Hi all, I loved listening to the interview with Jia – her voice and perspective are so interesting and inspiring to me. I’m sorry I can't make it to one of the discussions! One meta-thought I had listening to the interview was how deeply felt her views on the topic of capitalism and the ideal woman are to her – these are not some theoretical grad student musings here, but a topic that she feels to her core.
One other random thing was that the idea of looking nice enough so that a friend over dinner would enjoy looking at you was a little weird but also sweet!
Thank you, Mark, for connecting with her! I have been grappling with how to respond for a while. I guess my main feeling after listening to the podcast was disappointed. She didn't show that much self-awareness regarding what many people brought up in the annotations. The issue of access, or who can be an ideal woman, is deeply tied to privilege (be that race, socio-economic status, gender identity, sexual orientation, parental status, ability, etc.) and her reflections in the interview didn't indicate that she was considering the access piece deeply. In the article, she uses "we" to indicate women who are coping with the idea of the "ideal woman," but, as fellow reader Hannah Odyniec pointed out, not everyone is connected to that "we" (see her thoughtful annotation at the end of the article). The idea of there being an optimized "ideal" necessitates lesser non-ideals, in other words, the ideal woman is so exclusive that her existence depends on the exclusion of others.
I think the Jia Tolentino quote from the interview that has stuck with me is: "you don't always have to be improving." The thought that refusing to optimize as an act of resistance is empowering, and makes me think of Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches," which really made me see existence as an act of resistance (especially for women of color and others who face oppression due to their identities). As someone who definitely identifies as an overachiever, the thought that I could just... not spend time getting better at XYZ (learning Spanish, cooking, whatever it may be) is really empowering. When Tolentino said, "you don't have to get better at anything if you don't want to," a part of me exhaled. But then again, that privilege piece comes back in - some folks have no choice but to optimize ("I need a higher income to support my family, so I have to go to school to get a specific job"). Regardless, I think this interview gave me permission to check in with myself the next time I find myself "optimizing." Maybe it is okay to exhale and just exist.
Those are great quotes, Mark. You did a fantastic interview! I enjoyed hearing her perspective and was especially interested to read the longer book version of this, since she herself disliked the edit presented in this article. I am glad to learn that she was going for a more conflicted, slightly ironic tone toward the "ideal woman" but it is always interesting to participate in something and then try to look at it from a distance (not always possible). I really enjoy and agree her idea that a major failing of feminism has been its inability to eradicate the idea that there needs to be an "ideal woman."
I’ll start things off, say hi, and share a few of my favorite quotes from the interview: (1) “One of the unfulfilled potentialities of feminism is to eradicate the need for this idea of an ideal woman.” (2) A lot of life right now is about recognizing that certain contradictions won’t be reconciled.” (3) “I just try to ask myself, at any given moment, What am I free to do that I want to do? What am I free to reject? What do I want, and why do I want it?” (4) “I rarely think about what other people should do.”
Hi all, I loved listening to the interview with Jia – her voice and perspective are so interesting and inspiring to me. I’m sorry I can't make it to one of the discussions! One meta-thought I had listening to the interview was how deeply felt her views on the topic of capitalism and the ideal woman are to her – these are not some theoretical grad student musings here, but a topic that she feels to her core.
One other random thing was that the idea of looking nice enough so that a friend over dinner would enjoy looking at you was a little weird but also sweet!
Thank you, Mark, for connecting with her! I have been grappling with how to respond for a while. I guess my main feeling after listening to the podcast was disappointed. She didn't show that much self-awareness regarding what many people brought up in the annotations. The issue of access, or who can be an ideal woman, is deeply tied to privilege (be that race, socio-economic status, gender identity, sexual orientation, parental status, ability, etc.) and her reflections in the interview didn't indicate that she was considering the access piece deeply. In the article, she uses "we" to indicate women who are coping with the idea of the "ideal woman," but, as fellow reader Hannah Odyniec pointed out, not everyone is connected to that "we" (see her thoughtful annotation at the end of the article). The idea of there being an optimized "ideal" necessitates lesser non-ideals, in other words, the ideal woman is so exclusive that her existence depends on the exclusion of others.
I think the Jia Tolentino quote from the interview that has stuck with me is: "you don't always have to be improving." The thought that refusing to optimize as an act of resistance is empowering, and makes me think of Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches," which really made me see existence as an act of resistance (especially for women of color and others who face oppression due to their identities). As someone who definitely identifies as an overachiever, the thought that I could just... not spend time getting better at XYZ (learning Spanish, cooking, whatever it may be) is really empowering. When Tolentino said, "you don't have to get better at anything if you don't want to," a part of me exhaled. But then again, that privilege piece comes back in - some folks have no choice but to optimize ("I need a higher income to support my family, so I have to go to school to get a specific job"). Regardless, I think this interview gave me permission to check in with myself the next time I find myself "optimizing." Maybe it is okay to exhale and just exist.
Those are great quotes, Mark. You did a fantastic interview! I enjoyed hearing her perspective and was especially interested to read the longer book version of this, since she herself disliked the edit presented in this article. I am glad to learn that she was going for a more conflicted, slightly ironic tone toward the "ideal woman" but it is always interesting to participate in something and then try to look at it from a distance (not always possible). I really enjoy and agree her idea that a major failing of feminism has been its inability to eradicate the idea that there needs to be an "ideal woman."
I’ll start things off, say hi, and share a few of my favorite quotes from the interview: (1) “One of the unfulfilled potentialities of feminism is to eradicate the need for this idea of an ideal woman.” (2) A lot of life right now is about recognizing that certain contradictions won’t be reconciled.” (3) “I just try to ask myself, at any given moment, What am I free to do that I want to do? What am I free to reject? What do I want, and why do I want it?” (4) “I rarely think about what other people should do.”