on all fours.
what miranda july's recent novel reveals about the current state of gender dynamics.
Vanderbilt Avenue’s Open Street in Brooklyn is the closest I’ll get to a Parisian summer this year, but that’s okay because at least this way I can understand the snippets of conversation I overhear.
Last week I snagged a street-facing patio table at LaLou where I spent the better part of an hour before the weekend dinner rush sipping some white wine, noshing on a wonderfully delicate black bass, and finally finishing All Fours.
Since its release last month, I know this book has struck a chord - both because of a recent NYT article from earlier this week highlighting women using this book to rethink their own marriages and how society approaches motherhood - but also because, as soon as I read the last page and closed the book, a woman who was sitting across the sidewalk at another table immediately made a beeline to me.
As an expert eavesdropper, I knew that this woman was recently married because I overheard her introducing her new husband to a group of friends she ran into. It is a truth universally acknowledged that one is always running into people they know on Vanderbilt Avenue.
The union was quite new - just a few weeks old - and it was each person’s second marriage. They were waiting for another couple - his friends - to join them. This is the level of light neighborhood gossip and context I wouldn’t know about if they were speaking another language (though funnily enough, the other single woman sitting next to me, leisurely sipping her own glass of white wine, ended up carrying on a lengthy conversation in French).
The newly re-married woman in her early forties approached me in the way that only women could - skipping the pleasantries and getting right to the point.
You’re gorgeous, you’re stunning, wonderful weather we’re having, and by the way - she was halfway through the book and must know - did I like it?
Did I like All Fours?
I didn’t like it.
I loved it.
I don’t think I’ve read a book quite as quickly as Miranda July’s latest novel, which follows an unnamed female protagonist’s mid-life crisis after she leaves for a two-week cross-country work trip and instead checks in at a motel 30 minutes from her home without telling her husband, leaving behind a young child. This was a book I devoured over three days during an intense work week. I brought it with me on the train, bravely read it at a bar (I say brave because some parts of this book are steamy, so proceed with caution), and stayed up late past my bedtime - because yes, I am an adult woman with a bedtime. Of course I am.
While I’m fifteen years younger than the novel’s protagonist, the themes around marriage and the mental gymnastics women must pretzel their way into to ‘have it all’ deeply resonated with me because they were some of the reasons why I decided to leave my own marriage last year. I had never stopped to consider whether marriage was something I wanted or if it was just a way to define adulthood, another box to check after graduating college and starting a full-time job.
July’s writing is compelling because of her ability to capture both broad themes and the small minutiae of life, which come together to either establish a sense of place or define who the characters are. This makes sense, given July’s background as a filmmaker. There were so many scenes - the desolate dry patch of a suburban street, a recently re-decorated motel room - where I could fully visualize the world July’s characters inhabit. That’s how sublime and immersive July’s writing is.
In addition to the novel’s strong writing, women seem to have such intense reactions to All Fours because it fits into the broader commentary of how people are talking about the current ‘State of the Sexes.’
If you’ve taken a look at the front pages of mainstream media or scrolled long enough on your FYP, it appears we’re in another societal shift, one where heteronormative couples are attempting to redefine gender roles and expectations.
There is the bloviated handwringing of certain op-ed writers, a general state of anxiety about how marriage and birth rates are declining. We can also start to look at this shift in the data. Women are attending higher education at record numbers compared with their male peers. During the 2018-2019 school year, 74 men received a bachelor’s degree for every 100 women. And while there’s still a pay gap, depending on your industry, race, and where you live in the country, that is slowly shrinking - at least for women starting their careers.
I’ve also noticed more anecdotes and articles hinting at this shift. Stories of well-educated, talented, professional women who can’t seem to find a partner. Mothers, not unlike the protagonist of All Fours, who have managed to eke out professional success within a marriage, only to still feel like something isn’t quite right. Clearly, things are changing, data point by data point, one Cut article, and Substack newsletter at a time.
Women are starting to decide to date or get married because it will add value to their lives rather than its historical role as the only option for financial or social stability.
