. We know them from how they present themselves, not what they do.
We will know which one we really depend on when the war comes…
Excellent insight.
Excellent insight.
The gap is between a who-I-am world and a what-do-I-do world.
In the more traditional world, the what-do-I-do is dominant – general, sergeant, scientist, teacher, butcher, baker. The who-am-I is suppressed except for close confidants. People at work are known by the job, where you wouldn’t know whether they’re married, or what their hobbies are, even what your first name is. Personal is secondary and private. You are known by what you do and what you have done.
In the who-I-am world, everything revolves around self-promotion and self-actualisation. You buy things to fulfil your who-I-am dream. Everything becomes personal. How you look, how you are referred to, is about controlling the who-I-am, oversharing personal details, feelings above function, skipping out of duties and commitments because that’s not who-I-am. Criticism becomes ‘aggression’. Words become ‘violence’. Who-I-am shuffle papers and designs and policies. We know them from how they present themselves, not what they do.
We will know which one we really depend on when the war comes…
Interesting piece.
It’s a simplification I know, but it’s as if women have volunteered (or been volunteered) to have their lives made harder (in part by feminist imperatives) and then become resentful because men don’t want to have their lives made harder too.
The big question here though is “who is in the driving seat” – is it activists who have “liberated” women and can now cool it down a bit (which seems an implicit assumption of the article), or is it driven by a capitalist system for which relatively docile, flexible, consumerist workers are a huge boon – and for which the real challenge is to get Ken to behave more like Barbie.
Interesting piece.
It’s a simplification I know, but it’s as if women have volunteered (or been volunteered) to have their lives made harder (in part by feminist imperatives) and then become resentful because men don’t want to have their lives made harder too.
The big question here though is “who is in the driving seat” – is it activists who have “liberated” women and can now cool it down a bit (which seems an implicit assumption of the article), or is it driven by a capitalist system for which relatively docile, flexible, consumerist workers are a huge boon – and for which the real challenge is to get Ken to behave more like Barbie.
Where are all these multi-tasking superwomen? Are they real-life people or just writer-generated characters in some long running piece of feminist myth-making?
The many women I have worked with and for (if they were bosses) were notable, not for their dynamic flexibility but for their rigidity and keenness on the correct way things should be done. In general, I found them much less dedicated to the job than male colleagues with a greater concern for personal comfort, rest breaks, days off and holidays – and more likely to call in sick.
Of course the old deindustrialisation-has-made-men-redundant trope is there in Bristow’s piece – as though we were all slaving manfully in coal mines and steelworks until recently. Could this be stereotyping? Profiling? Strange how rarely you hear that Industrialisation has made life and work much easier for women. But industrialisation is contrary to the nature loving eco-dream favoured by so many women.
Multi tasking is overhyped. What pays, both for yourself and your team, is specialisation, focus and concentration on doing one thing really well.
You have go multitask for mundane tasks at home. And it isn’t really that big a deal, if you are systematic and plan properly.
If anything, the ideal shouldn’t be about doing well at multitasking, but taking ages over getting things wrapped up, but rather to focus on doing things fast so you can spend time for your kid and yourself.
I always suspicious of the term multi-tasking. Wouldn’t “flitting” be a more honest term ?
Or switch-tasking. It’s been shown to be inefficient. Those who think they are the most capable of doing it have been shown to be the worst. Except where you have no choice, it is best to focus.
Or switch-tasking. It’s been shown to be inefficient. Those who think they are the most capable of doing it have been shown to be the worst. Except where you have no choice, it is best to focus.
Your point about multi-tasking is well made but I was really questioning the over-estimation of female employees and that end-of-men notion (always popular with feminists) that male workers are increasingly irrelevant.
Mostly agree. Usually just means a capacity to do two or three things at a sub-par level or in an uneven way.
However, I read a persuasive argument once: The fact that mother’s have needed to carry their babies with them while doing other tasks since time immemorial does make them more competent multitaskers on average, if not the versatile dynamos some might imagine themselves to be.
I always suspicious of the term multi-tasking. Wouldn’t “flitting” be a more honest term ?
Your point about multi-tasking is well made but I was really questioning the over-estimation of female employees and that end-of-men notion (always popular with feminists) that male workers are increasingly irrelevant.
Mostly agree. Usually just means a capacity to do two or three things at a sub-par level or in an uneven way.
However, I read a persuasive argument once: The fact that mother’s have needed to carry their babies with them while doing other tasks since time immemorial does make them more competent multitaskers on average, if not the versatile dynamos some might imagine themselves to be.
Multi tasking is overhyped. What pays, both for yourself and your team, is specialisation, focus and concentration on doing one thing really well.
You have go multitask for mundane tasks at home. And it isn’t really that big a deal, if you are systematic and plan properly.
If anything, the ideal shouldn’t be about doing well at multitasking, but taking ages over getting things wrapped up, but rather to focus on doing things fast so you can spend time for your kid and yourself.
Where are all these multi-tasking superwomen? Are they real-life people or just writer-generated characters in some long running piece of feminist myth-making?
The many women I have worked with and for (if they were bosses) were notable, not for their dynamic flexibility but for their rigidity and keenness on the correct way things should be done. In general, I found them much less dedicated to the job than male colleagues with a greater concern for personal comfort, rest breaks, days off and holidays – and more likely to call in sick.
