Feminism or Bust
http://www.newsweek.com/id/235299
Who needs feminism when we've already won the war? Oh waitwe haven't.
By Jessica Bennett
Mar 23, 2010
If you'd have asked me two years ago, I'm not sure I would have
described myself as a feminist. It's not that I didn't believe in
women's rightswhat modern woman doesn't?but it was just that, well,
I didn't really see the point. When I think about it now, it sounds
ridiculousI know. But it's telling of a generation like mine, who
shrugged our shoulders at the thought of feminism; we were already
convinced that we had won the war.
I was born in 1981, sixteen years after Barbie became an astronaut
and just around the time that Sally Ride joined NASA. I might as well
have come out of the womb with POSTFEMINIST etched into my forehead:
by the time I reached age 1, women had surpassed men in earning
college degrees; I turned 11 during the "Year of the Woman," and I
remember annual trips to my dad's law office, long before Take Your
Daughter to Work Day became Take Your Child [boys, included] to Work
Day. All my life, I was told that men and women were equalso equal,
in fact, that it wasn't even worthy of discussion. Like most of my
friends, I outpaced my brothers and many of my male peers by a
landslide in school, and took on extracurricular activities by the
handful. I'd had it ingrained in me that I could accomplish anything
I put my mind to. And I did, without ever embracing the fabled F
word, or even learning about it in school.
So for all the talk about feminism as passe, mine wasn't a generation
that rejected it for its militant, man-hating connotationbut because
of its success. Women were equalduhso why did we need feminism?
It's only recently that I, and women my age, have come to eat those
words. (In the words of Clueless's Cher, our own postfeminist idol,
"As if.") High on our success in academia, entering the workforce was
something of a shock: we felt like outsiders in a male-dominated
club. I'll spare you the depressing statisticsif you want them,
there are more than enough in this week's issue of NEWSWEEK to get
you startedbut the point is this: equality is still a myth. We need
feminism now more than ever. "I've heard people say, 'Why are you a
feminist? You can work, you can vote, you can do everything you
want,'" says Jessica Valenti, the author of Full Frontal Feminism.
"And just because there aren't all these laws against usyour husband
can't [legally] beat youit doesn't mean that sexism has gone away."
It hasn't gone away, but it may be harder to pinpoint. Which makes
the support of other women, whether they call themselves feminists or
not, all the more important. "I think the biggest issue young women
face today is that there's no real movement behind them," says Susan
Brownmiller, the feminist scholar. Case in point: a 2001 Gallup poll
found that only one in four women consider themselves feminists. I'd
bet most of those feminists are my mother's age.
Part of the problem with feminism, of course, is the word itself.
Though it was meant to be inclusive (men could engage in feminism in
a way they couldn't engage in the "women's" movement) it has
alienated from the start. When feminism first hit the American
lexicon in the early part of the 20th century, suffragists were
divided over its use; as early as 1919, women were calling themselves
"postfeminists," says Harvard historian Nancy Cott. "There was only
about two seconds in the history of the world in which women really
welcomed [feminism]," says Gail Collins, The New York Times
columnist. "There's something about the word that just drives people nuts."
Many would argue that it was the media which would pervert feminism's
modern use: as NEWSWEEK put it in a 1970 cover story, "A new specter
is haunting America: the specter of militant feminism." Even today,
describe the the bloggers at The F Word, "No woman I know would
unapologetically describe herself as a feminist." Feminism is
something dirty, denigratedto be looked upon with scorn. If, in the
modern culture, gender equality does come up, the response is simply:
"I'm not a feminist, but" (Translation: Please don't think I'm a
man-hater/ugly/being difficult!)
Feminists have long labored over how to change feminism's image, and
the notion is perplexing. But perhaps the more important question
should be not how we repair the word, but how we show young women
that the meaning behind itthe simple belief in gender equalityis
still relevant, even in 2010. "I don't think that not wanting to
identify yourself as a feminist is particular to this generation,"
says Collins. "But the assumption that everything is fine is very
strong with this [group]."
As Gloria Steinem once put it, you're either a feminist or a
masochist. At 28, I now proudly choose the former. I hope the women
that come after me won't have to wait that long.
.
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