A few posts from my old blog got “lost in the shuffle” (particularly posts from late September –mid-October 2005.) I’m reprinting a few of them periodically. Here’s one from October 13, 2005, with most of the text “below the fold”:
Tuesday night, my wife and I were in the Apple store in Old Town Pasadena, picking up iPod accessories. When I handed my credit card over to the young woman behind the counter, she read my name and said “Hey, you teach at PCC.” I admitted that it was so, and we chatted as she rang up the purchase. Jokingly, I asked her why she hadn’t taken any of my courses. I mentioned my courses in Western Civ, as well as Women’s History. As soon as I mentioned the latter class, the gal remarked “Well, I’d never take a class like that. I’m not a feminist. I’m all about being a homemaker, and I don’t like sitting around listening to a bunch of women complain about how unfair the world is.” We had a movie to catch, and I almost never argue with folks in public, so when I heard this, I just smiled my most indulgent smile and said “Well, if you take my class, you might be surprised”, and I left it at that.
But I’ve been thinking about that encounter ever since. I’ve heard similar things from many young women. Curiously, I’ve found that some of the most virulently anti-feminist young women are also assertive and bright. They have plans to transfer to elite universities and colleges, and while some — like the woman in the Apple store — aspire to be homemakers sooner rather than later, others are quite clear that they wish to have careers and public lives. They either don’t connect their freedom to pursue education and career with feminist history at all, or they pay grudging respect to the struggles of previous generations of activists, but persist in saying that in the twenty-first century, feminism is no longer necessary.
I don’t keep good track of my own posts, but I know I’ve mentioned this at least once before: I think most of the anti-feminist rhetoric we hear from certain young women today is tied up with a profound sense that to be a feminist is to embrace victim language. Somehow, someway, some young women have been given the false impression that feminism over-emphasizes women’s powerlessness and suffering. The last thing many young women want is to think of themselves as victims, particularly when our popular culture promotes the ideal of the “hip, together woman” who can handle herself and “doesn’t let adversity slow her down.”
On the one hand, I’m not fond of “victim language” either. Actually, I don’t know many authentic feminist scholars and instructors who are intent on convincing young women that they are being victimized by the big bad patriarchy. Most of us are far more interested in giving young women the tools with which to change their lives — and the lives of other women around the globe — than we are in reinforcing resentments or inculcating bitterness. Yes, I want the young men and women with whom I work to get angry. Yes, I want them to look honestly at the ways in which our society still discriminates against and exploits women. But I don’t want to leave them stuck in anger or in fatalistic surrender to the inevitable. The way to approach the notion of women as victims is not to ignore or deny the reality of women’s suffering (which anti-feminists do), but instead to (oh, over-used verb alert) empower young women to take tangible but vital steps towards taking responsibility for changing their lives and the lives of their sisters.
As in AA, the first step is admitting that a problem — in this case, rampant and enduring sex-discrimination — still exists. But acknowledging the problem is the first step towards transformation. The tragedy is that contemporary rhetoric has created the idea for young women that to be a feminist is to be “stuck” in bitterness and resentment, to be constantly aware of one’s victimization. It’s not a pleasant picture the anti-feminists paint, and it is disturbingly effective at scaring off countless young women and men who really do need to confront the reality of local and global injustice against women.
The other aspect of this anti-feminism I encounter among my students is a disturbing refusal to see any sense of responsibility for and towards other women. Not all anti-feminist young women are selfish. But I have to admit that more than a few of the brighter ones, are alas, going through that depressing stage where they think the Fountainhead is the greatest book ever written, and Ayn Rand has become — at least temporarily — their hero. (Thankfully, they usually grow out of it. Lots of young men and women become captivated by the radical self-centeredness of objectivism in their teens and early twenties; most abandon it once they learn what it is to truly love another human being unconditionally.) Young women like this flatter themselves into believing that sexism is just an excuse used by unhappy and unsuccessful women to explain their failures; the Rand devotees insist, with an almost heartbreaking naivete, that in the modern world any young woman can succeed at anything she wants if she tries hard enough, and she can do so by herself. Women’s failure to achieve happiness, they defiantly declare, is due to individual shortcomings only, and not to broader social problems.
Young women in this latter category tend to have, I notice, few good female friends. They are often card-carrying members of the “all my good friends are guys” club. Frequently, their speech drips with contempt for most other women, whom they consider “weak” or “superficial” or “catty”. “Me, I’m more like a man than a woman”, these gals will boast. For some that means sexual aggressiveness, but for most, it means that they associate masculinity with boldness, decisiveness, and certainty — qualities they see as infinitely preferable to what they see in most of their female peers. For this sort of young woman, anti-feminism is a perverse badge of honor, a way of saying “I am achieving success for myself on my own; I don’t need a feminist movement, I don’t need a ‘sisterhood’”.
As much as this attitude drives me bats, I have to admit I relish the challenge students such as these present! It’s why I’d love to get the gal from the Apple store into class. Make no mistake, these young anti-feminist women are frequently bright and articulate, and often make excellent students. Even as they push me — and I push back, hard — I am grateful for their presence. They force me, and all of us who do this work, to do a still-better job of making clear that feminism is still relevant and essential to the lives of contemporary American women. And they compel me to make the case that we do have collective obligations to our fellow human beings — and in a very important sense, we have a special obligation to those who share our sex.
Visit the old comments section below the original post, but please put new comments here.
