Snow, Christmas music and gender roles

I'm sitting here at my desk beside a window, looking out at the snow falling. It's beautiful. I can see the individual clumps of snowflakes falling almost straight down from a white sky. Even though I look out onto a street and a parking lot, it's still beautiful covered in snow. I've got a mix CD of Christmas music playing -- right now it's Burl Ives singing, "Holly Jolly Christmas." It's so happy! I love to listen to Burl Ives. There is something in his voice that just makes me smile.

On a completely different note, I want to write about something I saw on TV last week. I meant to write something days ago and have just been distracted. I was watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy. It's a show about young medical interns in Seattle. It was one of the new shows from last Spring that inspired a lot of buzz. (The others were House and Numb3rs.) Due to my interests, I like to watch the shows that people are talking about. Not because I necessarily want to watch the story, but I want to understand what is catching the attention of the public. Sometimes, it's obvious - for instance, I don't need to tune into the Victoria's Secret runway show to be well aware of what the attraction is. But most of the time, there is something more going on with the show than you see at first glance.

With the case of Grey's Anatomy - it's the story of a young woman named Meredith who is on her own in the professional world. Anyway - this last episode had her attempting to deal with a broken heart by trying to replace the man in her life with a series of one night stands. (These happened before the episode began.) She has a conversation with her friend, Cristina, about their relationships with men. Cristina's boyfriend wants to take their relationship to the next level. The whole point of this is that Meredith and Cristina sit there and have a conversation asking why men are so clingy. They want to know why it isn't okay just to have sex and have no emotional involvement. It was a bizarre conversation to watch, because it seemed that they were spouting every harsh cliche that we usually equate with men.

By the end of the episode, they had both come to the realization that they needed more. But, that isn't the point. The point is that these two young women sat down and complained that men were behaving in a way that most women I know would love to see. A desire for commitment, a desire for emotional connection. Why were these characters rejecting that??

It will be no surprise to those of you who know me that I think the feminist movement has gone awry. There is something seriously wrong when two female characters who are supposed to be sympathetic can complain about the lack of casual sex and how men are too clingy and demanding. What???? What is the message that this show is giving us about single professional women? Should I be out trying to meet my needs with casual and meaningless encounters? What an empty, empty life. Even though Meredith realizes this by the end of the episode, it still bothered me. Primarily because I don't think it bothers many women my age. We have been taught that this is okay. We should go out into the world and seek fulfillment exactly like men. (Don't even get me started on the lies that I believe men have been told!) Not only is there no fulfillment there, but there is a desperate struggle to fill an inner void that just gets bigger and bigger (both the struggle and the void). Just throwing thoughts out into the cosmos....