Real O'Clock: The Feminine Mystique

Every now and then here at the Grey Skies World Headquarters, we like to take it down a notch, from our usual wine-guzzling, Walking Dead-watching, geek con-going ways and get Real. If this were a rock concert, now would be the part where I sit atop a stool, mic in hand, spotlight on, and croon "Every Rose Has A Thorn" while swaying gently, like my depth and emotion are far too sincere to be contained by sitting still.

Get out your lighters (or cell phone screens), because it's about to get Real O'Clock all up in here.

Thanks to the magic of technology, I've actually spent the last three months reading books in addition to parenting two kids, one of whom requires my help for even the simplest of things like eating, moving from place to place, falling asleep, and holding his head up. We're working on all of that. I'm all about teaching my kids independence. For example, this year we let our 3 1/2-year old, the Juban Princeling, do his own taxes.


I read Tina Fey's hilarious and thoughtful autobiography, Bossy Pants, as well as a surprisingly excellent but completely depressing book called Soft Apocalypse by William McIntosh. (Don't read it if you have a weak stomach or are prone to nightmares or worry about the end of the world.)

My husband read The Feminine Mystique a few years ago because he's awesome, and thought that as a stay at home mom I would enjoy reading it myself. Because somehow in my 36-year old feminist life I haven't read it yet. I didn't take that many women's studies classes in college - maybe two. But I've never read that most famous of Second Wave manifestos, The Feminine Mystique.


And I don't think I will.


I started reading it a few weeks ago, but could not make it through chapter 2.


Here's why.


1. It's too relevant to my life.
Reading about mothers who share peanut butter sandwiches with their kids, or feel like they are on their feet running around all day yet accomplish very little, hit home for me in a hard way. On days that I don't write, or meet up with friends, or have a date night with my husband, it's easy to feel like I'm spinning my wheels, like my days are a carousel of dishes, bottles, diapers, dropping off, picking up, calming, soothing, and bathing. Thanks to our society's perpetual finger-wagging at mothers no matter what we do, I have days when I never stop beating myself up: if my kids are asleep, or away, I feel like I should be taking full advantage of that time to clean, or write, or run errands. When they are awake and home I feel like I should devote 100% of my attention to them. I want them to be independent, but I worry they get bored. I want them to be entertained and educated, but I worry they get overstimulated. I want to spend time playing with them, but I want them to learn how to keep themselves entertained. 


In other words, sometimes "mom" isn't enough for me. Clearly our Second Wave Feminist foremothers knew that.


2. It's too irrelevant to my life.
All that said, I do write, and I do have friends, and I do have date nights with my husband. I have a rich, full life outside my children. I am lucky enough to live in a privileged position where the choice to stay home is exactly that - my choice. Far too many mothers I know of either have to work to make ends meet, or have to stay home because of the high cost of child care - not all of us live near parents or siblings or friends who are able to watch our kids all day.


Unlike the women in The Feminine Mystique, I never felt forced to marry and have children. I never felt the strain of having to choose between having a career versus having a family. I went into stay at home motherhood with my eyes wide open, knowing exactly what I walked into, and knowing that it was 100% my choice. For every moment that I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, there are ten more where I cannot imagine life without my children and experience a depth of joy I didn't know was possible.


And had my husband been the type of man who clings to traditional gender roles and expected me to stay home to raise our children, or forced me to go back to work for the money, or did not do his share of the chores and child care when he's home, or did not respect my opinions and value conversations with me on issues both large and small, this would not be possible. 

The husband - then still just my boyfriend - and I,
Washington, DC, April 2004

3. I can appreciate the book and its impact without reading it.
I'm a writer and a reader, but I've never read Moby Dick and I probably never will. I've also never read many other books considered classics. I do not think this makes me either a bad reader or a bad writer. 


I'm a geek who doesn't play video games or read comic books.


I'm a Yankees fan who does not watch every single game. (Anymore.)


My husband is a good father without ever having babysat.


And I'm a feminist who never read The Feminine Mystique. I just don't think the reading of it, or not, should define my commitment to the cause of women's rights. 


I am not an unthinking woman who feels some nebulous oppression in her life but can't articulate why. My eyes are open. My mind is curious. My life is my own, made up of careful choices and a lot of luck, and I would not have things any other way.


Every day, whether consciously or like chatter in the background of my mind, I know I owe my plethora of choices to the fearless pioneers that came before me and dared to stand up and speak up for women's equality. I'm never not aware of this. And I'm never not grateful.


4. It feels too much like work, and I have other things to read.
I've never been much into non-fiction anyway. The little bit I read has to be entertaining and has to make me nod vigorously in agreement while I read it. Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat? by my friend Claire Mysko was one of those books; so was Pema Chodron's The Wisdom of No Escape, and Reading Women by Stephanie Staal. When I tried to read The Feminine Mystique, I just couldn't relate enough, even trying to read it in the context of the middle class housewives of the 1950s and 1960s. 

Feminist from birth. (That's not my mom holding me.)

My self-esteem is healthy enough that I refuse to allow myself to be pigeon-holed, either as a mother or as a wife or as any of my other many identities. 


I'm glad my husband read the book, because I think it helped him understand how stay at home motherhood by itself would never be fulfilling for me. But he already knew that. He's always encouraged me to go back to work, or not, or go back to school, or not, or write, or not, as I wish. Before our children were even conceived he told me, "Your happiness is not a luxury." He's never taken me - or my happiness, or quest for fulfillment - for granted, or diminished or disrespected my desire for something more from life. 


He's kind of really wonderful that way.


I love being a mother. I love my children. I also love many other things that make me happy. And the fact that I acknowledge these things, actively pursue non-motherly forms of happiness, and my children see it? That's pretty damn feminist right there.


