Exactly. Historically women were valued ONLY to the degree they were in a relationship with someone else; girlfriend/wife, mother. A man who never married was called a bachelor, but a woman who never married wasn't called a bachelorette but an old maid or a spinster (both derogatory terms). Remember the line in the movie that goes "Barbie has a great day every day; Ken only has a great day when Barbie looks at him." That's a problem.
No one, male or female, should have their sense of self-worth depending wholly on how others see them, as Ken did for most of the movie or how many women did historically. That's not radical individualism, nor does it leave no room for romantic love. It merely asserts that every person has value, apart from whatever relationships they may be in. Someone who does note marry or who does not have children isn't a lesser person.
It could be because I am a piece of crap - but it could also be because I am surrounded by assholes. Plenty of kids who grow up in abusive homes end up believing that THEY are the reason they were abused, and it can take a very long time for them to realize that they weren't harmed because they were bad.
Other people don't get to decide who I am or what my value/worth is as a human being. They can weigh in and have opinions. But ultimately, my self concept derives from myself. I am the decider.
my husband and I just last week had a robust discussion about this, in terms of my own behavior. without getting into specifics, it has been revealed to me at a very deep level that - while I take great pains, psychologically, to make it seem otherwise - I am very much a product of this conditioned "improvement" culture. At my core, I have a hard time confronting the narrative that "doing things to improve myself / the world" = "being a good girl" and that the converse is even more true and unspeakable.
Based on your recommendation, I'd also point you to this WONDERFUL GEM OF A BOOK, which I dusted off after the aforementioned conversation "How to be Idle: a Loafer's Manifesto" - so well written and a much-needed antidote to this culture. https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Idle-Loafers-Manifesto/dp/0060779691
I think there's a difference between enjoying doing your personal best and what's being described as the "improvement" culture. When I'm swimming I like to improve the efficiency of my strokes and feel good when I meet some goal, but those goals are personal and changeable.
It speaks volumes that someone wrote a book about how to be idle. Does screen time count as idle in the modern world?
"At my core, I have a hard time confronting the narrative that "doing things to improve myself / the world" = "being a good girl" and that the converse is even more true and unspeakable." Could you explain this a bit more to me, please. I'm not sure what you mean. I'm too old to be part of this modern culture and quite a bit of it's baffling.
Haha sure! I'll try! first of all, the "idle" book is awesome - cheeky, intelligent, irreverent, well-researched. It investigates things like naps, lunch, fishing, smoking, the pub (he's british), sex, sleeping in. But it's not about being lazy - it's really a lovely take on enjoying life, kind of the opposite of this journaling culture referenced above (the article about Virginia Woolf, which was excellent!).
I totally agree with you re: swimming/personal best. I definitely feel that my primary engine is towards this kind of self-development (as opposed to being competitive with some phantom "other" in my head), but I have a hard time putting it down (that tendency). What I was trying to say about the "good girl" stuff is that I think doing things like the "Idle" book suggests — while I am 100% on board, philosophically — is contrary to my deep conditioning about the fact that not being a whirling dervish of productive energy all day (for self, for family, community, "the world") is indulgent and reprehensible. Nobody is explicitly telling me that, I have just internalized it as a deep truth.
I think it's a combination of just what I took in from my parents (my mom always celebrates the fact that she "never sits down") coupled with the fact that our generation (I'm a parent of teens) has been downwind of a huge avalanche of problems that need to be addressed in order for the next generation to inherit anything but a total shit show. I have taken that responsibility very seriously, too, which means that I probably have some sort of grading system in my head that judges whether what I'm doing is ULTIMATELY worthwhile. Not for me, not for my life, but in the Gates of St. Peter kind of way. It's a bit of a tyranny, and I'm actively trying to break out of it. Especially because I am totally clear that the world's problems are not going to be solved by people who are trying to remediate them while coming from a bit of a fearful place in that regard (people who do not have a peaceful relationship with themselves). Honestly, I've come along way on this front but was trying to make a more basic point re: Barbie, and that it's an important wellspring of motivation to examine/inquire about/confront.
Not sure if that clarifies or makes it even more baffling, but I so appreciate you asking!
The book sounds good, especially if it's funny and not one of those preachy self help sort of things.
I think I get your meaning. Kids, especially teenagers, take a lot of time and energy. It was a time I was constantly on the go.
Some people have a lot of energy and always want to be doing things. They just like it that way. Others need a lot of down time.
I don't get this journaling culture. It seems weird to me. So does the therapy culture. It makes me feel like being an annoyed teenager who rolls her eyes.
Aug 28, 2023·edited Aug 28, 2023Liked by Freddie deBoer
It is strange, it seems like the rebuttal to "no man is an island" has been "well then I will build an island of therapy around myself so I can float alone and unencumbered by the filthy fleshy needs of relationships."
Also, telling young men that they are "enough" and just need to embrace their inner selves seems like a recipe for shouting "NO, NOT LIKE THAT, STOP!!!!!" in about three years. Basically every culture tries to figure out how to get young men to sublimate their weird, horny, competitive drives into prosocial action. Telling them to go where their feelings take them seems like a bad idea (I say this having been a teenage boy).
The messaging to teenage boys seems to be something like: You are enough. Follow your feelings. But not if they lead you on an ambitious path, or to flirt with women, or show any aggression, or really make an impact on the world in any way. Because that's problematic. Basically just act like a Woman in HR.
I think the key thing is that unwanted advances is plural. Awkwardly asking someone out? Fine. Pestering someone after you’ve been told no? That’s harassment.
You're using that phrase to do a lot of work. There's a difference between asking a cute coworker out for drinks and cornering her in the copying room. And of course, taking no for an answer without consequence towards the refuser.
I think a lot of men are lost in all of this because they've never learned how to interpret body language or show restraint in social situations.
EDIT: Elevatorgate was Gamer Gate for atheism and predates MeToo by a decade.
Yes, human conduct is subjective and you have to read social situations and make a judgment on what is appropriate. This is not impossible, in fact people do this every single time they speak to another person.
In a colleague situation, the best thing to do is establish a flirtation over time and it becomes so readily apparent that you two are interested in each other that your other co-workers ask, "so...when are you guys going to get together already?"
This is both more romantic, more likely to be successful, and safer (from an HR perspective) than just asking some cute girl from marketing that you've never spoken with if and have no idea how she feels about you if she wants to go out for drinks with you.
Not for me, anyone I know, or anyone I've ever heard of.
