Wanted: People to Raise Kids
Today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse once again dates the strip. In 1980, women were in the final decade of what has come to be called “second wave feminism”. To define terms, the first wave fought and gained the right for women to vote. The second wave obtained the right for women to have access and equal opportunity to the workforce, as well as ending of legal sex discrimination. It was the era of the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States and women were not afraid to refer to themselves as feminists. Elly Patterson’s reference in the second panel to “others are fighting for equal rights” seems to be a clear link to this time period.
Lynn Johnston’s coverage of feminism in those days is very likely influenced by the fact that Lynn managed to score a job which allowed her to stay at home and take care of her kids, while at the same time allowed her to make more money than her husband. Elly Patterson is often portrayed as the woman caught between both desires. On the one hand, she is a stay-at-home mom; but on the other hand, Elly Patterson is constantly trying to find things to do to take her away from those activities. She struggled with it continually in the strip until John bought her Lilliput’s and she finally established a permanent working identity as a book and toystore owner.
As for radical feminism, the best Lynn Johnston could do was Connie Poirier, who sometimes acts as a mouthpiece for the feminist view, but most times shows us that Lynn Johnston truly did not understand the view. Connie’s feminist views were often shown for comedic effect, and Connie’s 5-year long, obsessive struggle to find a husband pretty much did in any idea that Connie was a serious feminist.
Why should Lynn Johnston fight for equal rights when she already has it all? The women’s right movement by-and-large came from the middle class women. As it was explained to me, the wealthy women liked where they were, and the poor women were too busy trying to survive. This leads to the situation where wealthy Lynn is trying to write a middle-class woman like Elly, but can’t quite connect to this perspective.
Consequently, you have the opinion expressed by John Patterson today, which is clearly coming from Lynn Johnston. The idea of raising kids as a societal need in contrast to raising consciousness is probably not an idea which would come from a man who typically disparages his wife for the things she does or does not do while raising their children. Lynn is saying that she is not fighting for equal rights, but she is raising children, and both things are worthy choices. This is hardly an idea that would come from John Patterson, who doesn't know what Elly does all day.
This was a big issue coming up with women in the 1980s for feminism. If you spend your time fighting for equal rights, when do you have time to have and raise the kids? Both were considered to be valuable things to do, but adverse to each other. I remember the 1980s as the time when women themselves began to push back at radical feminism because of these warring instincts. Back in 1980, today’s strip would have reflected the conflicting thoughts of woman, and from that point-of-view, it is not a bad strip. By putting the idea of raising kids in John’s mouth, it keeps Elly from expressing an opinion which would alienate her from her readers one way or the other. Lynn was smarter about which characters she had expressing her opinion back in those days.
Lynn Johnston’s coverage of feminism in those days is very likely influenced by the fact that Lynn managed to score a job which allowed her to stay at home and take care of her kids, while at the same time allowed her to make more money than her husband. Elly Patterson is often portrayed as the woman caught between both desires. On the one hand, she is a stay-at-home mom; but on the other hand, Elly Patterson is constantly trying to find things to do to take her away from those activities. She struggled with it continually in the strip until John bought her Lilliput’s and she finally established a permanent working identity as a book and toystore owner.
As for radical feminism, the best Lynn Johnston could do was Connie Poirier, who sometimes acts as a mouthpiece for the feminist view, but most times shows us that Lynn Johnston truly did not understand the view. Connie’s feminist views were often shown for comedic effect, and Connie’s 5-year long, obsessive struggle to find a husband pretty much did in any idea that Connie was a serious feminist.
Why should Lynn Johnston fight for equal rights when she already has it all? The women’s right movement by-and-large came from the middle class women. As it was explained to me, the wealthy women liked where they were, and the poor women were too busy trying to survive. This leads to the situation where wealthy Lynn is trying to write a middle-class woman like Elly, but can’t quite connect to this perspective.
Consequently, you have the opinion expressed by John Patterson today, which is clearly coming from Lynn Johnston. The idea of raising kids as a societal need in contrast to raising consciousness is probably not an idea which would come from a man who typically disparages his wife for the things she does or does not do while raising their children. Lynn is saying that she is not fighting for equal rights, but she is raising children, and both things are worthy choices. This is hardly an idea that would come from John Patterson, who doesn't know what Elly does all day.
