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On Being a Modern Southern Woman (Sort of) and the Joys of the New South
March sunrise in Atlanta is a leisurely affair. It is slow, stately, and indecisive, often filling the insalubrious skies with an indifferent gray light that inspires only lethargy. In the summer months, it races out, immediately turning the air around it into a feverish, clammy heat that is the closest thing to hot water without actually being hot water. Neither option makes getting up in the mornings more palatable. I cannot look forward to going to work when the skies look like this. I, however, am a modern Southern woman. This means I must buck up, defy my inner child who is begging me to crawl back into bed and get ready to face another day of corporate tedium. Being a Southern woman means I must act like I am enjoying it too. Being Southern really stinks sometimes.
As Southern women, we are expected to maintain certain standards: (1) a certain magnolia-esque crispness, never wilting even on the steamiest days (which are immeasurable in Georgia.); (2) an ability to look like you have merely lolled on your porch all day sipping sweet tea, when in fact you have gotten up at 5 a.m., walked the dog, made lunch for your kids, somehow got them on the bus, survived the ninth circle of hell that is the daily commute on Atlanta’s highways, and worked an 8-hour shift without once smearing your petal-pink lipstick; and (3) maintain a charming demeanor in the face of outright hostility. These standards have never wavered, despite the great influx of Northerners that now populate Atlanta.
The idea of a Southern woman, that Junior League joining, thank-you note writing, daughter of the confederacy with an accent thick as blackstrap and twice as sweet, still does exist. I know that there are small pockets of Atlanta women, the equivalent of the New York “ladies who lunch”, that fulfill these impossible criteria because they are fortunate enough, or wealthy enough, to never have to work. Their homes are always spotless, their children are meek and never have jam on their clothes, and their designer duds are freshly pressed. (Obviously, I am not a member of this sanctified group—my dryer is often my iron and I use inelegant words like “duds”.)
Don’t get me wrong—these women are the backbone of Southern society. They are the embodiment of all these ideals and more. They give generously to charities, keep the arts alive in Atlanta, and are truly concerned about the educational standards of the state. They have impeccable manners. They never curse or shout at anyone, no matter how impossible they are being. They give fabulous parties in their lovely, fragrant homes. They always know the right thing to say and have the gift of hospitality for which the South is so famous. The only problem with these women is that for the rest of us not living in Olympus, life is not so elegant. This type of life is an evanescent fragment of a dream that disappears with alarming haste when our alarms go off in the morning.
I am a proud member of the Atlanta working women’s club (probably not an actual club; I am trying to create an illusion of camaraderie here.) This club consists of women like me, who get up in the morning and drive to work on the highways (also known as the “deathtraps”) despite the crap shoot that often poses for weather in this city. Just this week a freak snowstorm came out of nowhere (okay, maybe out of Northern Siberia ) and abruptly ended what was gearing up to be a promising week weatherwise.
One of the not-so-charming facts about Atlanta is the fact that we have the longest average commute in the United States. Therefore, on any given morning, as you commute to work, you will see one or all of the following: (1) at least one accident, fatal or otherwise--this will guarantee that traffic will be backed up at least five exits after it; (2) the jerk in the SUV/ Acura/ BMW/ Lexus for whom turn signals are against his religious beliefs. This charmer weaves erratically in and out of traffic to get to work .03 seconds before everyone else. This is a fruitless exercise, as often this putz will end up being involved in (1). You can also see such sights as overturned cattle trucks, with cows milling lackadaisically among the lanes of traffic (this actually happened on I-75, I swear to God). In Satan’s circus that is Atlanta’s rush hour, you can also guarantee: (1) at least one soccer mom (easily identifiable by the SUV or minivan with the “My child is an Honor Student at _______Middle School” bumper sticker on the back) cutting you off; (2)one weenie with a mobile phone slowing down the entire lane of cars behind him so that he can have his momentous conversation about the current economic state of the Danish kroner; and (3) one tourist, hopelessly lost, trying to navigate Atlanta’s highways with a map of Tegucigalpa. But I digress. I apologize for the hyperbole. Traffic actually wasn’t too bad today. This in itself is an occurrence as rare as Malcolm X at a Klan meeting.
Back to the point. Ahem.