Every unwanted advances story I've ever come across involves multiple accusations, inaction by HR, and beyond inappropriate conduct. There's also a significant social cost in these accusations. You have to deal with HR bumbling and can take a reputational hit in a lot of workplaces.
If a man feels uncertain about asking someone out, just don't do it. It's pretty simple, honestly.
Oh my god elevator gate - forgot all about that nightmare. I Learned a lot about feminism after watching the absolutely deranged reactions to that poor woman.
I had to look up Elevatorgate, and while a simple "no" on her part would've sufficed, asking a stranger to your hotel room is...maybe a bad idea. Like, how did he think that was going to end for him? Why not just ask her to the bar, a neutral location? Almost every woman I know was taught at an early age not to be alone with a stranger on the first date (at least not at the start of it!)
Looking at the vehement response and the type of person who would go to Atheist-con, I don't think many of them understand basic social cues or why people would respond negatively to their behavior. This was the equivalent of someone asking people to mind their manners and they flipped their shit. I also don't recall her mentioning anyone by name.
That always struck me as overreach in the extreme, and very culturally insensitive. There was some collective ignorance in #MeToo. For instance, in some places and times, saying no on the first ask is simply considered good practice. In others, it's even the expected custom.
It's not hard to imagine extreme versions of unwanted advances constituting harassment. But the annoyance and effort of saying 'no' to non-threatening advances is simply the complement to the burden of the advancer, and is the lesser of the two burdens at that.
I saw a youtube short of Destiny the other day. He's one of the single most prominent leftists among young men, I think? In response to what young men should focus on to become successful, his answer was to become more like a Woman, and they would best succeed in the modern workplace by developing more "Womanly" traits. He's an out of shape blue haired guy who mainly plays video games and has a wife who sleeps with other men. (I'm not saying those are bad things, but you can see the messaging pretty clearly).
I feel like I could provide a lot of examples, but usually people just nitpick them, and say it's not what they actually meant. They get lost in the details and miss the broad changes that have happened.
But in general, it's not just Liberal messaging, but how we've structured the world for young men.
My Mom's a psychologist, and I talk to her about the new guidelines from the APA and other bodies for treating men. Some of it is pretty wild.
My wife is a teacher and I get a sense of how young boys are perceived in the school system, and how they "should" be acting. Any sort of aggression is strictly prohibited. They can't even play tackle football at recess anymore.
Classic men's spaces like boyscouts are basically gone.
I don't know If you have kids, but pretty much every environment I see mine put in these days is built around safety and fairness and equity, and any ambition or differentiation is looked down upon. My Son's soccer is currently coed, and they stop the game and give the ball to the girls every few minutes. Every single game they had to sit the boys down and explain again why they were doing this and how great it was.
And now in response we get a lot of the opposite messaging that goes way too far, and young men eat it up.
The only refuge appears to be intense contact sports, which aren't every boy's cup of tea. I got od'd on bro-ing out playing football and wrestling, but I'm glad that masculine culture was available to me and eternally grateful that they didn't tell me I was evil for liking physical contact/competition.
I think this is a bit of an overstatement. I don't think most boys believe they aren't allowed to be ambitious or flirt with women. I realize there are some loud and extreme voices sending messages like that, but that's hardly the loudest or only message they're receiving from the wider culture. I think if young men are afraid to flirt, it's just the same insecurity that everyone struggles with at that age.
Yeah luckily there seems to be more push back now, and alternative messaging is starting to win.
Still, very few are having sex, or going on dates, or even have friends. Less are playing contact sports, more are fat and unhealthy. Maybe they could take a lesson from pre kenough ken.
This has been my experience. On the flip side I've found that most millennial women are totally fine with flirting and approaches as long as they're not literal catcalls and men can take a no gracefully.
I definitely got told I'm not allowed to be ambitious, not by feminists but by conservative liberals who considered any worthy ambition in life to be Immanentizing the Eschaton.
I'm not sure if I think that the "natural state" of young men is conservative, it's more pre-modern warlord, the thing that the institutions and societal structures of modern society were built to guard against. I don't think either progressives or conservatives would be happy with Young Males Unchained...
That said, I can see why more young men are saying they're conservative - if "conservative" is the opposite of whatever the standard ed school graduate belief system is, a lot of teens will be "conservative" in the near future.
Really enjoyed this write up. I think it hits at some of the uncomfortable truths that the progressive movement sometimes runs up against: Media can tell you that things like romantic relationships and physical fitness and financial success aren't required to be happy (or "Kenough"), but at the end of the day, pretty much everyone wants these things and is happier once they've achieved them
The relentless pursuit of perfection - in relationships, financial status or fitness is a tyranny that robs people of the ability to be content. The culture - or parts of it - may say that you don't need perfection to be happy, but the media (especially social media)holds perfection up as a goal to aspire to, and there is much money to be made out of making people feel imperfect aka inadequate. Perhaps we all should bear in mind that one day every single one of us ends up being either compost or ashes.
I would say that there is very much love (sisterly) at the end of Frozen and and Moana (family). I couldn't agree more that the worship of the self is at the center of our culture, and that this is the source of tremendous existential pain that is refracted through a thousand frozen fractals all around (to butcher the reference). I love the spirit of this post, but somewhat disagree that the Barbie movie fully embraced the premise that we are self-contained ecosystems of "enoughness."
I left the movie feeling, basically, that the movie promoted the important idea that the "patriarchy" doesn't just need to be dismantled for the benefits of a (re)-emerging "matriarchy," or any such thing, but rather that the system commonly referred to as "patriarchy" serves neither men nor women, but perhaps only the moguls in the board room.
I liked the movie so much precisely because there was some muddiness, because it touched on these things without wrapping them up too clearly.
I agree with you, and I think the Barbie movie has a similar conclusion to movies like Moana, Brave, Frozen, Lilo&Stitch, etc:
At the end of the Barbie movie, Barbie seems to have close real-world friendships with Gloria and Sasha (and also maybe Gloria's husband). Gloria and Sasha are closer to each other than they were in the beginning of the movie. Barbie has met her own mother/creator. Familial/friendship connections are emphasized going forward in Barbie's life.
I think the movie leaves Ken's future wide open. Maybe he'll be happily single. Maybe he'll meet and fall in love with another Barbie, who will actually love him back. Maybe he'll opt to become human, as Margo Robbie Barbie did - and maybe, after becoming his own person, Margo Robbie Barbie will actually fall in love with him. (Clingy people who NEED to always be in a relationship are very unappealing, now that Ken will be developing a healthier sense of self and doing important things independently, he might become more attractive.)
