I’ve made no secret of my feelings for Lori Gottlieb. Ever since my response to her “Settle for Him Girls” piece two years ago, I’ve strapped on the view that her Atlantic article-cum-book-cum-potential-chick flick is nothing more than the fallout of a woman unhappy with her life choices, who felt compelled to mold those crappy choices into a societal trend in order to find some inner peace. It’s a classic case of Misery Loves Company — only packaged into a self-help treatise and marketed to every (upper middle class, white, educated) unmarried woman over 28.
The Book Version of Gottlieb’s soul-stomping “settle” doctrine hit bookstores earlier this month, to torrents of controversy. I’m certainly not the only one brimming with distaste for this self-serving “dose of tough love” from a woman who talks about her past relationships with all the tenderness of a septic tank repairman. Plenty of other writers have taken her argument down with a hunting rifle, pointing out that the analysis is wrong, the “trend” of the unmarried thirtysomething isn’t much of a trend, and the whole thing conveniently fails to take into account that individuals are (gasp!) responsible for their own happiness, married or no.
To be fair, the one male response I’ve seen to the book hailed it as a valuable purveyor of “tough love” for single women (though on that point I’ll say: Why the fuck would I read a “here’s what you have to learn about getting married” manual written by a woman who’s been too critical of every man she meets to ever get married?).
Yes, there are grains (specks) of truth in some of Gottlieb’s analysis — relationships and perfection have no place together, and long-term commitment is not about checking off boxes and creating some childish simulacrum of “The One” you formed while watching Disney movies. And yes, the author has learned a thing or two about how to deal with backlash, such as by writing “Screw you, I’m not embarrassed for wanting a husband” screeds in the Washington Post.
But even now, she’s missing the point — yes, there are women out there criticizing her for seeking to pair up. But such criticism is easily dismissed as irrelevant — human beings seek companionship, male and female alike, and she is writing for a group of women who, by virtue of their reading this book, want to be in a relationship, whether or not it’s politically correct. The real danger in Gottlieb’s so-called “advice” is that is that it’s a call to worship false idols — it’s a relationship guide completely about the “wants” and “needs” of a single individual who has, through her actions, utterly disqualified herself to show anyone else how to beget a loving and functional relationship.
Gottlieb is quick to blame feminism for her relationship woes — it’s a convenient scapegoat. But feminism didn’t fuck up her love life — she did that all on her own. Read the rest of this entry »
I love traveling. Plop me in a foreign country with a map and a day or two of unscheduled time — there’s your true manifestation of contentment. But one cannot always be jetting around the universe, particularly when one spends 89% of one’s waking hours glued to a laptop and grumbling about how friggin slow one’s Internet connections always seems to be.
