{"id":85182,"date":"2018-03-14T10:29:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T09:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=85182"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:57","slug":"going-beyond-the-vagina-dialogues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2018\/03\/14\/going-beyond-the-vagina-dialogues\/","title":{"rendered":"Going beyond the vagina dialogues"},"content":{"rendered":"

My partner and I moved to a new apartment recently. We decided to have our neighbours over for drinks. One of them is a pregnant dentist. Over the course of the night, she confessed that she had gone part time. She immediately said that she was aware that too many Dutch women go part time and that that\u2019s considered a problem, but she was happy. I could feel it was difficult for her to explain her situation.<\/p>\n

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A week ago I was in New York for a conference. I met up with a good friend who was celebrating her promotion to Research Director with a top multinational architectural firm. She was in her late sixties and was feeling great. She spoke about how some of her clients had propositioned her. She said the flirting was all in good fun though and she would never trade that kind of banter for anything in the world. She knew that was not the politically correct thing to say in today\u2019s #metoo climate, but there it was.<\/p>\n

As a woman, you learn to practise diverse forms of self-censorship, especially with other women. It is not easy to say that you love to stay home and cook, that you aren\u2019t ambitious, that motherhood is not your thing, or that you are a workaholic and you love it. Your gender is a default filter. Your personal story becomes a political statement. The so-called \u2018sisterhood\u2019 may feel betrayed.<\/p>\n

Deepa Narayan, one of the 100 most influential global policy thinkers and author of Chup: Breaking the Silence About India\u2019s Women<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> interviewed hundreds of women across cities and found that \u2018middle and upper class women think of each other as untrustworthy and unsupportive\u2019. This instituted divisiveness serves as a natural barrier to fundamental change.<\/p>\n

But the West is no India, you may argue. The Netherlands or the United States are far more progressive and the sisterhood here is about empowerment and enablement. \u2018There\u2019s a special place in hell for women who don\u2019t support each other,\u2019<\/a> argues Pip Jamieson, a female tech founder. Women set a high bar for other women.<\/p>\n

But what is being \u2018supportive?\u2019 Support looms more like the threat of exclusion than a boon for solidarity. Before we are quick to condemn other women for betraying the \u2018cause\u2019 through their choices, whether to flirt or reject the choice of motherhood, let\u2019s stop and listen to their stories. Let\u2019s go beyond the vagina dialogues.<\/p>\n

Payal Arora is an Associate Professor at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication<\/em><\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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