We end by knowing Ken has choices to make, not what form those choices will take.
Yes! This is an awesome answer. Contrary to what I just wrote above, I think you've worked it out beautifully (but I still want to see it again LOL). This was such a great response.
Right! Exactly. There's not so much the "happily ever after" thing going on, but more like a "now life will be richer, more textured, more alive." I agree that the Ken thing is a bit less clear, and kind of want to go see it again; for many reasons, but in particular to get a better handle on that. Not so much so that I can best understand the Barbie movie, but as a launch pad for what a society without the patriarchy (again, not with a matriarchy, but integrated) could look like.
"rather that the system commonly referred to as "patriarchy" serves neither men nor women, but perhaps only the moguls in the board room."
Yes. I can see that. I wish that had been made a bit more explicit. Perhaps my connotations to the term "patriarchy" are too strong for me to have gotten that message.
I was, shallowly, super bummed that the movie's conclusion was that Barbie & Ken must part ways, as opposed to being that Barbie & Ken learn to, like... I don't know, see *each other* fully as people. Still a fun movie, I just felt primed for that emotional beat and was a little "aww, darn" when I didn't get it, since both actors had so thoroughly charmed me by that point.
I agree with your take; "I am Kenough" just felt like a boring conclusion by comparison. Especially when Barbie's self-actualization did at least gesture at her wanting to know all the depth and interconnectedness of human life. Barbie gets a full grasp of age and death and fear and joy and fulfillment, Ken gets... Instagram therapy? Ah well. Okay. Those are equally desirable, I suppose.
It reminded me a bit of An Unmarried Woman, which I saw 45 years ago when it came out and I was an impressionable teen. My reaction was "You're walking away from Alan Bates? You're insane!" Why can't Barbie and Ken grow up together and work it out?
" Why can't Barbie and Ken grow up together and work it out?"
Why should they? Remember, they didn't choose each other. They were forced into that relationship. Why should Barbie force herself to like (in the sense of romance, not friendship) someone she's just not attracted to?
Well, no. But -- it's a movie about dolls. And at the end, Barbie has apparently developed some reproductive organs, so maybe her feelings will change? Though I grant you she'd probably want a man with some reproductive organs. Or maybe that's toxic heteronormativity. See, this is why my head is spinning.
I think the movie deliberately leaves open the possibility that Margo Robbie Barbie will marry. The importance of children (and specifically daughters) in the lives of most women was explicitly mentioned in that final conversation with her creator's ghost. But unless Bryan Gosling Ken decides to leave Barbieland in favor of becoming a Real Man (with working sex organs) and develops interests other than Dating Barbie and Beach!, he won't be Margo Robbie Barbie's husband.
(I can totally see Ryan Gosling Ken becoming a horse trainer, though, since he was disappointed that Patriarchy wasn't really about horses. Remember Barbie's palomino horse? Someone had to train him, and now that Barbieland is experiencing Ken's Liberation, there's no reason why some of the Kens couldn't train horses in Barbieland.)
I can't help but see the corner the writer wrote herself into. Ken as an accessory to Barbie in some ways is symbolic of what women's role in society was trying to evolve from. That is women going beyond being an accessory to the man of their lives. Ken needing Barbie to see her hits upon the world feminism wanted us to move away from for women. So first you need to move Ken to the role of man in the patriarchy before you can have his story arc go in a way that will work. I enjoyed the movie. The artistry of it was captivating and they found a lot of fun humor along the way.
A portion of communitarianism is needed to reach a rich interdependence that can benefit everyone. As much as we can enjoy our individual freedoms, those of us that dive into community find the rewards for ourselves can be quite rich.
I was lucky enough to be born into a family that still lives next to each other (6 dwellings in a row), in a community where everyone knows each other, resources are shared quite a bit, and helping each other out is part of daily life. I've seen that fray over the years, to no benefit.
Freddie's observation about only being left with conservative individualism and social justice individualism struck me as quite incisive. By not valuing community, both turned me off.
I found the intersection of communitarians on the left and right was always my home.
I thought The Lion King had the best romantic love story thread among the Disney movies. She went and found him, boned him on the first date, told him to get his shit together, and fought hyenas alongside him. Yeah, he still got to be the one to climb up Patriarchy Rock, it being the early 90s, but we all knew where the real power was.
I get what you're saying here, but I think you're confusing individualism with narcissism.
While you're obviously right with your "no man is an island" schtick, true individualism (for better AND worse) not only favors the one over the many, but it does so in a pretty fair way. Meaning your successes and failures are both of your own making, and not somebody else's fault.
These days modern progressives seem to value the individual only when it comes to the successes and positives. If there is a negative or failure to be had, it's 'society's' fault...usually in the form of some institutionalized oppressive matrix or some crap. They are only doing the fun half of individualism, and not the hard accountability part. It's really just self-absorption run amok.
Conservatives have this too mind you, they just tend to package it in a different bag: traditional religion. Good is a choice to follow god, and bad is because you listened to that little devil on your shoulder.
A lot of this overlaps with (and is intentionally commenting on) the response to the toxic "incel" phenomenon and perpetual trend pieces on male loneliness. The usual answer is that men need to "work on themselves" instead of being entitled to other's affection. But how many people saying that would be perfectly fine never receiving love? How many meet this ideal of emotional self-sufficiency before entering a relationship? And how many really don't see our social success as a reflection, in some sense, of one's character?
I think there's a meaningful difference between "work on yourself so you can attract someone who will want you" vs. the "be content in your isolation" that Kenough, if not endorses, then leans towards.
Not "be content in your isolation" (which is a dreadful message) but "be content with yourself" (which is an essential message). The reality is that no one is guaranteed a romantic partner, and nearly all relationships eventually end (if only because death intervenes). If you can't be content by yourself and MUST have a romantic partner (as opposed to a circle of friends) in your life in order to be happy, you're really vulnerable.
Although for a guy sometimes self disgust is a useful tool. I know guys who dropped a ton of weight after looking in the mirror and thinking to themselves "Jesus Christ".
Speaking of Disney, another good example is the live-action Mulan vs the animated original. The original eschewed making romance the primary arc of Mulan's story, but it still retained a communal message because Mulan did it all for her family and returns to her home life after defeating the Huns (and she gets the hot guy too, but only as a side quest).
In contrast, the live-action version ends with her presumably accepting the emperor's offer to join his elite guard to be a "leader," because even if the hero did it for his/her family instead of some love interest, that still wouldn't be enough to satisfy the supposedly proper goal of individual achievement and glory.
