“BE A DOLL, WOULD YOU?"

by Kristin Scheimer

In reading “Pride and Prejudice” for maybe the 100th time, and re-watching the wonderful mini-series, something struck me as oddly familiar; an “image” of women that still exists to a certain extent today.   Maybe it’s not something that’s easily recognizable, but I see a pattern.  

The story piece to which I’m referring is that of Lydia and her shocking and scandalous elopement with the scoundrel, Mr. Wickham.

While Mr. Wickham is recognized as the lowest of men for his behavior, there’s not much discussion about this incident “ruining” him or “damaging him for life”.  On the other hand, Lydia’s actions – of running off with a man to whom she was not married – was so unthinkable, that it would forever tarnish her good character as well as those of her sisters. 

Clearly there is a double standard here, and I think I can explain why.  At this time in England, in the United States and probably in much of the soon to be industrialized world, there was what was referred to as the “Cult of True Womanhood”.  This consisted of:  Purity, Piety, Submissiveness and Domesticity.   Women HAD to exhibit all four of these qualities or bear the burden of being “ruined” for life.

Add to this, issues of legality.   Legally women did not exist.  They were the property of their father until they became the property of their husband.  They were not people.  They were objects.  They were, in every sense, dolls. 

In Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll’s House”, this idea of a woman as a doll to be possessed by a man and to behave in a specific doll like manner is explored and destroyed.  Nora, finally realizing she had been nothing but a doll all her life, chose to leave.

Nora I have been greatly wronged, Torvald--first by papa and then by you.

Helmer. What! By us two--by us two, who have loved you better than anyone else in the world?

Nora [shaking her head]. You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.

Helmer. Nora, what do I hear you saying?

Nora. It is perfectly true, Torvald.  When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you--

Helmer. What sort of an expression is that to use about our marriage?

Nora [undisturbed]. I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours.  You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as yours else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which--I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other.  When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman--just from hand to mouth.  I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald.  But you would have it so.  You and papa have committed a great sin against me.  It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

Helmer. How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are, Nora!  Have you not been happy here?

Nora. No, I have never been happy.  I thought I was, but it has never really been so.

Helmer. Not--not happy!

Nora. No, only merry.  And you have always been so kind to me.  But our home has been nothing but a playroom.  I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls.  I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.

This idea of women as possessions was so pervasive in society, Ibsen found it topical and intriguing to write a play in which a woman defied this idea, something that was quite shocking at the time.

But possessiveness is only a piece of it.  The Cult of True Womanhood clearly spelled out for women how they were to behave, always.  But women haven’t always found it easy to adhere to this doll-like behavior.  In fact, women’s inability to be pure, pious, submissive and domestic women was revealed at this time as a “horrifying” scandal in the American South. 

Slaves had been freed.  Many stayed and became paid laborers for their employers.  Something else emerged at this time, which – along with slavery – exists as one of the most shameful practices in American history.  

Lynching became an every day occurrence.  The justification of it was that now that these “savages” were free, they were taking liberties with the pure damsels of the South.

There was an assumption that such lynching was required to protect the pure, pious, submissive and domestic women who were regularly being raped by these horrible beasts.  Small problem with this assumption:  of the many, many, many men lynched in the South at this time, a very, very small number of them were actually lynched because they were accused of rape, and in almost no situation, would the case – had it been brought to trial – have ended with a guilty verdict.

 Well, fortunately for history, a little spitfire of a woman, and one of my favorites from American History, Ida B. Wells, got to the bottom of this.  Her story is a dramatic one.  Long before Rosa Parks, Ida B., a proper African American southern woman, refused to go to the smoking car of a train, which is where “colored” riders were expected to go.  She literally had to be physically dragged from the train.  She later sued the railroad and won… but that’s another story.

Ida B. Wells became a journalist and co-owner of a newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee.  As reconstruction moved forward a new trend of black owned businesses emerged.  Now, this didn’t set too well with the white business owners, who were taking full advantage of the consumerism that was rampant in the African American community.

But a trend that began was quite simple:  Black people shopped at the stores owned by fellow black people.  

This happened at a local grocery store, The People’s Grocery, owned by Thomas Moss.   The white owner of the rival grocery store, along with several of his friends, attacked The People’s Grocery.  Moss and his friends knew the attack was coming and they were there to defend the store.  However, in defending themselves, Moss and his friends shot and injured three white men.

Moss and his friends were taken and lynched.  Thomas Moss was a friend of Ida B. Wells.  Furious and unable to accept all the lynching that was occurring every day, Ida B. decided to get to the bottom of things.

She began investigating cases of lynching and the supposed charges being brought against the victims.  I wish I could lie and say one of the biggest charges against lynch victims wasn’t simply:  Being rude to a white person, but it was.