As I wrote about on my own blog, I considered myself not to be a feminist when I was a teenager and young adult (and yes, I was into Ayn Rand). I think it was a combination of a sense of fairness (“I’m a humanist”, “Would it be OK to call oneself a masculinist?” etc.) and not seeing any doors currently closed to me on account of my gender (the idea that feminism was a good thing but that its work is complete).
On the latter count, you have to admit that the effects of sexism in modern America are somewhat subtle. Women are not barred from any rights, options, careers, characteristics, etc., that men have. That this progress is the product of feminism doesn’t say anything about whether feminism is still needed today. There are many blogs (including this one) and articles that provide good arguments about why feminism really is still needed, so I won’t try to do that in this comment, but it’s understandable why some women – even liberal ones – don’t see sex discrimination (especially given that the general discriminatory view of women is so ingrained that it is easily missed).
The majority of my friends were always women, so I don’t fit that mold. But I did have, from early childhood, an aversion to femininity. In a sense I was a proto-feminist, rankling when my grandmother would tell me to “act like a little lady.” But what took me until adulthood to realize is that, while a dislike of femininity is perfectly congruent (IMO) with feminist aims – femininity being a tool of the patriarchy and all – it can also be just a convenient way of being misogynistic while supporting basic gender equality.
These days I’m a politically moderate, pro-capitalist, pro-immigration, pro-globalization, pro-choice feminist of the type who would like to see sex differences completely disregarded. Is a society that doesn’t recognize any difference between male and female possible? Maybe not, but let’s keep trying to find out, while of course working hard to address the more concrete injustices perpetrated against women globally.
When I was in grad school in the early 90s, my eventual sister-in-law was completing her undergrad at the same school in Madison WI. We have a feminist bookstore called “A Room of One’s Own” and my SiL had to purchase a textbook from the store for a women’s studies class. The book wasn’t available through the campus bookstore. She was indignant at having to into one of “those” places. She wasn’t a feminist, so why should she even have to patronize the place! I’m not sure if I helped or not, but when she asked me to go in there for her — a guy, no less! — I did, buying the book for her.
She was just like the woman in the Apple store you met. She certainly didn’t like me pointing out that her actions were those of a “feminist” (broadly speaking, of course): She was in school, she lived on her own with no males dictating her actions, owned her own car, etc, etc. Today, she owns and runs her own business. She has benefited from 40 years of feminist actions and denies all of it.
Feminism has done much to bring the country a long ways towards equality, but we’re still far from it. I liken the incomplete successes of feminism to those of the labor union movement. And just like with labor, the right is doing a fine job of framing the discussion to efface the efforts of feminists and unionists alike, even while twisting the original meanings of those labels.
On the latter count, you have to admit that the effects of sexism in modern America are somewhat subtle.
No, they’re not, at all. They’re less blatant than formerly, and they’re not enshrined in law anymore; it’s no longer legal to grant pensions to widows while denying them to widowers, for example.
I’m someone who would never identify myself as a feminist. I’m a young wife and mother in my 20′s who completed a degree before marrying and beginning a family. I am fortunate to have the option to stay home.
In my view feminists have a victim mentality and they do not embrace the fullness of choices available for women. They symbolically spit on women who are wives and mothers first rather than focusing on their careers.
I would never say I was a feminist. I’m not.
I was always a feminist, although when I was younger I tended to call myself an “equalist” instead. I learned very young to stand up for myself and demand to be treated well – and I paid for that stance over and over. I grew up in a chauvinist farm family, where my father made it clear that he valued his sons over his daughters. It used to drive us girls batty – to the point where we would chase the boys up trees and keep them there with broomsticks until dad got home – because we were mad at them for being treated better than us, even though it wasn’t the fault of our brothers.
It was a different kind of chauvinism than most people think of though. My parents made it clear that we could work as hard and do all the same work that the boys did – but they also made it clear that we were expected to the “women’s work” as well – while the boys were exempted from that. So on the farm we girls worked with animals and machinery and drove tractors and everything else the boys did – and then were expected to go in and cook dinner, clean the house, and look after the younger kids, while dad and the boys got to lounge around in the living room. If I complained or disagreed – which I did frequently and strenuously as I got older – I got smacked around. And as I was told, when one such event was witnessed by a neighbour lady, “It’s your own fault for embarrassing your father.”
I’m 36 years old. I grew up in the 70′s and 80′s. That’s not so long ago. And while the chauvinism I experience today is not as blatant as what I grew up with, it still happens. I’m not whining, Hailey – I know what I’ve dealt with my whole life. I don’t spit in the face of my sisters in law when they choose to be stay at home moms. Nor do I spit at my sisters who have chosen to remain childless, although I do find it amusing that it’s my brothers who have traditional marriages and children, while my sisters run the gamut from permanently single to “living in sin” to married-but-adamently-childless.
By the way, Hailey, I don’t have a victim mentality and I find it insulting of you to say so. If I were a victim, I wouldn’t have fought so hard to be where I am today. I would have accepted my father’s belief that I was a lesser being than his sons and followed the life plan he expected of his daughters. Instead, I moved away from home at 16, worked my way through university, landed some good jobs – and still watch my career get stalled while male co-workers with less experience get promoted over me. Or I find out that new hires make as much as me or more, even though I’ve been at the company for over 7 years. Sure, I take steps, I fight back, and eventually bosses apologise, situations and salaries improve. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s not enough to do just do a good job, to be as good as or better than your co-workers. I wish that the results of my efforts were enough – but it’s not. Instead, it’s choice between fighting a never-ending battle for recognition or being a faceless cog in the machine while other people get the credit.