The ending narration says that she will become a leader and a legend. Yes, she will serve the army and the emperor, but most importantly, she will make a name for herself. The key thing is that they couldn't leave the original ending as is, because the final beat of the narrative has to be about her ongoing individual greatness.
“The last movie of theirs that could be said to hold romantic love as the fundamental goal of the protagonist is Tangled, and even that’s debatable. Frozen and its sequel very directly reject that story structure, while films like Moana and Raya and the Last Dragon are indifferent to it. And, you know, that’s all fine; there’s lots of different good stories out there. But I do think that the out-and-out abandonment of the notion that love is the noblest pursuit of human life says a lot about our cult of self-worship. Because once you’ve dropped the romantic ideal, that’s all our culture really has to offer.“
This is a really glib thing to conclude from those movies, given that they don’t reject love at all; they reject the idea that romantic love is the central form of love. In Frozen, for instance, Ana is still revived by true love’s kiss. It just turns out her sister loves her more than some romantic interest whom she barely knows.
I'm talking about romantic love, mostly, which yes I think remains the only human triumph. And given that Anna ends up with Kristof I hope Elsa can find the love she needs elsewhere.
As a woman who’s single but would prefer not to be, I have two options: I could put my life on hold until I find a partner; or I could do things like creating art, belonging to and contributing to communities, and so on. And I choose the latter: if I do find a partner, that’s great; if I don’t, then at least I will have spent my life doing at least some worthwhile things. But if romantic love is the *only* human triumph, then choosing option 2 is…what? Wasting one’s life? Unethical? I’m not sure what conclusion is to be drawn here.
I agree with you. Human connection is important, but we are not the only species which forms mated pair bonds (and some of those other species are far better than we are at staying mated for life). But we are the only species which has art and science; because of that, I think those human creations have a far better claim on being the only human triumph than romantic love does. Wake me when any other species writes plays like Shakespeare's, or sends a space probe to Pluto.
Isn't it possible to combine both of those? Does dating and having your eyes open for a mate have to exclude artistic pursuits? The people I've known who only focused on finding a partner and let everything else fall away weren't particularly successful. They usually ended up with jerks.
Well, no, of course they’re not mutually exclusive. It’s about the attitude: “if I Find Love™️ doing this stuff, that’s great, but if not, I’ve made myself [and probably other friends/family] happy in the process” seems healthier than “achieving romantic love is the only thing that could ever give my life meaning and if I don’t, then it’s all a failure.” I dunno. I guess if the sky is blue, I want to believe that the sky is blue, but I think Freddie’s proposition might be unfalsifiable.
Great essay. It very much speaks to things that I'm pondering now. I think you've hit on that which is missing in so much of modern society, lack of connection and lack of love. There is beauty and wonderful things to see and experience alone, I hike and ride alone. I'm building a retaining wall behind my house alone and that's fine. But I have a husband of thirty years, six kids and friends. If you took away my human connections I doubt I would live very long. There just wouldn't be any point.
I'm 66. This degradation of love and connection hasn't always been this way. (Could it be that it's hard to sell stuff to people who are happy, and human connection is what fundamentally makes people happy?)
Feminism isn't the culprit. When I watched Barbie all I could think was "this message is 50 years too late." Things that were true in the 1950s aren't true now. If you're a doormat of a woman it's because you choose to be. The soliloquy to Ken struck me as completely hollow. If you're a woman and you feel like that, it's all on you.
Like most movies I watch today, I found the cinematography excellent, the casting great, the music great but the substance totally lacking. I fell asleep. The message, whatever it is, was nothing to me.
I "found" myself decades ago, primarily as a mother, wife and teacher, all of the things that are supposed to make you powerless. That couldn't be further from the truth. I think that's why repressive regimes always subjugate and attack women first.
Lack of connection is so true. Its funny, I feel like I had more connection and support from 2020-2021 than I do now. I know that runs counter to the popular narrative but my neighbors all became deeply connected during that time out of need but now everyone is siloed to themselves again.
I know exactly what you mean. There's sociological research on natural disasters bringing people together out of necessity. It comports with my experience in tornado country. On the first day, when the trees block the streets and the powerlines are still down, folks are out there with their chainsaws and checking in on their neighbors.
Related, I found the movie's treatment of Midge, aka Pregnant Barbie, to be disappointing but revealing. She's nothing more than a joke: women are to be liberated from pregnancy and that's that.
They did at least acknowledge that some women want to be mothers in America Fererra's second big speech, but it felt pretty perfunctory in light of how they treated Midge. Imo, they needed to bring her back as something more than just a punchline. Like, obviously I'm not advocating a return to women being baby factories and nothing more, but at its heart Barbie needs pregnancy and reproduction because without women becoming mothers of little girls, *there can be no more Barbie* It all stops.
"but at its heart Barbie needs pregnancy and reproduction because without women becoming mothers of little girls, *there can be no more Barbie* It all stops."
That ground was covered in the final conversation between Barbie and her creator's ghost, who affirmed the importance of daughters and the sacrifices mothers make willingly for them.
Much of all the extreme individualism is a direct result of marketing using psychological manipulation. Edward Bernays is the father of PR and modern advertising and used his uncle's (Dr. Freud) techniques first for WW1 propaganda and then in marketing. He used the Statue of Liberty and fashion models to sell women smoking and went from there.
It is all pushed to sell product and to manipulate us.
Exactly. Historically women were valued ONLY to the degree they were in a relationship with someone else; girlfriend/wife, mother. A man who never married was called a bachelor, but a woman who never married wasn't called a bachelorette but an old maid or a spinster (both derogatory terms). Remember the line in the movie that goes "Barbie has a great day every day; Ken only has a great day when Barbie looks at him." That's a problem.
No one, male or female, should have their sense of self-worth depending wholly on how others see them, as Ken did for most of the movie or how many women did historically. That's not radical individualism, nor does it leave no room for romantic love. It merely asserts that every person has value, apart from whatever relationships they may be in. Someone who does note marry or who does not have children isn't a lesser person.
That's NOT the way it works for emotionally healthy people.
It could be because I am a piece of crap - but it could also be because I am surrounded by assholes. Plenty of kids who grow up in abusive homes end up believing that THEY are the reason they were abused, and it can take a very long time for them to realize that they weren't harmed because they were bad.
Other people don't get to decide who I am or what my value/worth is as a human being. They can weigh in and have opinions. But ultimately, my self concept derives from myself. I am the decider.
Enjoying the Substack app’s audio interpretation of the Kenough neologism. “No one is Kee-no-ugg.”
