Let's hear it for ungrateful women!
Let's hear it for ungrateful women!
The slightest suggestion that a woman is not grateful enough is pounced upon, highlighted and twittered about in the media with relish. We can find examples everywhere, and particularly in politics, sport and the media.
Recent high-profile attacks have been made on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe for quietly disagreeing with her husband in a press conference, pointing out that it had taken five foreign secretaries and six years of unjust imprisonment before she was released. No matter said the critics. She was ungrateful, she was rude, she should be sent back.
Dina Nayeri, an Iranian refugee who has American citizenship, has spoken of ‘gratitude politics’, where refugees are expected to wear a grateful face. But, she warns, they shouldn’t be too successful or assertive, because then they become labelled as ‘greedy interlopers’.
Women in sport are constantly getting it in the neck. Megan Rapinoe, the strong, gay captain of the US Soccer Team, was lambasted as ‘a bitter, petulant celebrity who is totally ungrateful for the opportunities she’s had’. Serena Williams is persistently targeted and punished for her supposed lack of respect and professionalism. She is not ‘ladylike’, they say. Serena, of course, hits back magnificently, and makes it clear that she’s going to continue to fight for women. Poor Naomi Osaka though, overwhelmed by the media pressure, said that she felt ‘ungrateful’ for not appreciating her life as a tennis player.
In the world of celebrities, the gratefulness police single out anyone who doesn’t quite toe the line. Kim Kardashian, for example, was ‘so ungrateful for being pregnant’, and Emma Watson is dismissed as ‘an ungrateful woke brat’.
DON’T SEARCH ONLINE – OR HOLD YOUR NOSE IF YOU DO!
If, in a moment of madness, you search online for ‘Ungrateful Women’, you will be overwhelmed with an outpouring of pompous, ponderous and frankly nauseating advice and images complaining that women should be more grateful, especially to their husbands. There are sickly poems, sentimental mantras and wallowing male self-pity along the lines of ‘You can’t ever make an ungrateful woman happy’. Look at how the convicted arch-abuser Harvey Weinstein oozed self-pity when he whined about how everything he had done for women in film had ‘all got eviscerated because of what happened’.
So, lips firmly pursed, the sanctimonious contributors pursue their moral high ground
ROLE MODELS - FROM SUSAN B ANTONY to IZZY WINKLE
Attacks on women for being ungrateful are not new of course. Women have been fighting back for a long time. One of the most rousing calls for action came from Susan B Antony (d.1906). She was an American social reformer and women’s rights activist who was accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage. She stood trial for voting illegally, but refused to pay her fine. Famous for her speeches, she said:
‘Our job is not to make women grateful. It is to make them ungrateful so they keep going. Gratitude never radicalised anybody.’
The comedian Bridget Christie, who found inspiration in Antony’s words, noticed how her female friends were often expressing their gratitude for promotions and opportunities. She thought ‘Hang on. Why are we being grateful for things we should just have?’ The name of her highly successful 2014 touring show was ‘An Ungrateful Woman’ and she has cited the ‘bottomless pit’ of material that there is for her to tap into, including the police, the judiciary, the media and violence against women.
And, if you are feeling a bit grim about this whole business, there is a delightful children’s book, ‘The Most Ungrateful Girl in the World’* to cheer you up. The heroine, Izzy Winkle, a model of politeness, secretly enters an ungratefulness competition. She starts to practise at home, alarming her mother, who takes her to see the unsavoury Dr Pillock.
‘Is it serious?’ said Mum.
‘I’m afraid so’, said Old Doctor Pillock, looking at me over his glasses. ‘I could tell as soon as I saw her. Dragging her feet. Tangled hair. Wilful eyes. She’s an ungrateful girl. She may be one of the worst cases I’ve seen.’
Izzy competes against other ungrateful girls (Bad Word Girl, Loud Girl, Nosey Girl, Nit Girl – you get the picture) and triumphs as Bad Etiquette Girl. In the process, stereotypical ideas are turned upside down, and a fiendish plot to make everyone in the world grateful is splendidly foiled.
