Who's Liking Who? Notes on Jessica Valenti's "She Who Dies With the Most 'Likes,' Wins" (_The Nation_, 11/29/12)

Note:  Rather than reprising the Valenti article, which I think is solid and really worth reading, I'm going to provide a link and then talk about issues raised in the article. 

So here’s the link.  http://www.thenation.com/blog/171520/she-who-dies-most-likes-wins 

Please read it before you read what appears below. (And yes, some of you might not like that request :>.)

This is a sticky wicket.  On the one hand, the double standard is ridiculous, and it's not new: Serbin and O'Leary published "How Nursery Girls Teach Girls to Shut Up" back in 1975. It was in the reading for a class I took a few years later with Fern Johnson on "Women and Interpersonal Communication."  (I found the subject matter so fascinating that I read all the required stuff in the first two weeks, and spent the rest of the term plowing through the recommended reading.)

I see two issues in the article (at least).  I'll use the old-fashioned term for the first one: sexism. What else does it mean when there are different standards for women that the ones that obtain for men?

But we already knew that was a problem. Still a lot of work to be done, to be sure, but it's been named and discussed a lot.  And we've seen some progress, not the least of which is that when the roster of House committee chair appointment nominees was just circulated, people noticed the absence of female faces (they were all white, too. One might ask how that corresponds to the people the Speaker sees on his way to and from the Capitol each day--unless it's like the bar code scanner Former President Bush just never noticed.).

The other issue I see is more interesting to me, at the moment. It's the question of likeability. Some would use what Valenti says (not that she would) as license to behave any which way because who cares what other people think?  Just be yourself, be strong, and let the chips fall where they may. No shortage of evidence that some folks have drawn this conclusion.

But I think we do want to be liked, and I don’t think that’s pathological, as a rule. We sure are ambivalent about that desire, though. Remember what happened when Sally Field said, on receiving the Oscar for Places in the Heart, “You like me.  You really like me!”?

She was roundly ridiculed for that. But I never saw it that way.  Does Field, like most human beings walking around, have some insecurity? Sure. But she was talking about a performance, and I have yet to meet someone who does creative work and shows it in the marketplace that doesn’t have some concern for how it is received—and isn’t sure about how it will be. One of my favorite songwriters says he doesn’t know how well he performed at a show until he gets in the car afterward and his wife tells him.

I have the same goal today as I did when I first started doing creative work:  to communicate with others. (Why do you think I’m writing to you?)  It’s the contemporary equivalent of sending a note out in a bottle. What Sally Field was saying, as I saw it, was, “Wow! Message received? Great!” 

So we want to be liked, and sometimes, for a variety of reasons, we think the only way to do so is to diminish ourselves. The good news is that it’s not true.  

My preferred path out of this mess is as follows: Be clear about your standards as to what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior--for yourself.  (You could call them “values,” but that word is carrying a lot of freight these days. Let’s go for “ethics.”)  Then put 'em into practice. With your leftover time, go to work on the sins of others. (This doesn't mean become apolitical, just don't use the misbehavior of other people as a rationale for avoiding your own mishegas.)  I find Mussar study extremely helpful in this pursuit. 

And guess what? Turns out Sally Field had more to say than what made the news. Here’s what she actually said in her acceptance speech: 

"I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!” 

She was expressing appreciation for the connection between her hard work and its reception, not some free-floating need for approval. (We might want to ask why people were so quick to latch onto that small part of what she said, and make fun of her: the long shadow of Gidget, perhaps?)

The last word, from this corner, comes from my late, great friend David West. When David complained about someone’s behavior, a friend said to him, “David, at this very moment there are (naming a figure) ---holes in the city of San Francisco. Your job, just for today, is to make sure that you are not one of them.”

©2012, 2013, 2015 Laynie Tzena.