As an aside, there's a very good critique of #manifesting culture in this recent article by G.S. Christie in the New Statesman:
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/life/2023/08/journaling-vs-diaries-virginia-woolf
OMG just started this but already loving it. Thank you for this link.
my husband and I just last week had a robust discussion about this, in terms of my own behavior. without getting into specifics, it has been revealed to me at a very deep level that - while I take great pains, psychologically, to make it seem otherwise - I am very much a product of this conditioned "improvement" culture. At my core, I have a hard time confronting the narrative that "doing things to improve myself / the world" = "being a good girl" and that the converse is even more true and unspeakable.
Based on your recommendation, I'd also point you to this WONDERFUL GEM OF A BOOK, which I dusted off after the aforementioned conversation "How to be Idle: a Loafer's Manifesto" - so well written and a much-needed antidote to this culture. https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Idle-Loafers-Manifesto/dp/0060779691
Like my friend's book on procrastination, I haven't gotten around to reading that one yet.
ha!
I think there's a difference between enjoying doing your personal best and what's being described as the "improvement" culture. When I'm swimming I like to improve the efficiency of my strokes and feel good when I meet some goal, but those goals are personal and changeable.
It speaks volumes that someone wrote a book about how to be idle. Does screen time count as idle in the modern world?
"At my core, I have a hard time confronting the narrative that "doing things to improve myself / the world" = "being a good girl" and that the converse is even more true and unspeakable." Could you explain this a bit more to me, please. I'm not sure what you mean. I'm too old to be part of this modern culture and quite a bit of it's baffling.
Haha sure! I'll try! first of all, the "idle" book is awesome - cheeky, intelligent, irreverent, well-researched. It investigates things like naps, lunch, fishing, smoking, the pub (he's british), sex, sleeping in. But it's not about being lazy - it's really a lovely take on enjoying life, kind of the opposite of this journaling culture referenced above (the article about Virginia Woolf, which was excellent!).
I totally agree with you re: swimming/personal best. I definitely feel that my primary engine is towards this kind of self-development (as opposed to being competitive with some phantom "other" in my head), but I have a hard time putting it down (that tendency). What I was trying to say about the "good girl" stuff is that I think doing things like the "Idle" book suggests — while I am 100% on board, philosophically — is contrary to my deep conditioning about the fact that not being a whirling dervish of productive energy all day (for self, for family, community, "the world") is indulgent and reprehensible. Nobody is explicitly telling me that, I have just internalized it as a deep truth.
I think it's a combination of just what I took in from my parents (my mom always celebrates the fact that she "never sits down") coupled with the fact that our generation (I'm a parent of teens) has been downwind of a huge avalanche of problems that need to be addressed in order for the next generation to inherit anything but a total shit show. I have taken that responsibility very seriously, too, which means that I probably have some sort of grading system in my head that judges whether what I'm doing is ULTIMATELY worthwhile. Not for me, not for my life, but in the Gates of St. Peter kind of way. It's a bit of a tyranny, and I'm actively trying to break out of it. Especially because I am totally clear that the world's problems are not going to be solved by people who are trying to remediate them while coming from a bit of a fearful place in that regard (people who do not have a peaceful relationship with themselves). Honestly, I've come along way on this front but was trying to make a more basic point re: Barbie, and that it's an important wellspring of motivation to examine/inquire about/confront.
Not sure if that clarifies or makes it even more baffling, but I so appreciate you asking!
The book sounds good, especially if it's funny and not one of those preachy self help sort of things.
I think I get your meaning. Kids, especially teenagers, take a lot of time and energy. It was a time I was constantly on the go.
Some people have a lot of energy and always want to be doing things. They just like it that way. Others need a lot of down time.
I don't get this journaling culture. It seems weird to me. So does the therapy culture. It makes me feel like being an annoyed teenager who rolls her eyes.
There's therapy and therapy...
It is strange, it seems like the rebuttal to "no man is an island" has been "well then I will build an island of therapy around myself so I can float alone and unencumbered by the filthy fleshy needs of relationships."
Also, telling young men that they are "enough" and just need to embrace their inner selves seems like a recipe for shouting "NO, NOT LIKE THAT, STOP!!!!!" in about three years. Basically every culture tries to figure out how to get young men to sublimate their weird, horny, competitive drives into prosocial action. Telling them to go where their feelings take them seems like a bad idea (I say this having been a teenage boy).
The messaging to teenage boys seems to be something like: You are enough. Follow your feelings. But not if they lead you on an ambitious path, or to flirt with women, or show any aggression, or really make an impact on the world in any way. Because that's problematic. Basically just act like a Woman in HR.
I think the key thing is that unwanted advances is plural. Awkwardly asking someone out? Fine. Pestering someone after you’ve been told no? That’s harassment.
You're using that phrase to do a lot of work. There's a difference between asking a cute coworker out for drinks and cornering her in the copying room. And of course, taking no for an answer without consequence towards the refuser.
I think a lot of men are lost in all of this because they've never learned how to interpret body language or show restraint in social situations.
EDIT: Elevatorgate was Gamer Gate for atheism and predates MeToo by a decade.
Yes, human conduct is subjective and you have to read social situations and make a judgment on what is appropriate. This is not impossible, in fact people do this every single time they speak to another person.
It’s fairly easy: Don’t pursue your coworkers and especially not your subordinates.
In a colleague situation, the best thing to do is establish a flirtation over time and it becomes so readily apparent that you two are interested in each other that your other co-workers ask, "so...when are you guys going to get together already?"
This is both more romantic, more likely to be successful, and safer (from an HR perspective) than just asking some cute girl from marketing that you've never spoken with if and have no idea how she feels about you if she wants to go out for drinks with you.
"There's a difference between asking a cute coworker out for drinks and cornering her in the copying room."
A tiny, nuance tinged difference that is prone to misinterpretation.
Not for me, anyone I know, or anyone I've ever heard of.
Every unwanted advances story I've ever come across involves multiple accusations, inaction by HR, and beyond inappropriate conduct. There's also a significant social cost in these accusations. You have to deal with HR bumbling and can take a reputational hit in a lot of workplaces.
If a man feels uncertain about asking someone out, just don't do it. It's pretty simple, honestly.
I thought I was the only person who remembered Elevatorgate!
Oh my god elevator gate - forgot all about that nightmare. I Learned a lot about feminism after watching the absolutely deranged reactions to that poor woman.
