March 30, 2010
Girls Gone Anti-Feminist
Spring 1997.
This was the Spice Girls moment, and debate: Were these frosted cupcakes really a vehicle for feminism? And how much reversion back to the glory days of prefeminism should girls and women accept—even celebrate—given that we now allegedly had it all? Despite their Wonderbras and bare thighs, the Spice Girls advocated “girl power.” They demanded, in their colossal, intercontinental hit “Wannabe,” that boys treat them with respect or take a hike. Their boldfaced liner notes claimed that “The Future Is Female” and suggested that they and their fans were “Freedom Fighters.” They made Margaret Thatcher an honorary Spice Girl. “We’re freshening up feminism for the nineties,” they told the Guardian. “Feminism has become a dirty word. Girl Power is just a ’90s way of saying it.”
Fast-forward to 2008. Talk about girl power! One woman ran for president and another for vice president. Millions of women and men voted for each of them. The one who ran for vice president had five children, one of them an infant, yet it was verboten to even ask whether she could handle the job while tending to a baby. At the same time we had a female secretary of state, and the woman who had run for president became her high-profile successor. And we have Lady Gaga, power girl of the new millennium. Feminism? Who needs feminism anymore? Aren’t we, like, so done here? Okay, so some women moaned about the sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton, but picky, picky, picky.
Indeed, eight years earlier, career antifeminist Christina Hoff Sommers huffed in her book, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, that girls were getting way too much attention and, as a result, were going to college in greater numbers and much more likely to succeed while boys were getting sent to detention, dropping out of high school, destined for careers behind fast-food counters, and so beaten down they were about to become the nation’s new “second sex.” Other books like The Myth of Male Power and The Decline of Males followed suit, with annual panics about the new “crisis” for boys. Girl power? Gone way too far.
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Comments
Excellent article, thanks for sharing it!
Posted by: klaatu | Mar 30, 2010 10:29:37 AM
I do not buy The Spice Girls or Lady Gaga for that matter, as feminist icons. GirlPower? What is that? In the world of mass media - misogyny is still king. The majority of women featured in the media are a homogenized version of the stereotypical vixen created to satisfy male fantasies. These girls bear no resemblance to women like Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton and do not come close to the same level of authentic feminist values and practice.
As for the claim that our young men are suffering...girl please!
Posted by: Terry Anzaldi | Mar 30, 2010 11:39:04 AM
There is a difference between a girl and a woman. Odd how this article ignores this distinction.
Lots of men who want nothing to do with women can still be captivated by young girls like Sarah Palin. And many young girls want nothing to do with women.
There's a fellow I know who's really attracted to me, and we have a lot in common. He announced to me when we met and were getting acquainted that he is a feminist. Hmmm, I thought, but reserved judgement. But, sure enough, one day we found ourselves marching through the streets of SF with a bunch of socialists. I helped him carry some of his signs - he usually shows up with at least a few - but when my feet started to hurt, and I could no longer ignore the fact that observers of the march had absolutely no idea what we were 'on about', I said, "Let's stop and have a drink in that bar". He put his arm around my shoulders kindly and said, "Now, you don't need to do that!"
I'm afraid my 'womyn' friends are the same way, though.
We all have some way to go yet.
Posted by: Alice de Tocqueville | Mar 30, 2010 12:50:52 PM
"In 1999, one year before Sommers’ book came out, the top five jobs for women did not include attorney, surgeon or CEO. They were, in order, secretaries, retail and personal sales workers (including cashiers), managers and administrators, elementary school teachers and registered nurses."
Gee, that sounds terrible. The top five glorious positions held by men are:
1) Truck driver
2) Manager (other)
3) Retail manager
4) Retail sales
5) Janitor
I bet women are just clamoring to get into those fields.
Actually, this was a fun exercise. This is what else I learned:
Top-10 Most Common Jobs for Women in the United States
3074.37 Secretaries and administrative assistants
2611.88 Registered nurses
2343.98 Elementary and middle school teachers
2273.66 Cashiers
1769.77 Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides
1648.28 Retail salespersons
1460.15 First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers
1433.58 Waiters and waitresses
1282.34 Maids and housekeeping cleaners
1264.30 Customer service representatives
Top-10 Most Common Jobs for Men in the United States
2987.15 Driver/sales workers and truck drivers
2144.34 Managers, all other
1850.85 First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers
1533.72 Retail salespersons
1457.02 Janitors and building cleaners
1413.40 Laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, hand
1388.47 Construction laborers
1243.78 Carpenters
1223.25 Chief executives
1172.34 Cooks
That's pretty weird. Does the nation really need more CEOs than cooks?
Posted by: Xerxes | Mar 30, 2010 3:46:02 PM
So she's been watching tv since the spicegirls, and was able to gain an insight about feminism elaborate enough for an entire book. Her case that there isn't equality between sexes consists of putting the word between quotation marks. How the hell can you call this a great article. It's dribble. Not a single female in my social group is anything like the characters on tv. Professor of communications seem to have lost touch with reality.