Of course the old deindustrialisation-has-made-men-redundant trope is there in Bristow’s piece – as though we were all slaving manfully in coal mines and steelworks until recently. Could this be stereotyping? Profiling? Strange how rarely you hear that Industrialisation has made life and work much easier for women. But industrialisation is contrary to the nature loving eco-dream favoured by so many women.
My wife was an old fashioned, obstreperous, short arsed, Ginger with green eyes and a filthy Irish/Yorkshire temper, BUT she was a realist. She knew that where there is a strength on one side it is used. Sometimes she led, sometimes I led and sometimes we walked through life side by side. Always equals in the important things but subordinates when it was sensible. That is the best way.
My wife was an old fashioned, obstreperous, short arsed, Ginger with green eyes and a filthy Irish/Yorkshire temper, BUT she was a realist. She knew that where there is a strength on one side it is used. Sometimes she led, sometimes I led and sometimes we walked through life side by side. Always equals in the important things but subordinates when it was sensible. That is the best way.
The author refers to plastic women and cardboard men.
Being a plastic women is implied to be good thing.
Being a cardboard man is implied to be a bad thing.
In reality, plastic women are pushed around at work by HR departments and at home by feminist ideology.
Cardboard men continue, as they always have, to design, build and maintain everything around us that makes civilization possible.
Note that cardboard was in a quote.
Yes I noticed that.
Hiding behind quotes made by a different author.
Rather cowardly isn’t it.
She claims that men have hardly changed at all.
Tell that to the coal miners that used return to home with black lung and blackened faces from their shift deep underground who have now been replaced by men who program CNC machines to make the components that make modern life possible.
It’s rather rich being denigrated by a woman who’s never lifted anything heavier than a coffee cup in her entire life.
Yes I noticed that.
Hiding behind quotes made by a different author.
Rather cowardly isn’t it.
She claims that men have hardly changed at all.
Tell that to the coal miners that used return to home with black lung and blackened faces from their shift deep underground who have now been replaced by men who program CNC machines to make the components that make modern life possible.
It’s rather rich being denigrated by a woman who’s never lifted anything heavier than a coffee cup in her entire life.
Note that cardboard was in a quote.
The author refers to plastic women and cardboard men.
Being a plastic women is implied to be good thing.
Being a cardboard man is implied to be a bad thing.
In reality, plastic women are pushed around at work by HR departments and at home by feminist ideology.
Cardboard men continue, as they always have, to design, build and maintain everything around us that makes civilization possible.
“Lazy girl job” really means “pretty girl job”. No the most feminist thing, is it?
“Lazy girl job” really means “pretty girl job”. No the most feminist thing, is it?
“…the boundaries between the work of childcare and the role of motherhood had been mashed together, such that women often struggled to work out where the role ended and “I” began.”
Where I grew up work never stopped, whether you were a woman or a man. This bought a great advantage to the act of living: You didn’t have to worry about where the “I” went.
“…the boundaries between the work of childcare and the role of motherhood had been mashed together, such that women often struggled to work out where the role ended and “I” began.”
Where I grew up work never stopped, whether you were a woman or a man. This bought a great advantage to the act of living: You didn’t have to worry about where the “I” went.
Regarding pronouns: I would be delighted if people would learn the proper use of pronouns such as when to use “me” and when to use “I”. I would suppose that is caused by the failure to teach diagraming a sentence….to ascertain whether the pronoun is subjective or objective but, personally, it drives me crazy to hear people who have a microphone in front of their mouth not know which one to use….and not even stop to think about it. Unless you have an actual split personality, there is no such thing as a singular person being a plural pronoun. Let’s get into the real world here.
Regarding pronouns: I would be delighted if people would learn the proper use of pronouns such as when to use “me” and when to use “I”. I would suppose that is caused by the failure to teach diagraming a sentence….to ascertain whether the pronoun is subjective or objective but, personally, it drives me crazy to hear people who have a microphone in front of their mouth not know which one to use….and not even stop to think about it. Unless you have an actual split personality, there is no such thing as a singular person being a plural pronoun. Let’s get into the real world here.
I suppose there is no end to female self-obsession. Always some new way of feeling sorry for oneself. Does this come from being childless? The natural target of female concern being absent, she turns her attention to herself. And/or, absent a little being who really is helpless and in need of protection, she invents the Victimhood of the Oppressed as a target for her instinct to care for somebody. As a two year old lacks agency, so she projects helplessness onto Blacks and other Victims.
I suppose there is no end to female self-obsession. Always some new way of feeling sorry for oneself. Does this come from being childless? The natural target of female concern being absent, she turns her attention to herself. And/or, absent a little being who really is helpless and in need of protection, she invents the Victimhood of the Oppressed as a target for her instinct to care for somebody. As a two year old lacks agency, so she projects helplessness onto Blacks and other Victims.
Relentless misandry.
Relentless misandry.
I enjoyed this piece. Thank you.
More than a little dismayed with the feminist bashing comments though. This seems to be getting more common on unherd. “They started it”. “What did they expect” etc etc.
I enjoyed this piece. Thank you.
More than a little dismayed with the feminist bashing comments though. This seems to be getting more common on unherd. “They started it”. “What did they expect” etc etc.
Too much gender-identity nonsense all up and down this page.
We can all see that both men and women suffer from and/or revel in that plasticity that is the mark of post modern culture. Everyone is a freelancer, now; like it or not.
Too much gender-identity nonsense all up and down this page.
We can all see that both men and women suffer from and/or revel in that plasticity that is the mark of post modern culture. Everyone is a freelancer, now; like it or not.