Posted on 01/18/2005 1:43:01 PM PST by neverdem
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January 18, 2005
Feminist excess revisited
After last November's election results, kicking the feminist left when it's down just doesn't seem very sporting—particularly at a time when people who openly advocate female subordination as part of their creed have a disturbing amount of influence on the right. But that's all the more reason to be exasperated when feminism devolves into irrelevancy and silliness just when a sane pro-equality message is needed most.
Exhibit A: A recent Slate essay by Laura Kipnis, professor of media studies at Northwestern, telling readers that "there's simply an irreconcilable contradiction between feminism and femininity." According to Kipnis. "Femininity . . . tries to secure advantages for women, primarily by enhancing their sexual attractiveness to men. It also shores up masculinity through displays of feminine helplessness or deference." Meanwhile, feminism "strives to smash beauty norms" and "demands female equality in all spheres"—but alas, it has failed to eradicate women's (even feminists'!) infuriating desire to be beautiful. The problem, Kipnis hectors, is that "the beauty culture is a heterosexual institution, and to the extent that women participate in its rituals, they, too, are propping up a heterosexual society and its norms"—norms which supposedly subordinate women to men.
And here I thought this kind of rhetoric had withered away some 30 years ago, except for a brief flare-up in Naomi Wolf's 1991 bestseller The Beauty Myth. But no. Never mind that in the intervening years, the equation of femininity with helplessness or submissiveness has been thoroughly exploded in popular culture. Our ideals of feminine beauty now include athletes and the strong heroines of television shows like Alias, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Xena: Warrior Princess, more than capable of holding their own against men.
Kipnis's polemic is not only tripe, it's self-defeating tripe. If you tell women that they must choose between feminism on the one hand, and beauty, femininity, and heterosexuality on the other, there goes 99 percent of your target audience (newsflash: beauty and femininity are not exclusively heterosexual turf).
Exhibit B: An article in another respected liberal Web magazine, Salon.com, defending patriarchy's latest victim: Jennifer Aniston. The former Friends star, author Rebecca Traister complains (reg. req.), is being "pilloried" because her split with husband Brad Pitt was apparently caused by his desire for a child and her desire, at 35, to postpone motherhood and focus on work. Traister is seeing red over "a regressive and scary message to women": The only thing that matters is "our ability and willingness to reproduce," while putting professional ambition first is stigmatized.
Just where Aniston is being "pilloried" is unclear. To Traister, simply reporting that Aniston is (according to her friends) reluctant to have a baby or that her grueling filming schedule for the next three years would leave little time for it, reeks of disapproval. In fact, nothing that's been said about Aniston approaches the nastiness of Traister's jabs at Pitt for being too outspoken about his desire to be a dad. Besides, shouldn't feminists be candid and admit that if you're a woman in your mid-30s and want children, waiting much longer is not a good idea? Or that, for most people, parenthood is a vitally important part of life?
Exhibit C: On the op-ed page of The New York Times, columnist Maureen Dowd gripes (reg. req.) that men are egocentric babies who want submissive women, not equals. Her proof? An alleged trend of powerful men marrying their personal assistants, secretaries, nannies, and the like (illustrated by a couple of movies and a couple of anecdotes) and a couple of recent studies, one of which, from the University of Michigan, shows that men regard a subordinate as a more desirable wife than a boss.
What's that all about? Well, the male college students in the study were shown a photo of a woman and asked to estimate her desirability as a marriage partner on a 1-to-9 scale. When the woman was described as their hypothetical assistant, she got an average rating of 6.4; a co-worker got 4.9 and a supervisor 4.2. (Women gave men an average rating of about 3.1.)
Whatever this tells us about how men interact with women in real life, even in theory the higher-ranking women were hardly rejected. Of course there are men who are still intimidated by female ambition. But there are millions of women who have successful careers and successful marriages. Why not pay a little more attention to those couples, and a little less to the well-worn men-are-pigs theme?
With feminism like that—well, you get the idea.
Cathy Young is a Reason contributing editor. This column originally appeared in the Boston Globe.