I had to look up Elevatorgate, and while a simple "no" on her part would've sufficed, asking a stranger to your hotel room is...maybe a bad idea. Like, how did he think that was going to end for him? Why not just ask her to the bar, a neutral location? Almost every woman I know was taught at an early age not to be alone with a stranger on the first date (at least not at the start of it!)
Looking at the vehement response and the type of person who would go to Atheist-con, I don't think many of them understand basic social cues or why people would respond negatively to their behavior. This was the equivalent of someone asking people to mind their manners and they flipped their shit. I also don't recall her mentioning anyone by name.
That always struck me as overreach in the extreme, and very culturally insensitive. There was some collective ignorance in #MeToo. For instance, in some places and times, saying no on the first ask is simply considered good practice. In others, it's even the expected custom.
It's not hard to imagine extreme versions of unwanted advances constituting harassment. But the annoyance and effort of saying 'no' to non-threatening advances is simply the complement to the burden of the advancer, and is the lesser of the two burdens at that.
I saw a youtube short of Destiny the other day. He's one of the single most prominent leftists among young men, I think? In response to what young men should focus on to become successful, his answer was to become more like a Woman, and they would best succeed in the modern workplace by developing more "Womanly" traits. He's an out of shape blue haired guy who mainly plays video games and has a wife who sleeps with other men. (I'm not saying those are bad things, but you can see the messaging pretty clearly).
I feel like I could provide a lot of examples, but usually people just nitpick them, and say it's not what they actually meant. They get lost in the details and miss the broad changes that have happened.
But in general, it's not just Liberal messaging, but how we've structured the world for young men.
My Mom's a psychologist, and I talk to her about the new guidelines from the APA and other bodies for treating men. Some of it is pretty wild.
My wife is a teacher and I get a sense of how young boys are perceived in the school system, and how they "should" be acting. Any sort of aggression is strictly prohibited. They can't even play tackle football at recess anymore.
Classic men's spaces like boyscouts are basically gone.
I don't know If you have kids, but pretty much every environment I see mine put in these days is built around safety and fairness and equity, and any ambition or differentiation is looked down upon. My Son's soccer is currently coed, and they stop the game and give the ball to the girls every few minutes. Every single game they had to sit the boys down and explain again why they were doing this and how great it was.
And now in response we get a lot of the opposite messaging that goes way too far, and young men eat it up.
The only refuge appears to be intense contact sports, which aren't every boy's cup of tea. I got od'd on bro-ing out playing football and wrestling, but I'm glad that masculine culture was available to me and eternally grateful that they didn't tell me I was evil for liking physical contact/competition.
I think this is a bit of an overstatement. I don't think most boys believe they aren't allowed to be ambitious or flirt with women. I realize there are some loud and extreme voices sending messages like that, but that's hardly the loudest or only message they're receiving from the wider culture. I think if young men are afraid to flirt, it's just the same insecurity that everyone struggles with at that age.
Yep and it’s not so fun for many women, who now have the additional social burden of making the first move!
Yeah luckily there seems to be more push back now, and alternative messaging is starting to win.
Still, very few are having sex, or going on dates, or even have friends. Less are playing contact sports, more are fat and unhealthy. Maybe they could take a lesson from pre kenough ken.
This has been my experience. On the flip side I've found that most millennial women are totally fine with flirting and approaches as long as they're not literal catcalls and men can take a no gracefully.
I definitely got told I'm not allowed to be ambitious, not by feminists but by conservative liberals who considered any worthy ambition in life to be Immanentizing the Eschaton.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4125661-high-school-boys-are-trending-conservative/
I'm not sure if I think that the "natural state" of young men is conservative, it's more pre-modern warlord, the thing that the institutions and societal structures of modern society were built to guard against. I don't think either progressives or conservatives would be happy with Young Males Unchained...
That said, I can see why more young men are saying they're conservative - if "conservative" is the opposite of whatever the standard ed school graduate belief system is, a lot of teens will be "conservative" in the near future.
This is why I hate Democrats being the party of moral scolds
Really enjoyed this write up. I think it hits at some of the uncomfortable truths that the progressive movement sometimes runs up against: Media can tell you that things like romantic relationships and physical fitness and financial success aren't required to be happy (or "Kenough"), but at the end of the day, pretty much everyone wants these things and is happier once they've achieved them
The relentless pursuit of perfection - in relationships, financial status or fitness is a tyranny that robs people of the ability to be content. The culture - or parts of it - may say that you don't need perfection to be happy, but the media (especially social media)holds perfection up as a goal to aspire to, and there is much money to be made out of making people feel imperfect aka inadequate. Perhaps we all should bear in mind that one day every single one of us ends up being either compost or ashes.
Yes.
I would say that there is very much love (sisterly) at the end of Frozen and and Moana (family). I couldn't agree more that the worship of the self is at the center of our culture, and that this is the source of tremendous existential pain that is refracted through a thousand frozen fractals all around (to butcher the reference). I love the spirit of this post, but somewhat disagree that the Barbie movie fully embraced the premise that we are self-contained ecosystems of "enoughness."
I left the movie feeling, basically, that the movie promoted the important idea that the "patriarchy" doesn't just need to be dismantled for the benefits of a (re)-emerging "matriarchy," or any such thing, but rather that the system commonly referred to as "patriarchy" serves neither men nor women, but perhaps only the moguls in the board room.
I liked the movie so much precisely because there was some muddiness, because it touched on these things without wrapping them up too clearly.
I agree with you, and I think the Barbie movie has a similar conclusion to movies like Moana, Brave, Frozen, Lilo&Stitch, etc:
At the end of the Barbie movie, Barbie seems to have close real-world friendships with Gloria and Sasha (and also maybe Gloria's husband). Gloria and Sasha are closer to each other than they were in the beginning of the movie. Barbie has met her own mother/creator. Familial/friendship connections are emphasized going forward in Barbie's life.
As for Ken...yeah, I'm not sure there.
I think the movie leaves Ken's future wide open. Maybe he'll be happily single. Maybe he'll meet and fall in love with another Barbie, who will actually love him back. Maybe he'll opt to become human, as Margo Robbie Barbie did - and maybe, after becoming his own person, Margo Robbie Barbie will actually fall in love with him. (Clingy people who NEED to always be in a relationship are very unappealing, now that Ken will be developing a healthier sense of self and doing important things independently, he might become more attractive.)
We end by knowing Ken has choices to make, not what form those choices will take.
Yes! This is an awesome answer. Contrary to what I just wrote above, I think you've worked it out beautifully (but I still want to see it again LOL). This was such a great response.
