Last Fall Michelle Williams – was featured in a revealing Vogue article about life without Heath – raising her daughter Matilda as a single mother, her brief relationship with Spike Jonze, if she’s pissed that Katie Holmes is still more famous than her even though she staged that shockingly successful post-Dawson’s Creek acting career (or at least that’s what I would have asked…).
In it she talks about her desire to find love after Heath – after she figures out the life part – to mourn and heal and find herself on the other side better apt to start a new relationship.
She says: “There is a great Gloria Steinem quote—and I’m paraphrasing—’Become the man you want to marry.’ I’ve taken that on. What qualities do I find attractive, and can I find them in myself? What am I missing? Can I be that for myself?”
She was close. The famous Gloria Steinem quote was, “we are becoming the men we want to marry” – and it was a sort of battle cry of the feminist moment through the ’70s and ’80s – like a “we’re
here, we’re queer” of the women’s power movement. Gloria said it first, but women started to use it to represent the changing landscape of gender relations.
What’s interesting about the difference between what Williams remembered and Steinem originally said is the vantage point – the “become” versus “we are becoming.”
Williams remembered it as a directive – a call-to-action – go become the man you want to marry so you’re more apt to attract that man and form a successful union. And let’s be clear, this is a maxim, for effect – neither Williams nor Steinem are saying that women should re-create themselves in the likeness of men. It’s not – go erase your woman-ness and be more like a man so men can tolerate you. It’s not that dramatic.
Earlier in the article Williams discussing being lost, afraid, unsure of herself, unsure what she was worth. So her personal project to “become the man you want to marry” is a sort of – let me get to a place where I like myself, where I want to spend time with myself and think I’m worthy of someone wanting to spend time with me – to be for herself what women think they need a man to fill. Then, she suspects…hopes?, she’ll be in a better position to attract the right partner and personally be more certain he’s right.
Interesting. The idea of becoming more like men is usually attached to separation from them, not being more attractive to them, but there is logic to the crux of Williams’ thinking – that she’ll be more attractive as a partner if she’s more whole as a person – more in control of herself and confident she can handle her own needs. To project what she’s looking for so that can of person can see her more clearly.
Problem is I don’t think that’s what Steinem was getting it…
“We are becoming the men we want to marry” wasn’t about forming relationships with men – it was about being more empowered as women. Steinem and the women of the movement were looking at the landscape and realizing something about the new ways women fit in with men. Their observation: they didn’t necessarily need them, and they didn’t necessarily want them. It was a time in history that saw the average age for a first marriage jump three years and the percentage of single women over 30 jump way more than that. Steinem’s quote was an observation, not a recommendation, and I don’t know that it was an observation that had any connection to “so now we’ll be more apt to find better men and better marriages.” I actually think it was an observation that meant less marriage and later marriage…
Is Gloria Steinem’s original quote ironically saying that the way Michelle Williams remembered it is opposite of true? Was she saying that if we become the men we want to marry then we’ll probably have a harder time finding men to marry? I don’t know. I don’t know that she knows, and I’m pretty sure Michelle Williams has figured it out either.
But it’s an interesting topic, no? Whether or not there’s a correlation between how much like a man you are and how much that man you’re trying to find will, as a result, will like you? And if so, which way does it swing?
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that quote just changed my thought process. become the man i want to marry. hmm.
I don’t think Michelle meant it in a way unlike how Steinem intended. She said she would like to find love but first fall in love with herself – “What qualities do I find attractive, and can I find them in myself? What am I missing? Can I be that for myself?” To love oneself is the most empowering affection and I interpreted Michelle’s words in Vogue to mean she must love herself before anything else.
I think you nailed it in your article — Steinem’s quote is referencing woman’s ability to provide and lead and manage her own life and affairs in such a way that they don’t need a man, in a way that renders marriage unnecessary.
Williams is reinterpreting the quote (probably unknowingly) to promote a sort of self-love. I think that desire for and pursuit of self-love is wholly appropriate. The danger is that in seeking to love herself through her own interpretation of Steinem’s quote, it seems like she’s looking to love herself by becoming someone else (the man she wants to marry). There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to improve oneself or to develop characteristics in oneself that might not come naturally, but it sure is easier to develop new qualities from a position where one ALREADY knows and loves and accepts oneself (flaws, shortcomings, and all) than from a position of uncertainty of who one is and insecurity about one’s own feelings for oneself.
That said, best wishes to Williams. I hope she becomes whatever it is she wants to become and finds the love she is looking for.
however it was another joy to see It is such an important topic and ignored by so many, even professionals.
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