Ida B. was the one who noticed that there were very few actual rape cases and the ones that did exist she investigated by interviewing the “rape victims”, precious white women whose purity had been savagely ripped from them by their evil attackers.

Only that isn’t the story Ida B. was told.  In fact, in almost no case did Ida B. find a woman who was an actual victim of rape.  What she did find, in great abundance, were women who were willing participants in the sexual encounters and in many cases, were instigators.  Many of the relationships were simply about sex, but Ida did discover several couples, who had been in love. 

Why, you may ask, do I bring up this story of Ida B. Wells?  Well, aside from the fact that I love her and think she’s one of the greatest figures in American History – she uncovered something extremely telling.

At a time when women were supposed to be pure, pious, submissive and domestic, there were quite a number of women who simply could not be kept in that pretty, tidy box.  Engaging in a sexual encounter with an African American man was most definitely on the no-no list (and still is in some parts of the South), but many of these women followed their hearts and desires and engaged in this activity.  They refused to play the pretty doll they were expected to play. 

Ida B. Wells published her findings in what can now be found as a book called “Southern Horrors”.  The horrors she was referring to were somewhat ironic in the sense that she knew White South would be horrified.  And horrified they were. 

Ida published her article in her newspaper, revealing this side of pure Southern Women they weren’t supposed to have.  She then took a trip to New York.  Things erupted in Memphis.  Her newspaper office was destroyed and word spread quickly that if she ever returned to Memphis, she would be hung from the nearest lamppost.

For what?  For revealing that women are sexual/emotional beings with passions and desires that don’t always fit into a little box?  Sure many people assumed what she printed was lies because they were a part of the Cult of True Womanhood and they believed that all white women, good white women, would never even dream of doing some of the things – having sex with a black man – that these women were accused of doing.

Ida B. did not return to Memphis for some time, but the article caught the attention of… well… everyone and soon it was printed and reprinted in newspaper after newspaper.

Ida B. told a truth that no one, especially men, wanted to hear.  If women are not doing as they’re told, are not behaving as perfect dolls, then they have lost control of these women and they can’t have that. 

But that was back in the day, you might think.  We’ve come a long way.  Feminism took care of that.  The reality is we haven’t come nearly as far as we’d like to believe.   Sure the Cult of True Womanhood might not be as prevalent as it was back then, but women are still given a very clear message from society that they are a doll, and nothing but a doll.  The image of the doll may have changed, but the essence still remains.

We are to look a certain way, act a certain way and please men more than we please ourselves.  I have spoken in previous blog posts about the articles in women’s magazines, but this bears repeating. 

Every message in every headline is the same:  Be a pretty, pretty doll so that men will like you.  This exists in advertising, music videos, and… thankfully less and less… in film and television. 

The darker side of this assumption of women as dolls is that oftentimes this means women also aren’t thought of as “people”.  They are dolls to be played with or discarded and they absolutely are not allowed to be anything else.

Often men who abuse their wives or girlfriends don’t see them as people, they see them as property, as objects... such as, for example, a doll.  They can’t conceive of the idea that the woman to whom they are causing harm is an actual person.

Look at the Taliban or any other Muslim Extremist.  Nowhere in the Koran are there teachings that would put the restrictions on women that one sees from the Taliban.  It’s simply about control.  Convince yourself that women are objects, property, dolls to be treated as you wish, and you can control them with very little conscience.

There are so many places in the world where women are treated atrociously, largely because they are thought of more as dolls than human beings.  Child marriage is rampant throughout the developing world.  The Boko Haram have no trouble capturing thousands of women in order to reproduce, because women are not people, they are dolls.

Women and girls don’t need education because they do not have the intellectual capacity to understand the education they are being given. 

In 2014 Maryam Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal – the equivalent to the Nobel Prize in Mathematics.  She is only one of countless women who have proven that we possess the same intellectual acumen as any man.   We lack intellectual capability?  Please!

At Susan B. Anthony’s trial – for illegally attempting to vote – she was accused of sounding like a man, simply because she was intelligent and articulate.   Despite the ridiculous “doctor” who long ago declared triumphantly that women’s brains were smaller than men’s and their hips were larger, therefore it was clear women were meant to give birth and not think or study, there are clearly incredibly intelligent women in the world.

Despite the idea that has been so prevalent in our society for so long, we are not pretty dolls, we are people with brains and personalities, wishes and desire, ideas and skills.  We are as varied and diverse as men, and yet, the limitations that are put on us are designed to restrict who and what we think we can be.