There are certain realities that feminists will never accept:
1. A woman can't have it all: career and family. One or the other will have to be compromised.
2. Having children is important (for people who believe in God, Evolution or both)
3. Women are the ones who are capable of bearing and nursing children, not men.
Everything else basically follows from those three points. A man is going to want to look for a woman who will put family ahead of career, and women who devote themselves to getting ahead in the business world are not good candidates.
Motherhood takes physical commitment. It is not something that you can pay someone else to do. For most women, it is not something that can be relegated to a part time job, or for which you may prioritize after anything else.
Until feminism deal with this reality up front and center, there will never be women's liberalization, but only her further enslavement ~ as in never being able to do what she feels is the right thing, always having another master to answer to.
Sure it does.
The problem is that the feminist movement was taken over by Lesbians.
****************
Yikes. It's hard to take seriously anything she says after this statement. On the whole, though, good article.
nothing like a baseless BS sttement to make an article sophmoric.
Unless your a lesbian,Feminist have nothing to offer. who wants to spend their lives hating men, waste of time and counterproductive.
Plus I blame the femi's for turning a large portion of our male population into whining aholes.
Clearly, support for the "beauty culture" has been pretty destructive of your path to fulfillment as a woman. </sarcasm>
Bingo
Brad Pitt vs. Jennifer Anniston.
It isn't about having a child. Well, it is, but not like the media wants you to think.
Brad isn't against being married, having a child. He is against doing so with an idiot.
She forced him to go to his old college town, and give a speech on stage at the college, supporting another IDIOT, John Kerry. Brad did as asked, but made disdainful comments about the whole thing, even letting the audience know he was there under duress.
Unfortunately, he has found out that his beauty is just another empty headed, under-educated, solid supporter of whomever her agent tells her to support.
Brad is a small-midwestern town conservative, with a good deal of common sense. I think he realized she will never change, and that he doesn't want a wife/mother that he has to pity.
Only in the Hollywood dream world. The fact is, every one of these fake "heroines" would get her pert butt kicked by even an average man. I don't know of many men who rate "ability to spin-kick" highly in their selection of a desirable mate.
On the other hand, most men I know esteem cooperation, decency, and a sense of self-worth (unencumbered by some "feminist's" expectations).
Here's an idea. Maybe women shouldn't try to compete with men on men's turf. Maybe women should be good at being women, and let men be good at being men, instead of trying to defy nature so as to embrace some outdated social trend.
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he problem is that the feminist movement was taken over by Lesbians. Lesbians and people who hated their mothers. True women's liberation would figure out how to insure that both mother and child were able to count on a secure nurturing environment, and that after women devoted their energy and time to raising their children, that they would then still be taken seriously, and supported in their own business ventures, careers, or further family enhancing endeavors. For women to be taken seriously the family and home must be recognized as the foundation of society, capitalism and strength that it is. It is the communism which allows capitalism to function with enlightenment. And the home is built and maintained with indispensablewomen's work. Until that work is recognized as as vital as it is, homes will continue to break, and women will continue to find themselves enmeshed in slavery as long as they follow their desire to have and love their children. Children are the most precious creations of any culture, nation. Without children who are brought up with the societies values, the society will cease to be successful. And further more ....... blah blah blah blah blah.
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The problem is that the feminist movement was taken over by Lesbians.
Not so much taken over, but lesbianism is a favorable lifestyle of feminists. As this article states. Most of the gay activists are feminists, not even gay.
The truth is that most young women have little developed idea of what they think feminism is, or how they want egalitarian ideals incorporated into their lives. The result is too often an unattractive package: someone who expects the old privileges of her gender, like having dates paid for, and having their life goals subsidized by a man, but who also thinks it's beneath her to be too nice to a man, or to make any compromises in her life or career for the sake of supporting her boyfriend or husband. And this woman figures you, the man, are a neanderthal if you don't understand and support this point of view. It's hard to make the attitude that man is her servant less naked.
But it's so common! Many of the couples in my acquaintance consist of a man succeeding in some career, working his tail off, and the woman doing a lot less work, in a lot fewer hours, professionally. She's finishing a degree, but can't quite seem to get it done, or she works only part time, or whatever. But she still demands that he come home, to the house he's largely paying for, in what free time he's got, and do half the dishes, the laundry, etc. Because all that is "separate" from their professional lives. And the guy does it!!
