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The ladies who lunch

Wednesday, 14 November, 2007

The “college experience” (by which I mean the experience of going to Moore College, or having your husband go there) is different for everyone. I have to keep remembering that. It's been two years since I left college and I am no longer as involved as I was with college activities. I don't spend every day there like Ben does. I no longer hang out with the people he used to hang out with—or even, for that matter, the people I used to hang out. When I did the Bible & Missions degree, there was about 100 of us, and 30-35% were women. Of the women, 20-25% were married. By the end of the first year, 90% of the wives I studied with were pregnant. That figure climbed to about 98% in the second year. Now I think I'm one of two or three of the “Class of 2005” (if you can call it that!) who hasn't started having kids yet.

This makes being social at college events a little odd for me because I'm now in the minority. I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when I went to the Moore Women end-of-year dinner. (Moore Women is the women's group at college, and events and activities are organised by Moya, the principal's wife, other faculty wives and a committee of college women—wives and singles. They also produce a quarterly magazine called Magnolia which has interviews with college wives, reviews, interviews with past students, articles about various things relating to college life, classifieds, recipes and the occasional crossword puzzle. This year they serialised “Bridget James's Diary” but the racy bits were edited out. Back to my train of thought:) I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when I went to the end-of-year Moore Women dinner. I was thinking, “I know how to get along with girls. I went to an all-girls high school; how hard can it be?” But then I realised that when you're younger—like when you're in high school and at Uni—everyone is the same as you: you're all single, you're all in Year 10/11/12, etc., you're all going through the same things together: periods, boys, getting your license, applying for Uni, sitting the HSC, etc. Then at Uni you're going to lectures, attending tutorials, struggling with exams and working a part-time job to pay the rent. Most of you are dirt poor (by middle class standards) so nobody cares if the apartment you're living in filled with secondhand furniture and your crockery doesn't match.

But then you're supposed to grow up, get a job and be responsible. You might even get married, and pick out the crockery you'll use for the next 20 years and put it on your wedding registry. You replace the old secondhand furniture with nice stuff that doesn't look so shabby, and give the old stuff to your Uni student friends. You purchase property and start talking about how to cultivate nice lawns, and when you and your husband might start having kids. At 29, there isn't really any common experience, and so I find girls my age are single, getting married, married without kids, married with kids, working, not working, studying for a PhD, buying their first house, establishing their business, publishing their first novel (okay, maybe that only applies to Jess) and doing their own version of conquering the world.

This makes conversation hard, once you get past the small talk. I noticed this at the dinner (and I'm not too bad at small talk—not after so many years of attending Christian conferences and meeting new people in different contexts!). There seemed to be such a gulf between their experience and mine, it was like we couldn't quite meet. I asked them about what it's like to be a mum for the first time (or second time), how their husband was finding college, how they were finding their experience of their husband studying in third year, what they were going to do next year, etc., but they couldn't quite access my experience of working full-time and being the breadwinner while Ben studies. Maybe they had forgotten what that's like. Or maybe they knew all there was to know about it (maybe they read this blog!) Most of the girls I was sitting with knew where I work but not really what I do (saying “editing” doesn't help much; I usually have to explain a bit further). Or maybe they were too tired from chasing kids around all day (and I totally understand that!) Or maybe, as my counsellor suggests, they found me intimidating. (Apparently I'm intimidating. Who knew?) I just found it interesting how the conversation quickly shifted to the topic of kids—a “safe” topic because it's not personal (but it sort of is) but external.

And that revealed something interesting about the way women interact which James Dobson picks up on when he talks about the third and fourth most common sources of depression in women (loneliness, isolation and boredom), citing reasons why housewives in particular seal themselves off from meaningful friendships and associations outside the home:

Though avant garde feminists may chew me to pieces for saying so, it is my observation that women can be absolutely vicious with each other. Having supervised female employees throughout the years, I have stood in amazement as they scratched and clawed one another over the most minor conflicts. one explosion of monumental consequence began with a disagreement among four secretaries about which deodorant was most effective. Can you imagine four red-faced women screaming at each other over whether to spray it or roll it on?! (The ‘real’ conflict, of course, involved resentment having nothing to do with deodorant.) I have employed two or three particularly talented antagonists who could stir up more trouble in an afternoon than I could untangle in a week. But this same competitiveness and suspicion is also represented among housewives, I believe. There are many women who simply can't stand other women. There are other less aggressive individuals who are greatly threatened by their female associates. Such a woman wouldn't think of inviting ‘the girls’ over for tea unless she had spit-shined her house inside and out, and prepared a super-delicious cake. And those who have nicer homes will never be invited to the cottages of women who are embarrassed by their humble dwellings. And those whose husbands have professional, higher-paying jobs are often deeply resented by those who must struggle to pay the household bills each month. In summary, women are often pitted against the very people whom they need for mutual respect and acceptance. The result is loneliness and boredom. (James Dobson, Man to Man About Women, Tyndale House, Wheaton, 1975, pp. 58-59.)

It seems to me that, in conversation, women deliberately avoid the areas where they know they could be attacked, criticised or compared unfavourably with someone else. It's self-defence—a coping mechanism. So there are these walls that go up. They might be ‘real’ with one or two people who are close friends, but generally if they don't know another woman very well, they will maintain those walls and then, perhaps, gradually let them down as the relationship progresses and they learn to trust the other woman.

Why am I blogging about this? It's because I don't think I relate like your typical woman (well, Moore Women woman). (Probably not surprising; I spend my days working around middle-aged men.) I'm not free from those sort of anxieties that Dobson talks about, and I do care, to some extent, what other people think of me. I just don't think I have the same sort of walls. In a group situation, I'm aware of those walls but I usually distance myself from the whole emotional political situation and become more of an observer (isn't that what writers do?) I don't play the roles of trying to suck up to the popular girl or pick on the undesirable. I don't openly rebel against the status quo but I don't exactly toe the line of the queen bee either.

But I need to remember that other women do—that other women are far more sensitive to what's going on socially than I am—that, when I talk to other women, I need to throw them a conversational “bone”, so to speak. Before the dinner started, I got into conversation with a fourth-year wife. But that was because I approached her (she was the only other one there in the foyer waiting around so I figured I ought to talk to her). And the more I shared about myself (particularly the fact that Ben suffers from depression so we are not your shiny they've-got-it-all-together Moore College couple), the more she was willing to open up and be honest with me. And that was refreshing.

One-to-one conversations are always easier, though. I contemplated joining a Moore Women Bible study at the beginning of the year but the thought of facing a group of women with their preconceived ideas about all sorts of stuff I couldn't imagine was pretty intimidating. I remember having some long conversations about whether or not I should join with all sorts of people. (In the end, I decided not to—not because of the fear factor but because I realised that church is going got be my community long-term. Ben's probably not going to go into people ministry post-college [which makes us really fringey in the college community where most students are off to become missionaries or pastors or both] and we'd like to stay with FEVA long-term if possible.) But I'm thinking of revisiting the question next year. It will be Ben's last year at college and my last chance to participate in some way in the college community. Hmm, what should I do? Thoughts?

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