This was a big issue coming up with women in the 1980s for feminism. If you spend your time fighting for equal rights, when do you have time to have and raise the kids? Both were considered to be valuable things to do, but adverse to each other. I remember the 1980s as the time when women themselves began to push back at radical feminism because of these warring instincts. Back in 1980, today’s strip would have reflected the conflicting thoughts of woman, and from that point-of-view, it is not a bad strip. By putting the idea of raising kids in John’s mouth, it keeps Elly from expressing an opinion which would alienate her from her readers one way or the other. Lynn was smarter about which characters she had expressing her opinion back in those days.
posted by howard at 10:49 PM
12 Comments:
howard,
Back in 1980, today’s strip would have reflected the conflicting thoughts of woman, and from that point-of-view, it is not a bad strip. By putting the idea of raising kids in John’s mouth, it keeps Elly from expressing an opinion which would alienate her from her readers one way or the other. Lynn was smarter about which characters she had expressing her opinion back in those days.
That's true. If she were writing it nowadays, she would have Elly lecturing someone else about the issue and get nailed for it. It was safer to have Captain Clueless stand in the way of having it all back then because he was the antagonist anyway. It's too bad that at the time she never quite realized that people thought that Rod and John were one and the same; the same woman who said she was married to John all those years never allowed herself to see that most people believed that same thing. Rod was always having to live down the crap John pulled and hated it.
I could see John making a comment like that if he thought it would discourage Elly from getting out of the house and doing something that cut into her SAHM duties.
Which reminds me--I came across a strip sequence in the second collection, about Elly starting another writing class (she'd actually finished the one that she takes near the beginning of the collection). In one of the strips, she's telling the kids various things the class is a "means of": self-expression, stuff like that. John interrupts with "a means of escape." He says this right in front of their kids. Nice, eh?
"Raising kids" and "raising consciousness" are not mutually exclusive. That's a lot of what third wave feminism was/is about, so yeah, this strip is really dated. I can't see a man saying this today. I also can't see a woman talking about "raising consciousness" and "fighting poverty" today. That's so late 1970s.
April_Patterson,
In one of the strips, she's telling the kids various things the class is a "means of": self-expression, stuff like that. John interrupts with "a means of escape." He says this right in front of their kids. Nice, eh?
We can pretty much expect him to say things like this; his pathetic need to control the people around him (to compensate, of course, for his own oh-so-appropriate feelings of worthlessness) guarantees that he'll both undermine his wife in front of her put make his children fear abandonment. The reason that Mike didn't want her to go to work was that John made him think that she hated him. Years later, of course, Mike opined that it was a shame that Elly didn't make anything of herself but couldn't quite see that it was due to John's selfish malice.
DreadedCandiru2,
Rod was always having to live down the crap John pulled and hated it.
The dynamics of this always throw me off. Imagine living with someone who, when she gets mad at you for any little thing, gets revenge in a national publication by portraying you as a cartoon buffoon. It’s like the social dynamic of the spouse who is intimidated by their spouse in private, but who gets revenge by embarrassing their spouse in a public place or at a party. The moment I think that these stories were not done with malice -- that Lynn was just telling stories and some of them happened to be a little embarrassing to Rod, then I remember all those interviews she did with US and Canadian magazines and newspapers since she announced her divorce. If she is willing to air her dirty laundry like that, then drawing a comic strip to show her husband as a sexist idiot when she gets mad at him, seems entirely possible.
Years later, of course, Mike opined that it was a shame that Elly didn't make anything of herself but couldn't quite see that it was due to John's selfish malice.
I don’t know if I really buy this. That John constantly said sexist things to Elly is true; but there was no power behind it. Elly still took her classes, and did her part-time work, and ultimately he bought her Lilliputs.
aprilp_katje,
In one of the strips, she's telling the kids various things the class is a "means of": self-expression, stuff like that. John interrupts with "a means of escape." He says this right in front of their kids. Nice, eh?