What books do you know you should read, but probably never will?

Welcome, Barbara Quinn!

If I had to name someone as my writing mentor, Barbara Quinn would be she. (Is that grammatically correct, Barb?) She went from being my "boss" at the Rose & Thorn e-Zine to a personal friend to, well, a writing mentor. In the 11 or so years it's taken me to finally sit down and write my novel, she has never once given up on me. 

So, it gives me great pleasure to present to you lucky people my interview with Barb (she lets me call her that) about her fantastically dark book of magic realism, "Speed of Dark," which you should all go buy right now because it is really great and I'm not just saying that because I helped edit it. I wouldn't be pushing it if I didn't think it had value.

You can (SHOULD) buy "Speed of Dark" by clicking here.

Here's an amuse bouche for you:

There are some people you never forget. In the summer of 1964, Luke D’Angelo falls for one of them – a mysterious girl named Celeste. Like Luke, Celeste is an outsider struggling to find her identity, but unlike Luke, Celeste has special powers that have the potential to destroy everything Luke and his friends believe in. 

Luke and his mentally challenged sister become fast friends with this curious girl. Set in upstate New York, in a town that is home to a shrimp cocktail plant that belches a foul-smelling tomato and fish fog, this coming of age tale about a girl with a dream and the teens who want to help her fulfill it, is a balance between the comic and the profound. The story resonates with the message that inside each of us is a light that burns so bright no dark can extinguish it. But at what cost?

Meredith Lopez: "Speed of Dark" has such a rich, unique character – Celeste. What inspired you to create her?

Barbara Quinn:  The book grew out of a discussion with a friend about our frustration with being able to change things. I said we can’t even predict the weather, never mind change it. And that made me think, what if there was someone who could control and change things that we think can’t be changed? What would that person be like? And Celeste immediately came to mind.

ML: Why did you choose to set your novel in the 1960s? What were some of the challenges of writing about the past?

BQ: I grew up in the 60’s and have a fondness for the era. The tunes are constantly in my head, and it’s full of rich language. I did have to stop and make sure that the references I used were correct for 1964, the year it is set. 

ML: The characters in "Speed of Dark" are adolescents, but I wouldn't quite categorize the book as being Young Adult, or YA. I can't imagine the story being told by anyone else. How did you choose the character that you did to be the story's narrator? And how did you manage to cross gender lines so well?

BQ: Like Celeste, the character of Luke was clear to me from the beginning and I didn’t think about having problems crossing gender lines. Over the years I’ve listened a lot and developed an ear for speech patterns and behaviors. I have an older brother and a son, so that helped too with the adolescent feelings, behaviors, and speech.

ML:  You've been self-publishing for years, even before it became this massive "thing" in the writing and publishing worlds. How have you seen the self-publishing world change, for better or for worse?

BQ: It really has changed quite a bit, hasn’t it? You can easily put a book up at Amazon or Barnes and Noble now, though the marketing is still a challenge. While all of my books have small publishers, and none are self-published now, I didn’t start out that way. When agents were unable to place Hard Head and Speed of Dark, I turned to self-publishing. Not long ago a publisher, Eternal Press, acquired them and gave me new covers and editing and marketing. It’s great to have a publisher behind them. After my first venture with self-publishing, the next two novels, 36C and Slings and Arrows, found a home with DiskusPublishing, a small publisher. What a boon to writers this new age is.  

ML: Let's talk about the Rose & Thorn for a while. [The online literary 'zine Barbara co-founded and edited from 1998 to 2008.] Do you think your experience as an editor helps you as a writer?

BQ: Being an editor at the Rose & Thorn honed my writing skills. I learned to see why a story didn’t work, and why another one did. It also exposed me to many different genres and broadened my interest in writing and reading.  

ML: Will you ever go back to R&T, or to the literary magazine world?

BQ: That could easily happen. I enjoy everything about writing and will always have a soft spot for the Rose and Thorn.

ML: How do you find the time to write?

BQ: It isn’t easy to find the time to write but when I don’t write I get grumpy so it’s a good thing for my family when I carve out the time to get some words down. I’m not a morning person, and usually late in the day or late at night, I can find some quiet time to let things flow.

ML: What is your writing process like? Are you a planner, or a "pantser" (flying by the seat of your pants)?

BQ: I’m a combination of both. My natural inclination is to be a planner, but I’ve learned that I have to leave things that aren’t clear alone and they will reveal themselves eventually. That was hard to do at first, but I’ve learned to trust that one night I’ll wake up with the obvious solution to whatever wasn’t working in the novel. A fellow writer once told me to write what you know and fill in the rest later. So that’s what I do.

ML: What other novels do you have in the works that you can tell us about?

BQ: I’ve got a couple in the fire. I can’t say too much since there’s a weird magic that goes along with getting them done and that keeps them out of the spotlight. One is a steampunk. I’ve recently grown interested in steampunk and have an idea that I’m excited about. The other is a contemporary women’s fiction about the adventures of a recently divorced woman. Stay tuned…..

Thanks, Mer!


***
About the author:
Barbara is the author of four novels: Speed of Dark, 36C, Slings and Arrows, and the forthcoming Hard Head. She practiced law for ten years, and held many jobs from lingerie sales clerk to postal worker, cocktail waitress to process server and held many jobs from lingerie sales clerk to postal worker, cocktail waitress to process server. Her love of travel has taken her to four continents and 47 states. She splits her time between Bradley Beach on the Jersey shore and Montebello, New York. She and her husband have one son, Bret, and a grandson, Ammo. Barbara welcomes email at BAQuinn@aol.com  and would love to keep in touch via twitter.com/BarbaraQuinn.