The sailors say “Brandy, you’re a fine girl…”
Writing by treason on Tuesday, 30 of January , 2007 at 5:40 pm
There have been times when I’ve wondered if my life has become that episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. You know — Season 3, Episode 23? It’s the one in which Mary Richards strays from being perfect. She’s nominated for a Teddy Award, but then her dress (gorgeous, tasteful) comes back from the cleaners with a giant stain on the front of it. Somehow, by the time she gets to the awards banquet, she’s wearing a borrowed dress (a garish, inappropriate floral thing), and she’s limping (she’s sprained something), she’s wheezing and sniffling (the world’s worst cold), and her hair has a peculiar “bump” in it. I think she even loses a false eyelash. And, of course, she wins and has to get up and accept the award in front of people who don’t realize that this isn’t normal for her.
“I usually look so much better than this.”
When I heard the story of Brandy Britton, I was reminded of that episode. Go online and you’ll find dozens of articles. A bright, beautiful young woman from a small town in Oregon is the first in her family to go to college. Her professors remember her as brilliant. She majors in biology and sociology and dreams of becoming a veterinarian. A professor tells her: “It’s not enough to study the problems of the world. We have to do something about them.”
So she becomes an activist, earns two degrees - with honors - and raises two children. Her interests have turned to women’s studies, and she volunteers at a battered women’s shelter, then helps create the university’s first “safe ride” program to escort women on campus at night.
By age thirty she was earning her doctorate in Sociology from the University of California at San Francisco and would soon be teaching sociology and anthropology at the University of Maryland. There, she founded the Institute for Women and Girls Health Research in her home. The home where she allegedly ran a prostitution service.
No pun intended, but what the f*ck?
If this woman had played the piano and had been black, she might have been Condi Rice. If she’d met Bill Clinton, she might be in the Senate, running for president. She was smart, beautiful, had big boobs, and earned the academic credentials to create a successful life for herself. And she was a “Mom.” That’s supposed to make for a perfect life, right?
But things happen. A few unwise choices and a streak of bad luck, and suddenly everything goes to hell in a handbasket. She gets caught falsifying data on a questionable study funded by over a half million grant/taxpayer dollars; coworkers take a disliking to her; she files for bankruptcy; her house is in foreclosure; and her neighbors start complaining about the number of male visitors at all hours, her peculiar “work” schedule, and her two pot-bellied pigs.
Legal problems ensue. And then, on Saturday, she hangs herself. A blog reads: “The Suicide of Brandy Britton: Women’s Studies Prof/Federal Grant Defrauder/Prostitute/Pig Owner.”
They do studies in which they ask women about their futures and these women are set. They’re smart, they’ve saved, they’re respected in their chosen professions, and they’re independent. I’ve met a lot of them. And the other thing they have in common is their terror of becoming bag ladies. I joke about ending up under a viaduct with the pigeons myself, so I understand perfectly what these women are thinking. Too many thought feminism was the cure, independence was the goal, and financial security was power. But even with the right resumes and money in the bank, they imagine that it’s all going to go poof one day.
For Brandy, it did. And out of desperation she turns to the oldest profession? This is liberation? What made this story especially disturbing was that I’d just been reading Deroy Murdock’s article in National Review about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, “the iron lady of Somalia.”
“When I first came to a Western country, I was astonished to find men who said, ‘Ladies first.’ I was amazed because I was born and raised in a culture that put me last because I was born a girl.”
Her bio is compelling and, having lived in two disparate cultures, she argues:
“Human beings are equal; cultures are not…A culture that holds the door open to her women is not equal to one that confines them behind walls and veils. A culture that encourages dating between young men and young women is not equal to a culture that flogs or stones a girl for falling in love. A culture where monogamy is an aspiration is not equal to a culture where a man can lawfully have four wives all at once…
Unfortunately, it is this culture that is under threat today. Many of those born into it take it for granted or, worse, apologize for it. Let’s join together to protect this culture of life, this culture of liberty, this culture of ladies first.”
I wonder if Dr. Britton, who was also committed to doing something about the problems of the world, was familiar with Ali’s works.
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