What makes a “good woman?”

Let’s start with a story and a few questions.  All comments welcome.

My first teaching job was in a very small town. I was far away from my friends and family, living by myself, and feeling as if I didn’t fit in at all. I made friends with a few of the other teachers, but their mindsets were very different than mine. For example, my mentor and friend that first year was a married woman in her mid-30’s. She seemed relatively happy with her life, you know, aside from talking about how she wished everything was different. On one specific occasion, we were sitting with another woman, her friend and another teacher, enjoying a few beverages and talking about men – a typical Friday night for these women. They were talking about weddings and marriage and all that, and I said something to the extent of, “I’m not giving up my last name,” or something that equally asserted my independence, and my mentor said, “Yea, and that’s why you’re not married.” This totally implied that, unless I gave up my independence, I would never find marital bliss.  It also implied that I was too much like a man to be a good woman.

We butted heads quite a bit over my two-year tenure at the school, and the conversations always started with her telling me about how I was too opinionated or too self-assured or too self-confident (I didn’t know such things existed. I thought these were all good qualities), and always ended with her telling me that if I kept up this attitude, I would never find a husband. I always told her that I would eventually find someone who wanted to be with a woman like me, and the wait would be worth it.

For my class this term, I will be exploring the question: Why did this woman feel the need to “coach” me into being a “good woman” or a “good wife,” and why was I so resistant to her advice? Do you have any thoughts?  Do you have any of your own situations like this that you would be willing to add to the discussion?

12 replies on “What makes a “good woman?””

  1. I’ll answer your query with a question: if you sacrificed your independence to be with a guy who is too insecure to be with a woman who knows her mind and stands up for herself, how long do you think your marriage will last?

    Obviously, being independent is important to you. It’s part of who you are. Hiding that for the benefit of finding a mate is the equivalent of wearing a mask and pretending to be someone you are not. Either the resentment of stifling yourself will build over time, or you will have to kill off your spirit to conform.

    Be yourself. In the long run, it’s the healthiest thing you can do.

    As for the advice you are getting from your friends: it’s a bunch of antiquated, sexist bullshit. I’m not surprised that they said this, however, since small towns can be very conservative and can reflect very oppressive value systems. Find a progressive circle of friends—people who reflect your values. Even the most conservative of environments can contain a small circle of people who think differently. If you truly are living in a conservative community, spending time with kindred spirits is a godsend.

    • Ashley on

      My thinking exactly. I figured I would just wait until I found the right guy, one who not only could handle my independent thinking, but could also enjoy it. That, to me, was the key ingredient in a good marriage. For me, anyway. It could, and should, be different for everyone.

      I don’t know how much of this was a small town mindset, and how much of it was just an older generation. These women were a good 12-15 years older than me, and they were actually very liberal in their thinking. The ironic part, to me, was that the woman who said this to me actually hyphenated her name instead of changing it. I wish I could remember exactly what I said to make her say this to me… I’ll have to wrack my brains.

      Your advice about finding a similar-minded group of friends is solid, but I have sense moved from the town to the suburbs, where I am originally from. I cannot even tell you how good it was to come home.

  2. OK, I didn’t quite answer your questions. Reading what your friends said made me pretty angry and I simply “shot from the hip” in response.

    Why did this woman feel the need to coach you? Hmmm. Perhaps she felt insecure in her own life choices and a little bit threatened by someone who responds to life differently?

    People get fairly squirrelly when it comes to issues related to gender behavior. If you stray too far away from a particular community’s gender norms, there’s always someone available to encourage/enforce conformity. Sometimes it’s done through the kind of “coaching” you received, sometimes it’s done through humor, and sometimes it’s even done through violence.

    Why were you so resistant? Why wouldn’t you be? You were being told by someone to be someone/something that is contrary to who you are/wish to be. Plus, by the links on this webpage, you appear to value women’s rights and are concerned about improving women’s status in society. What your friends said pretty much goes against those kinds of things.

    When ever I encounter another woman who embraces sexist notions, I often feel a mixture of anger and sadness all rolled into one. In some ways, it effects me more strongly than seeing a guy engage in the kind of behavior. I’ve encountered so many guys who are sexist, that my standards tend to be set lower for them than for other women.