It seems like John is trying to keep Elly in the house, but I think this is still Lynn Johnston speaking through John. In the second year, John was the mouthpiece for Lynn’s real opinion on motherhood; because Elly would never admit to such a thing, especially when Elly is Lynn’s avatar and her kids read the strip knowing that. The reason I think this is because years later in this strip and this strip, Lynn puts the words in the Deanna’s mouth and shows Deanna literally running from motherhood. In this strip, she has Elly tell Deanna that she should go back to work because Meredith will sense that Deanna resents staying with her. I think this was always Lynn’s belief and in 2003, when her kids are out of the house, Lynn finally felt comfortable with Elly, Deanna and Lovey saying it.
clio-1,
"Raising kids" and "raising consciousness" are not mutually exclusive. That's a lot of what third wave feminism was/is about, so yeah, this strip is really dated.
Absolutely. I remember being in a Women’s Studies class in university in 1983, when the professor asked the women in the class if they planned to marry and have children. The majority of them said they were and the professor was surprised, because just a few years before then, when he asked that question to women taking his Women’s Studies class, the majority of them said they didn’t. For me, that was when it became clear to me that feminism was changing to what is now called “third wave” feminism.
howard,
That John constantly said sexist things to Elly is true; but there was no power behind it. Elly still took her classes, and did her part-time work, and ultimately he bought her Lilliputs.
One could almost think of him as being like Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog in the Warner Brothers cartoons, Just as they were antagonists because that's what their mysterious employers hired them to be, John was pretty much commissioned to make the remarks Elly wanted to make but couldn't.
DreadedCandiru2 said,
Years later, of course, Mike opined that it was a shame that Elly didn't make anything of herself but couldn't quite see that it was due to John's selfish malice.
I think Elly would love to see things that way. It would fulfill her martyrdom complex to claim John held her back. But while he liked that she was a stay at home mom, he didn't lock her up, and it's not like she even tried to do anything else. Until, that is, she bought a store with the money John made. She was certainly entitled to it, but it wasn't John keeping her "down", that was all her and her love of the supposed "martyrdom" of being a rich white woman with two healthy kids.
I keep remembering the strip where Elly busts a blood vessel when she comes home to a kitchen full of paper pieces. John was willing and able to take care of the kids while she was out. He was a lot more able than her, actually, since he did stuff with the kids. But that was the problem. You can't do stuff with kids inside the house without making a mess. He and the kids were an obstacle that conveniently "prevented" Elly from doing what she claimed to want for the sake of appearances.
Was Lynn EVER a young woman? She's less than a decade older than me, but she obviously got stuck in the 1950's. Being part of the middle-class, most of us in the eighties didn't have that "one-or-the-other" attitude that is in today's strip. Economic necessity was a reality (at least in America).
I had a child in 1982 and another in 1987; I finished a masters and worked full-time. This was before the Family Leave Act, and I was off approximately 4 weeks after each birth. And my children and I are extremely close and both are independent happy young adults.
Just because you stay at home and don't work an outside job doesn't mean you are good at raising kids. There is a vast difference between "being there" and doing your duty, and REALLY loving to be with your kids.
DebJyn
...Just because you stay at home and don't work an outside job doesn't mean you are good at raising kids. There is a vast difference between "being there" and doing your duty, and REALLY loving to be with your kids.
When we see Elly at home, she's busily washing dishes, scrubbing the floor or doing endless loads of laundry. Kids exist only to cause trouble or cling to her, silently. You'd think somebody who had no outside job could get the work organized & actually enjoy spending time with her kids.
And let me get drag out my well-worn soapbox: She owned a frakking bookstore but just sort of got bored & sold it after a few years. We saw one Sunday strip (linked in today's Foobiverse) in which she was busy with outside activities. But the strip mostly showed her retirement as a time of solitary housework, annoyance at that April creature & joining Connie in smugness at being such wonderful parents. (Somewhat subverted by the ridiculous young Connie we've been seeing lately.)
If Lynn really wanted to explore female options, why not show a few discussions with both Connie & Anne? (Oops--she can't handle too many characters at once!)
The only strip sequence I can think of in which Elly interacted with both Connie and Anne was at Connie's [and Elly's] 50th birthday party. That was the arc where Elly tells Anne that she thinks she distanced herself from Anne because of Steve's philandering.
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