I can directly chart this societal shift within my own family. I turn 30 this year, a birthday that once felt impossible and distant but is now quickly around the corner. As far back as we can trace it, the women in my family were all married, all taking care of multiple children, by the time they turned 30. I am the first woman to not only break that cycle but also the first to live entirely on my own, without the support or restrictions imposed by either a father or husband. I pay my bills and make decisions about my household without having to consult anyone. I am truly free - minus the student loan debt.
When speaking with other women - but particularly other women of color - they have also realized that they are likely the first in their family’s history to reach these milestones. They are not married and are deciding, for a variety of reasons, that there’s no rush. Perhaps they prefer their singleness over marriage to someone who will not pull their weight. Some women do want a romantic partner but are unwilling to commit to someone who needs mothering and explicit instructions. They want a collaborator, an adult - not a man-baby.
This is also not a U.S.-specific shift. Women in South Korea have started something known as the 4B Movement, which takes its name from the Korean word “bi” or “no.” South Korean women are saying no to marriage, childbirth, dating, and sex in response to the country’s structural sexism and domestic violence.
Women are once again changing the rules of the game in a way we first started to see during Second Wave Feminism, and that is making certain people scared.
While this represents wonderful progress, women having greater economic, social, and medical autonomy is in direct opposition to the founding principles of our country. The cracks are already showing. The very idea of bodily autonomy is not a reality for a large share of women after the Dobbs reversal. We will see how that continues to play out over the upcoming election cycle. Depending on what politician you’re listening to, the world of a Handmaid's Tale is less of a dystopia and more of the desired end state.
One thing that’s not clear to me is how much of this shift - opting out of dating or marriage - is relegated to the world of coastal elites, the very people who are most likely to write for and read these publications.
I am fortunate enough to have a full-time job that allows me to live alone in one of the most expensive cities in the world. For most women - or men for that matter - that is not a reality. Marriage continues to provide a form of financial stability even if there’s a recognition that it’s flawed.
I recently went to Indiana for a work trip. While the city I am supporting views itself as “a blue dot in a red state,” the professional women I had the opportunity to speak with still seemed resigned to putting up with husbands they didn’t particularly like or care about. For whatever reason, I have the type of face and provide the right amount of reassuring head nods that let near strangers open up to me. I guess that’s what happens when you live in a small town and there are fresh ears. There’s a new audience for gossip, an opportunity for a fresh take.
In the short time I was there, multiple people alluded to how incompatible different married couples were - including a woman talking about her own husband - but these observations always boiled down to: ‘That’s just the way things are.’
The sun rises, the sun sets, and women continue to accept the bare minimum.
A few weeks ago I was at a bar and overheard a man joke about how he was both “a man of mystery - or misery” while chatting with some women. Maybe it was a joke, maybe it was an attempt at flirting, but I knew this man, knew that the comment about himself was a surprisingly astute observation.
It was exactly the type of self-awareness and deprecation women are supposed to accept from men nowadays.
This is not the first time I’ve heard men use lines like this - either to myself or out in a crowd. My hunch for why men ‘tell on themselves’ in this way is that it’s supposed to signal some baseline of vulnerability and introspection. See, I go to therapy. However, it almost always lacks the follow-through when it comes to changing the behavior. At that particular moment, I found myself cringing, rolling my eyes, and committing the line to memory as another data point in the disconnect between men and women. Later, I recalled the scene to a mutual friend.
Their first response was to groan.
Same, girl.
I can think of some pretty terrific men in my personal and professional life who have served as mentors, advisors, and friends. Yet there are also men in my life who - at least on paper - appear to be prime candidates for long-term romantic partnerships but in actuality are still in this state of arrested development.
As another friend put it, some men in her life “have a little more growing up to do,” though we are now at the point where some of these men are well into their early thirties. They are the type of men who say the right things about equality, about ‘sharing the mental load’ yet need constant reminders to take out the trash. They are the type of men who have revelations during mushroom or ayahuasca trips, can articulate some level of awareness about the ‘misery’ they inflict on the women in their lives, but still haven’t mastered the level of emotional maturity required to do anything about it. They are the type of men who are still unwilling to truly look within themselves and assess how they might still hold misogynist views and need to change.
Until the actions of men match their words, we will continue to see women like the protagonist in All Four’s eventually deciding to opt out of the current system of dating and romantic partnerships.
We will continue to see women choose themselves.
At least I know I will.
until next time,
xx kayla