Right! Exactly. There's not so much the "happily ever after" thing going on, but more like a "now life will be richer, more textured, more alive." I agree that the Ken thing is a bit less clear, and kind of want to go see it again; for many reasons, but in particular to get a better handle on that. Not so much so that I can best understand the Barbie movie, but as a launch pad for what a society without the patriarchy (again, not with a matriarchy, but integrated) could look like.
"rather that the system commonly referred to as "patriarchy" serves neither men nor women, but perhaps only the moguls in the board room."
Yes. I can see that. I wish that had been made a bit more explicit. Perhaps my connotations to the term "patriarchy" are too strong for me to have gotten that message.
I hear get it! I felt it was subtle abs I could be projecting my own beliefs and amplifying what I saw!
Individualism is the ultimate end of divide and conquer. The more divided the better.
I suspect this is the heart of it, well said.
I was, shallowly, super bummed that the movie's conclusion was that Barbie & Ken must part ways, as opposed to being that Barbie & Ken learn to, like... I don't know, see *each other* fully as people. Still a fun movie, I just felt primed for that emotional beat and was a little "aww, darn" when I didn't get it, since both actors had so thoroughly charmed me by that point.
I agree with your take; "I am Kenough" just felt like a boring conclusion by comparison. Especially when Barbie's self-actualization did at least gesture at her wanting to know all the depth and interconnectedness of human life. Barbie gets a full grasp of age and death and fear and joy and fulfillment, Ken gets... Instagram therapy? Ah well. Okay. Those are equally desirable, I suppose.
It reminded me a bit of An Unmarried Woman, which I saw 45 years ago when it came out and I was an impressionable teen. My reaction was "You're walking away from Alan Bates? You're insane!" Why can't Barbie and Ken grow up together and work it out?
" Why can't Barbie and Ken grow up together and work it out?"
Why should they? Remember, they didn't choose each other. They were forced into that relationship. Why should Barbie force herself to like (in the sense of romance, not friendship) someone she's just not attracted to?
I think this discussion is getting so counterfactual that my head might spin off.
Haven't you ever dated someone who was more into you than you were into him? Would you marry someone you didn't actually love?
Well, no. But -- it's a movie about dolls. And at the end, Barbie has apparently developed some reproductive organs, so maybe her feelings will change? Though I grant you she'd probably want a man with some reproductive organs. Or maybe that's toxic heteronormativity. See, this is why my head is spinning.
I think the movie deliberately leaves open the possibility that Margo Robbie Barbie will marry. The importance of children (and specifically daughters) in the lives of most women was explicitly mentioned in that final conversation with her creator's ghost. But unless Bryan Gosling Ken decides to leave Barbieland in favor of becoming a Real Man (with working sex organs) and develops interests other than Dating Barbie and Beach!, he won't be Margo Robbie Barbie's husband.
(I can totally see Ryan Gosling Ken becoming a horse trainer, though, since he was disappointed that Patriarchy wasn't really about horses. Remember Barbie's palomino horse? Someone had to train him, and now that Barbieland is experiencing Ken's Liberation, there's no reason why some of the Kens couldn't train horses in Barbieland.)
I can't help but see the corner the writer wrote herself into. Ken as an accessory to Barbie in some ways is symbolic of what women's role in society was trying to evolve from. That is women going beyond being an accessory to the man of their lives. Ken needing Barbie to see her hits upon the world feminism wanted us to move away from for women. So first you need to move Ken to the role of man in the patriarchy before you can have his story arc go in a way that will work. I enjoyed the movie. The artistry of it was captivating and they found a lot of fun humor along the way.
Bang-on.
Dependence -> Independence -> Interdependence.
A portion of communitarianism is needed to reach a rich interdependence that can benefit everyone. As much as we can enjoy our individual freedoms, those of us that dive into community find the rewards for ourselves can be quite rich.
I was lucky enough to be born into a family that still lives next to each other (6 dwellings in a row), in a community where everyone knows each other, resources are shared quite a bit, and helping each other out is part of daily life. I've seen that fray over the years, to no benefit.
Freddie's observation about only being left with conservative individualism and social justice individualism struck me as quite incisive. By not valuing community, both turned me off.
I found the intersection of communitarians on the left and right was always my home.
I thought The Lion King had the best romantic love story thread among the Disney movies. She went and found him, boned him on the first date, told him to get his shit together, and fought hyenas alongside him. Yeah, he still got to be the one to climb up Patriarchy Rock, it being the early 90s, but we all knew where the real power was.
One really can't understate the power of a woman telling her man to get his shit together.
How would that feel in reverse? A man telling a woman to "get her shit together"?
Like most I Love Lucy episodes?
Ah, but in The Lion King, Timon and Pumbaa's love story was even more avant garde.
Yes, the taboo that still stands today: meerkat/pig love. Even the furries won't touch this one with a ten foot pole.
It's our problem-free philosophy: vagina dentata!
I get what you're saying here, but I think you're confusing individualism with narcissism.
While you're obviously right with your "no man is an island" schtick, true individualism (for better AND worse) not only favors the one over the many, but it does so in a pretty fair way. Meaning your successes and failures are both of your own making, and not somebody else's fault.
These days modern progressives seem to value the individual only when it comes to the successes and positives. If there is a negative or failure to be had, it's 'society's' fault...usually in the form of some institutionalized oppressive matrix or some crap. They are only doing the fun half of individualism, and not the hard accountability part. It's really just self-absorption run amok.
Conservatives have this too mind you, they just tend to package it in a different bag: traditional religion. Good is a choice to follow god, and bad is because you listened to that little devil on your shoulder.
"Good is a choice to follow god, and bad is because you listened to that little devil on your shoulder."
That tradition though is over a thousand years old and easily predates the US.
A lot of this overlaps with (and is intentionally commenting on) the response to the toxic "incel" phenomenon and perpetual trend pieces on male loneliness. The usual answer is that men need to "work on themselves" instead of being entitled to other's affection. But how many people saying that would be perfectly fine never receiving love? How many meet this ideal of emotional self-sufficiency before entering a relationship? And how many really don't see our social success as a reflection, in some sense, of one's character?
I have literally never seen someone suggest replacing the nuclear family with group chats
I think there's a meaningful difference between "work on yourself so you can attract someone who will want you" vs. the "be content in your isolation" that Kenough, if not endorses, then leans towards.
Not "be content in your isolation" (which is a dreadful message) but "be content with yourself" (which is an essential message). The reality is that no one is guaranteed a romantic partner, and nearly all relationships eventually end (if only because death intervenes). If you can't be content by yourself and MUST have a romantic partner (as opposed to a circle of friends) in your life in order to be happy, you're really vulnerable.