    • Ashley on

      You don’t have to answer the questions. This project is all about dialogue and responses, no matter what tangent they may take. I appreciate your responses, and I hope you’ll come back and comment again.

      You are absolutely right: People do get “squirly” when it comes to gender-related behavior. I wonder why this is. Why is it so necessary for us to fit each other into a box? And if we don’t fit into that box, why do others feel the need to “fix” us? I sense a new blog post from this…

      I think the judgement of other women actually resonates more with us than the judgement of men. It’s so easy to say that the man wasn’t right for us because he was sexist, or that he’s just a pig and ignore it, but when other women judge us like that, it’s almost like they have no clue.

  3. sarstar on

    Great project!
    I didn’t change my name and I get mixed reactions. However, I have a husband (of 3 years now) who repeatedly tells me how happy he is that I kept my independence. So – it can be done, you just need the right man, as you said.
    If you haven’t seen this yet, you may find it useful: http://www.trixiefilms.com/teenfem/

    • Ashley on

      Thank you! Thanks for the comment and the link. It looks super helpful.

      It’s good that your husband approves of your independence (we need more men like that!), but what happens when other women don’t approve? Do you encounter that often?

  4. What concerns me most about this post is that it sounds like (though maybe I misunderstood) your “head-butting” would begin over school stuff–teaching, school politics, etc.–and end with her telling you that your behavior wouldn’t catch you a husband.

    Maybe I’m misreading/misunderstanding, but it seems weird to me that her mentoring you through your first year at a new school would somehow cross over into her mentoring you in your personal life.

    Not that you shouldn’t be independent and opinionated in your career as well as your personal life–I think criticizing these qualities in either situation is wrong. But I think it’s MORE wrong that it seems like a line was crossed here, turning what maybe started as professional advice (even if not good advice) into a more personal attack.

    Unless this all took place as friends, at a bar. In which case, never mind.

    • Ashley on

      You just brought a new light to this situation that I had never considered. Yes, these were work-friends. Yes, our conversations generally started with something I would say about my work and would end with a personal attack on me. Yes, that does seem weird. Although this initial conversation was at the woman’s house and was definitely an outside-of-work situation, it still was inappropriate for her to tie that situation into work related discussions.

      I suppose I should pause here to talk a bit about my relationship with these women, and their relationship with each other. First off, there were male teachers, but they generally stayed out of everyone’s business. Secondly, you know that age-old stereotype about people in small towns, that everyone knows everything about everybody? It’s more or less true. What happened in school and out of school was more or less the same thing, and it was all open for discussion.

      I was, by far, the youngest teacher in my department, which meant not only were the other teachers in a different generation altogether, but they all had known each other for a very long time, and most of them were friends outside of work. They would talk about each other’s quirks and complain a bit, and then say, “Well, that’s just how she is,” but they would never once defend me by the same means. They would be constantly trying to tell me how I should be, or what I was doing wrong. It was almost as if they were trying to undo my college years and tame me a little. I needed to be “tamed,” I guess you could say, for sure. I was definitely way too fidgety and easily angered and I didn’t know when to keep my mouth shut, but I believe that is something that comes with age, not with demeaning comments. I find, also, that I am now more comfortable in my surroundings, and therefore more comfortable in my own skin.

      I guess all this is just to say that there wasn’t much of a division between work and personal life; it was all sort of lumped into a community life. Not that this makes what happened any more “right,” but it does sort of explain the relationship. I never really thought of this in the sense that it was inappropriately personal, just because that was the climate of the workplace.

      I think there was also some concern that I hadn’t found my future husband in high school or in college, so where was I ever going to meet someone? They were worried that I might end up alone, and I was more than ready to leave that all up to Fate.

  5. sarstar on

    Sorry, i realized i never replied to your reply. Yes, some other women are very judgmental, but that’s when I look to my friends who are gay or in other unconventional marriages and my not changing my name is an extremely minor move, and really something that my less conventional friends wouldn’t think twice about. It does cause a divide sometimes, but we all have friends who run the range of convention, right?

  6. Pingback:5 Years Ago...: A Look Back