In a previous article, AGENT CARTER AND INTIMIDATING WOMEN I wrote about the duality of women:  Strong, capable, powerful and vulnerable, soft and emotional.  Those dualities exist in all women in such an extreme spectrum it probably can’t be measured.  But women are not allowed to be their goddess/warrior side because they buy into the message that’s being sent to them:  You are a doll.  You must look like this, do what we (men) wish and keep your virtue or you will be ruined for life and no one will want you.

Except for the fact that women have needs.  Women come in all shapes, sizes, personalities and temperaments.  Not one of us fits in the neat tidy box designed for us.  Not one of us will be content just being the Barbie we’re expected to be.  Sure, you may know a woman or two who say they love it, and perhaps they do, but most women who buy into the doll scenario and act accordingly, do so because they don’t see an alternative and think this is the only way to go.

I don’t mean this to sound accusatory towards men.  Most men, in fact most women, probably never think about or are aware of this concept of women as dolls because it is so pervasive in our society it’s simply the way things are.

I also know many men, several who read this blog regularly, in fact, (you know who you are) who do not see women as dolls.  They have seen past the norms of society and see women as… as strange as it may sound… people. 

And then there’s the other rather ridiculous extreme.  Perhaps the men behind this atrocious invention have discovered that women actually aren’t dolls, but prefer dolls to human beings.  But it’s not surprising that these dolls are… female.   SEX DOLLS

So what’s the answer?  It comes down to who benefits.  Who benefits from keeping women as dolls?  How likely is it that those who benefit will change their attitude?  Women had to fight, screaming and clawing, to get the right to vote.  Men didn’t want to give them the right to vote because it didn’t benefit them, and men aren’t going to stop seeing women as dolls because it doesn’t benefit them (or so they believe), and again, it’s likely most men have no idea they have those ideas because they are so ingrained in society. 

So the change needs to come from us.  From women.  Women like Malala Yousefsah, who says “Women and girls do want and should be given education.”  

Women like Hadiqa Bashir, who is fighting to end child marriage in her country.  Thankfully, there are far too many women to list here. 

While I have not made my choice for Presidential candidate, I list Hilary Clinton amongst the women breaking that “doll” mode.  Not at all surprising, there’s been a predictable response to her stepping outside the proper role of women.

   

I also list many female comedians, who are quite funny, but looked down on for being crass and “dirty” in their routines; as if only men can be crass.

It comes down to us, ladies.  We are the only ones who can shatter these ideas of women as dolls.  

The feminist movement tried to do this by burning bras in the 70s, but the message wasn’t quite right.  It was women shouting at men that they wanted to be just like them, but that’s not true either.  I know of no women who want to be "treated like a man”.  They simply want to be themselves, and most importantly, to be treated as a person, not a doll. 

She might be pretty and feminine.  She might be a housewife.  She might be a Martial Artist.  She might be a mathematician, but above all else, she is a person.  That’s the idea that needs to change. 

We don’t want to be valued only for how we look.  We don’t want to be given away as child brides.  We don’t want to be abused or discarded.  We don’t want to be treated like men.  We want to simply be treated like people, with the same rights, needs, strengths, weaknesses, feelings and value as men. 

So how do we make that change?  It comes from every single woman making their own choice to change the way they present themselves and the way they allow themselves to be treated.

Any woman who compromises who she is in any way in order to please someone else, is playing the part of a doll and not a person.   This is not to say we should not be kind and considerate to other people.  Everyone should be, but more to the point, we should be kind and considerate to ourselves, something women have notoriously sacrificed in order to please other people.  

But here’s the catch, and where things went wrong with the feminist movement.  Women don’t have to be ballsy, ambitious, strong, outspoken or brazen to be a person.  They simply have to be who they are.

In the film “Legally Blonde”, the best element of the piece was that you never saw Elle go through one of those cheesy montage makeovers where she went from being the blonde who wasn’t taken seriously, to a brunette who looked as manly as possible.  Sure in the beginning everything she did was to please Warner, but in the end, she was who she was for herself.  She was blonde, perky and feminine because that’s who she was, not because someone wanted her to be that way.  And that’s the trick for all of us.

It’s not easy, believe me.  It takes self-awareness and mindfulness, but more than anything it takes changing how you see yourself.  If you see yourself as a person and not a doll, it will be that much easier to be a person and not a doll to other people.  And no, people will not automatically change the way they treat you.  As I said, it’s in men’s benefit (white men, but I won’t get into that here) to be dominant and in control, to make women feel like they have to do everything to please them, so they will be reluctant to change. 

But as I’ve shown with so many examples of amazing women in this article and others, the world is quite simply a better place if women are allowed to be the full extent of who they are instead of being limited to a tiny plastic box designed to house a pretty doll.