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Settling for Good Enough: The Atlantic's Reluctant Feminism Won Me Over

1 year ago
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Lizzie Skurnick
Lizzie Skurnick
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In 2008, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled for the Democratic nomination, I became a little well, impatient with the the The Atlantic. It wasn't their low-key Hillary bashing (though they did lob a few potshots while waxing rhapsodic on our current prez). It was the magazine's March 2008 issue, which featured Lori Gottlieb's essay (later expanded into a book) entitled "Marry Him," which urged desperate single women to give up their hopes for a perfect partner and "settle" for "Mr.-Not-Quite-Right."
Until then, I -- like many readers -- had turned to the Atlantic for weighty investigative journalism; witty cultural coverage; and lightly libertarian, conservative commentary (which to a lefty pinko like me is as weirdly captivating as a PBS wildlife documentary).
But Gottlieb's piece was neither investigative, cultural nor editorial, and it left readers like me somewhere between outraged and bewildered. Are there actually crews of desperate women combing haystacks for that slim needle of male perfection? If there are, wouldn't they be the first people to settle? (The illogic might have been the greater crime.)
Mostly, though, I was taken aback to find a frenemy in such an unexpected place. The Atlantic saw me as pathetic and without resources? It was like my GPS reminding me my eggs were old. (You don't have all the time in the world! Turn left in .8 miles.)
Atlantic MagazineWell, it's 2010, and plus ca change. The cover of my July copy of The Atlantic is Hanna Rosin's "The End of Men: How Women Are Taking Control--Of Everything." In two scant years, apparently we've taken men from sought-after to completely surrendered.
Like Gottlieb's two years ago, this piece also ignited a firestorm of chatter. Rosin was summoned to Stephen Colbert to defend it. (Gamely, she did.) The American Prospect's Ann Friedman gave a rousing rundown of its weaknesses. My Woman Up colleague Luisita Lopez Torregrosa was also bored by its big-concept bloat, but there's a reason the Atlantic has been putting what amount to extended blog posts on their cover lately. Masking insult in sweeping social analysis is awesome link-bait -- and they're becoming a master of it. It was recommended over 14,000 times via a Facebook plug-in and generated nearly 1,000 reader comments. (Just FYI: That's a lot.)
Still, I wonder if in all the meta-analysis of Rosin's and Gottlieb's pieces, we're missing the forest for the trees. Individually, they may be flawed. (IMHO, Gottlieb's should be outlawed, but I'm getting away from my point.) But those aren't the only women's interest pieces the Atlantic has run. In fact, for a mainstream magazine, those works bookend an enormous swath of quote-unquote women's coverage, one, unlike that of most mainstream magazines, routinely offered for the general readership.
Let's start with columnists Sandra Tsing Loh and Caitlin Flanagan, (who I elsewhere dubbed Tipsy Belden and Nancy Shrew). The former louche, the latter uptight, they regularly peruse the topics of love, divorce, adultery, teen sexuality, real estate attainment, children, schools and other staples in the work-love-life larder -- often both appear in a single issue.
Like Rosin's, their pieces routinely incite controversy and conversation -- see Tsing Loh admitting to cheating on her husband in the stunning "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", or Flanagan musing on teen girls enduring the pressure to bestow blowjobs or the idyllic ideals of Rielle Hunter.

I find Flanagan's takes unbearable, but that's not the point. Not since Esquire magazine of the mid-20th century, which featured regular contributions from Joan Didion and Nora Ephron in her "Crazy Salad" period, have I seen such wide-ranging, incisive critique on women's issues in a magazine that counts on men's eyeballs.
And for those annoyed with the most recent cover, let's not forget Rosin's more redeeming work, like her contrarian view on breastfeeding, or that of business and economics blogger Megan McCardle, who in addition to being a huge online draw, regularly covers items from the housing market to health care for the magazine.
Yes, haters. The Atlantic 100 most influential figures in American History issue only featured 10 women. (Mostly dead ones, too: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Rachel Carson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, Jane Addams and Betty Friedan, Margaret Mead and Mary Baker Eddy.) Yes, their women's coverage is at times fractured and flaky, boring, enraging, off-base and off-key.
But, like the worst resort food, they serve up a hell of a lot of it, enough to get a few amazing pieces in the mix. And they are pieces the entire readership gets to see -- unlike those in women's-only silos created to make sure women got heard at all. (Ahem.)
So, Gottlieb should be happy to hear, I, too, am settling for imperfection. No, not with a less-than-ideal man -- on that score I'll continue contemplating the entire haystack of possibilities. But I'm happy to finally say yes to my less-than-ideal magazine. In its own ambivalent arsenal of advocacy, The Atlantic is a font of feminism.
Filed Under: Woman Up, Culture
Tagged: Atlantic Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Caitlin Flanagan, feminism, Hanna Rosin, lori gottlieb, Sandra Tsing Loh, stephen colbert, The Atlantic, the atlantic magazine, womans perspective, women, women writers
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3 Comments

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trb2244

Ms. Skurnick: Provided you find this perfect male, what makes you so certain you are worthy of him? As to the Atlantic Monthly, you two are a perfect match, sure of yourselves and your liberal views. I hope you will be happy together.

July 05 2010 at 8:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
carinathebrat

I would hardly call Rosin's contrarian view on breastfeeding "redeeming". A travesty that set back the health of women and children in this country, sure. "Redeeming"? Not in a million years.

But I do want to thank you for the links to some great articles I can't wait to read.

July 05 2010 at 8:08 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
dc walker

Men and women were not built to be the same in body or outlook. Men are not larger versions of women and women aren't smaller versions of men. They have different roles in life that started from Adam and Eve. The roles have mixed, men are now wearing earrings and women are now sporting tattoos. Both sexes are independent they don't want anyone to tell them what to do, think or hang out with. They no longer embrace the opposite and his/her differences. Balance is the key. Pick someone you love, respects you and wants the same life you do. (having the same political and spending views reduces arguments). All the rest is BS.

July 05 2010 at 2:29 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply

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