So the Bogdan and I watched TV together last night via cell phone. I was the Chicago White Sox’s good luck charm—when I first called David, they were losing 4-0 to the Red Sox. In the course of our conversation, however, they scored five runs to win the game. Let me declare publicly right now that since my Mariners didn’t make it to the playoffs, I am officially casting my lot with the White Sox out of affection for David. Never mind that he lives in Boston now—he was born in Chicago, and roots for what he calls the “red-headed stepchild” of Chicago sports. Ah, well.

Meanwhile, after flipping channels a while, I hit on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Now, here’s a moment of true confession for me… I love Martha. I love Martha in spite of her recent stint in jail, regardless of her hawking cheap kitchenware at K-Mart. In fact, I will say that I love Martha because of all these things. There is just something deliciously dystopian about Martha showing you how to perfectly wield your butterknife, because you know that she’d stab you in the back with it if you crossed her. She is the perfect androgynous mix between the traditionally masculine and feminine worlds.

Take this week’s episode of ruthless boardroom intrigue. Of course, it produced the usual drama of junky reality TV—people whining to the camera incessantly about everyone else (thank you, MTV’s Real World), cheesy music as Martha fired a rather silly aspiring broadcast journalist. But what I found so amusing about the whole thing was that the challenge this week was… wedding cake. Yes, all this cutthroat competition was about who could produce and market the best wedding cake.

Now, I said that Martha somehow manages to blend the masculine and feminine in her power-hungry marketing of domestic bliss. Perhaps that is why everyone loves to hate her. The “good ol’ boys” of business feel threatened because Martha bases her power in a world they can’t touch. No Enron exec could show you how to arrange calla lilies on TV and make oodles of money in the process. And what would happen anyway if all those Martha fans woke up and started something that didn’t have to do with soufflés and decoupage?

At the same time, many of us women hate Martha for enshrining and idolizing the male paradigm for female success—essentially, she’s a woman who has built her power base on reinforcing traditional patriarchal expectations of women. Martha sets impossibly high standards for what our homes should look like, how our food should taste, the calligraphy to use in addressing social invitations. And there’s a small part of many of us that wants to create the perfect world of Martha Stewart Living for ourselves. She feeds us the ultimate lie of the patriarchy—that we can only be happy when we conform to society’s impossible ideals.

Of course, we’re not looking at very Christian or feminist models here. Our faith tells us that not only is it impossible to be perfect, but that the world’s idea of perfection bears the marks of sin’s corruption anyway. And the objectives of feminism seek the empowerment of everyone, not only a few WASPy women who adopt male paradigms of power in order to make it big.

Women like Martha Stewart are often considered “feminist,” and evoke fear in the establishment by their power. But if the radical equality and abundant love for all people promoted by both Christianity and feminism were really borne out, we’d be seeing something much more threatening to the current order than Martha’s butterknives—a world in which God “has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:53).

I still get a twisted kick out of Martha, though.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” --John 10:10

Kelsey

Hi Kelsey,
I really liked your blog this morning. I have a love hate relationship with Martha too. I really like some of what she does, like how she gives you lists of different kinds of plums or cherries or antques in her magazine, etc. But I know she is just building an empire encouraging me to love the things of this world. Material things I mean. Of course I don't need Martha's encouragement, I do a pretty good job myself. But I wonder, you write, "She feeds us the ultimate lie of the patriarchy--that we can only be happy when we conform to society's impossible ideals," is that a lie pushed by men! Or is that a lie pushed by all of us. My devotions this morning were partly about Martha, (the biblical one) and Mary, and how hearing and doing God's word is the most important part of following Jesus. It seems to me that in the Hebrew Bible there are a few women rulers, Jezebel for instance, who do a pretty good job of pushing the lie. Any way I saw one of Martha's shows where she talked about pianos and how to take care of them. She had a piano tuner from Steinway in New York, (now retired) on her program. My husband and I have met him and he is a wonderful Christian , who lost his desire for church in Nazi Germany but found Jesus Christ and became not only one of the best piano tuners but a great witness for Jesus. I do so hope he was able to witness to Martha about Jesus Christ. We should pray for her. You can read his story in "My Life With The Great Pianists."
blessings,
Viola Larson