Is the difference in pay a matter of equality? Psychologists think it has to do with the types of jobs women/men are attracked to. Gay men, despite having higher diplomas than their hetero counterparts, also have a lower pay, because they are attracked to social professions, as opposed to competitive. Is equality about making money?
I think the whole feminist movement is BS. There has always been equality. Sometimes seeming to have no power is the most powerful position. For women, seeming to be sexually passive is a great advantage in societies where family is a matter of survival. Sexual "liberation" would be a strategic disadvantage if you need to loyalty of a partner (and his family) to survive in comfort. Female curcumcision and honor killings, for instance, are more often than not instigated by matriarchs. There are documentairies on this subject, but when you're busy analysing Lady Gaga videos, you wouldn't know. In a volatile society, it's not a advantage to be a seen to have a lot of power. Women are more important than men for species
and societies, perhaps even companies. Leaders however are often targeted, replaced, perhaps beheaded. Women provide consistancy in less obvious positions of influence.
The service economy combined with the Spanish flue and WWII meant women where given a different role in society. Simply because a lot of men had died. They called this liberation, but a lot of women at the time weren't happy with it.
My grandparents on both sides supported 5 children on one wage. Nowadays you can't even support one child without both parnters working. The working mom isn't liberated, she's forced to work, whereas pre-"feminism" (service economy) she had a choice.
Sure men are violent toward women. But also toward each other. Sometimes toward furniture. Men are just violent, at times. Don't piss 'em off.
The feminist idea that women are the eternal victims of men is out of touch with reality, and paradoxical. And if women are truly always at a disadvantage in the societies and marriages they create along with men, then they must be inferior. But again, I haven't seen it. I haven't met one single of these overbearing sceming men, or defenseless victimized women. I've seen some on tv though.
There is not one single concrete statement or obervation in that article. It's a bunch of meaningless bable worthy of Glenn Beck.
Posted by: PeterJohn | Mar 30, 2010 4:23:56 PM
"Yet I can assure you that my female students at the University of Michigan—academically accomplished, smart and ambitious— have flocked to these shows. Why?"
Why didn't she ask them?
New rule: you don't get to speak for women without first listening to them.
Posted by: Sagredo | Mar 30, 2010 5:46:11 PM
Um, Peter John, I'm going to attempt to answer you, but only partially, because almost everything you said was ridiculous.
One thing you said that I agree with is that the article was dribble, however, your comment is even worse.
While it is true to some extent is that matriarchs enforce female mutilation and other forms of oppression against their sisters and daughters; these are not societies in which women rule, so I would say that they do not 'instigate' these sick practices but enforce them for their own survival.
You also present many ways that women survive, coping mechanisms, as ends in themselves, which they are not. For example, pretending to be sexually passive is not only destructive to a person's spirit, but it doesn't work. The 'partner' often becomes bored with that and dumps you for a younger woman - or girl - and you still end up with all the disadvantages of no 'partner' but with the children (or robbed of them against your will) because your erstwhile 'partner' has greater earning power.
Finally, all the other so-called advantages you cite for being out of power are only relative to being beheaded or mutilated in some way; not anyone's first choice.
It is counter-productive, as we are often forced to train men to do what we could do better, and must then watch them destroy something we would choose to keep.
Would you be happy providing consistency for a system that subjugated you? Even if you would, I am not.
Posted by: Alice de Tocqueville | Mar 30, 2010 5:55:27 PM
At the risk of sounding 'hypergirly', I must append "O my god" to my remarks above.
I skimmed the synopsis, rather than reading the article! Argh!
Now that I've read it, I don't think it's drivel at all.
Posted by: Alice de Tocqueville | Mar 30, 2010 6:39:16 PM
There is a bit of a difference between the media's view of men and women and what happens in my neighborhood. I'd say among the university types here, there is pretty much equality, but with one difference -- the women do more of the work inside and outside the home.
Posted by: Evert Cilliers | Mar 30, 2010 7:39:38 PM
"While it is true to some extent is that matriarchs enforce female mutilation and other forms of oppression against their sisters and daughters; these are not societies in which women rule, so I would say that they do not 'instigate' these sick practices but enforce them for their own survival."
What would happen to a matriarch who chose not to oppress her sisters and daughters?
Posted by: Sagredo | Mar 30, 2010 9:31:56 PM
Xerxes: excellent analysis, I was just thinking the same thing. I think that Douglas's heart is in the right place and that she is right to point to the absurdity of vamped-up, sexualized teenagers as supposed symbols of feminist "empowerment".
But careless rhetoric does not help her, here. If we're going to talk about who performs the most demeaning, dangerous or mind-numbing jobs, men have that dubious honor (and probably always have).
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Mar 31, 2010 2:56:28 PM
I can't believe that driver is the most common job for men in the US!? Who'd have thunk it?
Posted by: Vesuvium | Mar 31, 2010 3:50:00 PM
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