I think most women can agree that there has been a sort of feminist crisis brewing: the twenty-somethings are by and large distancing themselves from (capital-F) Feminist imagery and ideology, and the fifty-something trailblazers are aghast. Many claim - and I think rightly so - that feminism is dead. (Whether it lives on in ways that are less superficial is another matter altogether, though.)
In her article, Dowd, at times, mistakes her own feelings of inadequacy for the failure of feminism, blaming not only men ("He predicted that I would never find a mate because if there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties.") but women too ("Many women now do not think of domestic life as a 'comfortable concentration camp,' as Betty Friedan wrote in The Feminine Mystique, where they are losing their identities and turning into 'anonymous biological robots in a docile mass.' Now they want to be Mrs. Anonymous Biological Robot in a Docile Mass"). Still, she makes some accurate observations about young women trying to recapture a false, imprisoning ideal of femininity and domesticity.
Here's an excerpt:
It was naïve and misguided for the early feminists to tendentiously demonize Barbie and Cosmo girl, to disdain such female proclivities as shopping, applying makeup and hunting for sexy shoes and cute boyfriends and to prognosticate a world where men and women dressed alike and worked alike in navy suits and were equal in every way.
But it is equally naïve and misguided for young women now to fritter away all their time shopping for boudoirish clothes and text-messaging about guys while they disdainfully ignore gender politics and the seismic shifts on the Supreme Court that will affect women's rights for a generation.
What I didn't like at the start of the feminist movement was that young women were dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. They were supposed to be liberated, but it just seemed like stifling conformity.
What I don't like now is that the young women rejecting the feminist movement are dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. The plumage is more colorful, the shapes are more curvy, the look is more plastic, the message is diametrically opposite - before it was don't be a sex object; now it's be a sex object - but the conformity is just as stifling.
posted by mideast-transplant @ 1:57 PM
2 Comments:
I think Maureen Dowd is wrong about the monocromatics of "women" in America. The media may portray a certain segment. but many women are doing amazing things, fulfilling things, partnering in a healthy way with men, but everyone including men are finding that the definition of success in America - wealthy, having it all - is a false promise of happiness. Doing good and having a circle of friends is the new ideal and many are succeeding at it. There is much more happiness out there and "feminists" are those who are able to nurture as well as set the agenda.
dont know - maureen dowd surely pissed me off... i was bummed all day after that. she told me what i already knew and didnt need anyone to repeat for me.
about 10 yrs ago when i was fresh into architecture school someone told me i would never be able to have a family and be a successful architect at the same time. and i've been slowly and painfully realizing that's closer to reality than i wanted to admit. and add to that equation my condition as a mil wife, which i have found strongly suposrts and keeps alive the kitten-heels, pink-wearing, baby-factory wife ideal.
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