As a daughter of the New South (an overused phrase if I have ever heard one—they’ve been using that one since Reconstruction, for Pete’s sake) I have grown up with the idea that the South was genteel, convivial, and gracious. It is indeed all of these things. However, this New South is an uneasy bastard child of the Old South. Unfortunately, Southern womanhood was the first casualty in the reconstruction of Atlanta. I am not referring to the Scarlett O’Hara myth here. I am talking about Georgia (or any Southern state) which was an active member of the Confederacy that now faces the problems that all rapidly growing regions must face. Cities like New York and L.A. have long ago become immune to the issues that such breakneck development can cause. They pay their taxes, sigh, and move on. In Atlanta, we still hold on to the ideals that defined us in the past, while uncomfortably trying to embrace the future. Unfortunately, the future is already gnawing at our heels like an itinerant and ill-tempered puppy. Atlanta has some of the worst air quality in the United States. We have some of the worst traffic and some of the worst crime rates.
Atlanta has changed, and with it the values that define the Southern woman. We are still ladies, in the truest sense of the word. Southern women have manners, and courtesy, and hold themselves to impossibly high standards. Nonetheless, we can no longer be the legendary goddesses of Southern myth. The ladies in their hoopskirts and fans, fragrant with lemon verbena in their spotless white gloves and silk fans only exist on the silver screen or at special events.
For heaven’s sake, it is far too hot in Georgia to wear 8000 layers of tulle. It’s too hot some days to wear even one layer of tulle. These women must have had a lot more gumption than the novels give them credit for. Considering their garb, they were a lot more even-tempered than I would be if clad similarly. I can’t even go to The Renaissance Festival in Peachtree City without sweating in sympathy for the poor players in their gorgeous, tawdry Renaissance clothing.
The new Southern woman is often ephemeral and defies definition. You still can see, in some segments of Atlanta society, the debutante balls with the lovely young girls in their fresh white gowns. These people still have Cotillion yearly and go to the Kentucky Derby as a social outing to meet like-minded young Southerners, not merely as an excuse to drink and ogle horses like the rest of us. This is a pleasant holdover from the past and one that fuels Northern boys’ dreams about Southern girls. Let’s keep it alive just for that reason—we don’t want to disillusion all those sweet young men in Michigan and New Jersey who have dreams about the Julia Roberts / Steel Magnolia type of Southern woman.
While I support this type of Southern woman, it is not the type I am, nor the type that most of Atlanta’s female population can identify with. We are, (and not in any order), wives, mothers, soccer moms, working moms, executives, lawyers, doctors, accountants, Wal-Mart greeters, cooks, babysitters, gardeners, yuppies, hippies, activists, reporters, and fashion police. I hear the arguments now: hold on--these roles are not any different from women everywhere in the world. To which I will reply, that what defines Southern women from their counterparts elsewhere is the way that we tackle these roles.
For example, the Northern woman on Wall Street does not worry about how UGA is going to look in the rankings this year. Women in Boston do not have to start getting their kids ready for school in August. (Of course, this probably has more to do with the fervent fanaticism that college football inspires in the South than any vagaries of the school systems. But I could be wrong.) The female executive in Chicago does not care about the damage that the hurricane might do to the iron railings in her home on the Battery. Female lawyers in L.A. definitely don’t take off early on Fridays so that they can prepare for the Auburn v. LSU game. New York women, while probably some of the best-dressed women on the planet, do not have to deal with the challenges of fashion that living in the South presents. Manolo Blahniks do not work well in red Georgia clay. Therefore, women attending garden parties in Atlanta are well warned to wear shoes that they do not mind ruining. A freak thunderstorm (and these are often a daily event in a Southern summer) can turn that emerald green lawn into a ruddy mess within seconds. Southern weather is so impolite in this manner; it really just has no regard for good fashion.
The modern Southern woman is concerned about the appearance of things. Her life can be a maelstrom of dung. She could be dealing with a bitter divorce, the death of a beloved pet, and the conflagration of her family home, yet she is still expected to show up at work impeccably dressed and diplomatically deal with the public. Northerners have a little more leeway in this regard; people expect them to be rude jerks. Southern women still cannot tell people what they really think—it is considered unladylike, and that is one of the worst insults one can throw at a Southern woman. We are still, despite the ever-changing standards of the breathlessly paced modern world, supposed to be a bastion of charm and femininity. Like the sweet tea that is the time-honored drink of choice in any Southern restaurant, (ask for it anywhere North of the Mason-Dixon line and you will get a look more quizzical than a two-year-old trying to solve a calculus problem.) Southern women are traditional. Like sweet tea, they are satisfying, cool, and delicious in the heat. Modern Atlanta may have all of the problems that any major city has, but its women still are the clean air that precedes a rainstorm. We are a complex mix of outdated feminine standards and career women. We are football fans, bourbon drinkers, and music lovers. We stand by our men and yet we stand alone, an edifice of surpassing strength with lines as pure and lovely as a Michelangelo sculpture. We are the new South, and we are women.