Although for a guy sometimes self disgust is a useful tool. I know guys who dropped a ton of weight after looking in the mirror and thinking to themselves "Jesus Christ".
That's true for both sexes. It has to be internally generated, though, and not so harsh that it leaves the person feeling doomed despite all efforts.
To some extent, but I think that anger as a motivator is far more common for guys than it is for women.
Speaking of Disney, another good example is the live-action Mulan vs the animated original. The original eschewed making romance the primary arc of Mulan's story, but it still retained a communal message because Mulan did it all for her family and returns to her home life after defeating the Huns (and she gets the hot guy too, but only as a side quest).
In contrast, the live-action version ends with her presumably accepting the emperor's offer to join his elite guard to be a "leader," because even if the hero did it for his/her family instead of some love interest, that still wouldn't be enough to satisfy the supposedly proper goal of individual achievement and glory.
As a high ranking officer in an elite corps, rather than an anonymous foot soldier/cannon fodder.
The ending narration says that she will become a leader and a legend. Yes, she will serve the army and the emperor, but most importantly, she will make a name for herself. The key thing is that they couldn't leave the original ending as is, because the final beat of the narrative has to be about her ongoing individual greatness.
“The last movie of theirs that could be said to hold romantic love as the fundamental goal of the protagonist is Tangled, and even that’s debatable. Frozen and its sequel very directly reject that story structure, while films like Moana and Raya and the Last Dragon are indifferent to it. And, you know, that’s all fine; there’s lots of different good stories out there. But I do think that the out-and-out abandonment of the notion that love is the noblest pursuit of human life says a lot about our cult of self-worship. Because once you’ve dropped the romantic ideal, that’s all our culture really has to offer.“
This is a really glib thing to conclude from those movies, given that they don’t reject love at all; they reject the idea that romantic love is the central form of love. In Frozen, for instance, Ana is still revived by true love’s kiss. It just turns out her sister loves her more than some romantic interest whom she barely knows.
I'm talking about romantic love, mostly, which yes I think remains the only human triumph. And given that Anna ends up with Kristof I hope Elsa can find the love she needs elsewhere.
I’m struggling to understand this take.
As a woman who’s single but would prefer not to be, I have two options: I could put my life on hold until I find a partner; or I could do things like creating art, belonging to and contributing to communities, and so on. And I choose the latter: if I do find a partner, that’s great; if I don’t, then at least I will have spent my life doing at least some worthwhile things. But if romantic love is the *only* human triumph, then choosing option 2 is…what? Wasting one’s life? Unethical? I’m not sure what conclusion is to be drawn here.
I agree with you. Human connection is important, but we are not the only species which forms mated pair bonds (and some of those other species are far better than we are at staying mated for life). But we are the only species which has art and science; because of that, I think those human creations have a far better claim on being the only human triumph than romantic love does. Wake me when any other species writes plays like Shakespeare's, or sends a space probe to Pluto.
Isn't it possible to combine both of those? Does dating and having your eyes open for a mate have to exclude artistic pursuits? The people I've known who only focused on finding a partner and let everything else fall away weren't particularly successful. They usually ended up with jerks.
Well, no, of course they’re not mutually exclusive. It’s about the attitude: “if I Find Love™️ doing this stuff, that’s great, but if not, I’ve made myself [and probably other friends/family] happy in the process” seems healthier than “achieving romantic love is the only thing that could ever give my life meaning and if I don’t, then it’s all a failure.” I dunno. I guess if the sky is blue, I want to believe that the sky is blue, but I think Freddie’s proposition might be unfalsifiable.
Great essay. It very much speaks to things that I'm pondering now. I think you've hit on that which is missing in so much of modern society, lack of connection and lack of love. There is beauty and wonderful things to see and experience alone, I hike and ride alone. I'm building a retaining wall behind my house alone and that's fine. But I have a husband of thirty years, six kids and friends. If you took away my human connections I doubt I would live very long. There just wouldn't be any point.
I'm 66. This degradation of love and connection hasn't always been this way. (Could it be that it's hard to sell stuff to people who are happy, and human connection is what fundamentally makes people happy?)
Feminism isn't the culprit. When I watched Barbie all I could think was "this message is 50 years too late." Things that were true in the 1950s aren't true now. If you're a doormat of a woman it's because you choose to be. The soliloquy to Ken struck me as completely hollow. If you're a woman and you feel like that, it's all on you.
Like most movies I watch today, I found the cinematography excellent, the casting great, the music great but the substance totally lacking. I fell asleep. The message, whatever it is, was nothing to me.
I "found" myself decades ago, primarily as a mother, wife and teacher, all of the things that are supposed to make you powerless. That couldn't be further from the truth. I think that's why repressive regimes always subjugate and attack women first.
Lack of connection is so true. Its funny, I feel like I had more connection and support from 2020-2021 than I do now. I know that runs counter to the popular narrative but my neighbors all became deeply connected during that time out of need but now everyone is siloed to themselves again.
I know exactly what you mean. There's sociological research on natural disasters bringing people together out of necessity. It comports with my experience in tornado country. On the first day, when the trees block the streets and the powerlines are still down, folks are out there with their chainsaws and checking in on their neighbors.
Related, I found the movie's treatment of Midge, aka Pregnant Barbie, to be disappointing but revealing. She's nothing more than a joke: women are to be liberated from pregnancy and that's that.
They did at least acknowledge that some women want to be mothers in America Fererra's second big speech, but it felt pretty perfunctory in light of how they treated Midge. Imo, they needed to bring her back as something more than just a punchline. Like, obviously I'm not advocating a return to women being baby factories and nothing more, but at its heart Barbie needs pregnancy and reproduction because without women becoming mothers of little girls, *there can be no more Barbie* It all stops.
"but at its heart Barbie needs pregnancy and reproduction because without women becoming mothers of little girls, *there can be no more Barbie* It all stops."
That ground was covered in the final conversation between Barbie and her creator's ghost, who affirmed the importance of daughters and the sacrifices mothers make willingly for them.
"I'm 66. This degradation of love and connection hasn't always been this way."
If you cannot commodify it and sell it, then what's the point?
Much of all the extreme individualism is a direct result of marketing using psychological manipulation. Edward Bernays is the father of PR and modern advertising and used his uncle's (Dr. Freud) techniques first for WW1 propaganda and then in marketing. He used the Statue of Liberty and fashion models to sell women smoking and went from there.
It is all pushed to sell product and to manipulate us.