Ann Marlowe

Originally published in National Review Online, May 21, 2004

Have American men and women lost all sense of shame before each other?

By Ann Marlowe

On Mother’s Day, May 9, the Sunday New York Times ran a long piece — beginning on the front page and continuing on pages 9 and 10 — on the background of the Abu Ghraib abuses. It was peppered with the names of military women: Major General Barbara Fast, the highest-ranking intelligence officer in Iraq; the now-disgraced Brigadier General Janis Karpinski; Master Sergeant Lisa Girman, found guilty of mistreating Iraqi prisoners in May; and, of course, Pfc. Lynndie England. In a sign of how we’ve come to take the gender integration of the armed services for granted, the article did not draw attention to the high rank of the first two women. Nor did it take note of what would once have been thought a rarity: Women soldiers directing or participating in the sadistic treatment of male prisoners.

The page before the continuation held a full-page ad proposing a designer lipstick as a mother’s day gift.

This juxtaposition has a surprising amount to say about male and female roles in the United States today. It underlines the fact that womanhood and manhood are almost completely up for grabs, defined by dress and ornament only. And precisely because womanhood now means little besides sexual display and symbolism, huge expenditures on cosmetics and grooming are more important than ever. Anyone who thinks these are “natural” feminine preoccupations ought to reread Jane Austen, or the Brontes, or, for that matter, take a trip to any number of developing countries where the details of manicure and makeup are curiously irrelevant to most women. (more…)

Originally published March 12, 2003

As human as you and I
A proposed ban on reproductive cloning demonstrates our irrational fear of the unknown, not the vagaries of science.

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By Ann Marlowe

“Images of a divided existence — of Doppelgangers and Doubles — become most compelling when family relationships are most upset.”

That line from cultural critic Hillel Schwartz comes from his 1994 book, “The Culture of the Copy,” but it speaks directly to the current controversy over human cloning. Late last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill that bans human cloning for both reproduction and stem-cell research. So irrational was the panic over cloning that an exception to the cloning bill for stem-cell research was also defeated. The bill is not likely to gather the necessary 60 Senate votes, largely because stem-cell research has many and eloquent defenders. But human reproductive cloning, currently ineligible for government funding, is likely to be banned in the near future.

This prospect, though expected, should not pass unremarked. As Schwartz implies, there is a large irrational element in our feelings about doubles and clones, and I would argue that the severity of the House bill — those who defy the ban would be liable for a fine of $1 million and up to 10 years in prison — has more to do with our fears than with public-policy objectives or science. (more…)

Originally published Oct 23, 2002

When you make $750,000 a year, you don’t sweat the domestic details. But the latest hit novel about a miserable working mom is too ignorant and dishonest about money to deal with that.

By Ann Marlowe

That women have broken through the glass ceiling is one of the best-kept secrets in America — even better kept than their success in combining executive life with motherhood. You wouldn’t know about either if all you had to go by was the defeatist tone of most chick lit, including the widely hyped new British import “I Don’t Know How She Does It” by Allison Pearson. In this faux diary’s alternate reality, sexist comments and attitudes dominate business culture, working life with children is a nightmarish struggle, and women are wise to throw in the towel for full-time motherhood or scaled-down ambitions.

I say “alternate reality,” because Fortune recently published its annual roundup of the 50 most powerful women in American business, and the roster of powerful corporations with female CEOs includes Kraft Foods, eBay, PepsiCo, Avon, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, Hearst Magazines, Lucent, Sanford C. Bernstein, MTV Networks Music Group, Time and Xerox.

Pseudofeminists like Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the author of “Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children,” insist that these women have paid the price for their success with childlessness. But while Hewlett claims that 49 percent of women earning more than $100,000 per year are childless after 40, 71 percent of the 187 high achievers who attended Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business Summit earlier this year have kids — an average of 2.2 per woman. According to Fortune, “Lehman Brothers’ Barbara Byrne notes that eight of 10 female managing directors in her investment-banking division have kids — ‘and most more than one.’ Byrne herself has four.” (more…)