At least these women are married. When women get older, they usually want to get married, but they don't really want to be anyone's wife. I've met so many women who are smart, attractive, in their late twenties and early thirties, who say they want a husband, but who don't have the first idea about how to attract one. No exaggeration: some of these women would tell me about how they slept with married men in their twenties, strung along a boyfriend or two they didn't really like, brushed off advances from unexciting guys. Then these same women would starting getting resentful toward *me* if I didn't want at least to talk about marrying them within a month of meeting them. Now that they want to get married, you see. Yikes!!!
The fact is that most women have the same old idea that their grandmothers have: to marry up. But their life plan seems to be something like this. Take no men seriously in their early twenties, and seek as many adventures, and as much attention from men as possible (Girls Gone Wild phase). Then work on a professional career, all while dating men but keeping them at arm's length (the Ali McBeal phase). Then, when they decide that they do want to get married, a light goes off in the universe and a handsome, rich guy who adores the ground they walk on, and who just laughs at the Girls Gone Wild videos they made and all of the "wildness" of their early years, will drop into their lives, like bread from heaven, and provide a happy ending. Needless to say this plan leads to some disappointment, and some angry women come thirty-something.
I'm getting tired thinking about it! I've met a lot of women who seem suspicious, hard bitten, and not very patient or charming in their quest to land a ring *now*. A sane man's response: this is how she is *now*, when I'm not even married to her? Get me outta here!
Anyway, I know it might upset a lot of people, and perhaps even a lot of Freepers. But I think the largest part of the dating problems now among the 35 and under crowd is because of women, not men. Really. Their expectations are just way too high, they give so little in a relationship, and they scare a lot of men off. Women should do more thinking. If they don't want to be wives, then they shouldn't push men to marry them. If they want to be married, they need to think more seriously about why men want to marry women, instead of why they're not getting what they feel entitled to out of the world.
Phew. Feel better! Rant over. Articles like these, and the Dowd article referred to, just bug me.
The truth is that most young women have little developed idea of what they think feminism is, or how they want egalitarian ideals incorporated into their lives. The result is too often an unattractive package: someone who expects the old privileges of her gender, like having dates paid for, and having their life goals subsidized by a man, but who also thinks it's beneath her to be too nice to a man, or to make any compromises in her life or career for the sake of supporting her boyfriend or husband. And this woman figures you, the man, are a neanderthal if you don't understand and support this point of view. It's hard to make the attitude that man is her servant less naked.
But it's so common! Many of the couples in my acquaintance consist of a man succeeding in some career, working his tail off, and the woman doing a lot less work, in a lot fewer hours, professionally. She's finishing a degree, but can't quite seem to get it done, or she works only part time, or whatever. But she still demands that he come home, to the house he's largely paying for, in what free time he's got, and do half the dishes, the laundry, etc. Because all that is "separate" from their professional lives. And the guy does it!!
At least these women are married. When women get older, they usually want to get married, but they don't really want to be anyone's wife. I've met so many women who are smart, attractive, in their late twenties and early thirties, who say they want a husband, but who don't have the first idea about how to attract one. No exaggeration: some of these women would tell me about how they slept with married men in their twenties, strung along a boyfriend or two they didn't really like, brushed off advances from unexciting guys. Then these same women would starting getting resentful toward *me* if I didn't want at least to talk about marrying them within a month of meeting them. Now that they want to get married, you see. Yikes!!!
The fact is that most women have the same old idea that their grandmothers have: to marry up. But their life plan seems to be something like this. Take no men seriously in their early twenties, and seek as many adventures, and as much attention from men as possible (Girls Gone Wild phase). Then work on a professional career, all while dating men but keeping them at arm's length (the Ali McBeal phase). Then, when they decide that they do want to get married, a light goes off in the universe and a handsome, rich guy who adores the ground they walk on, and who just laughs at the Girls Gone Wild videos they made and all of the "wildness" of their early years, will drop into their lives, like bread from heaven, and provide a happy ending. Needless to say this plan leads to some disappointment, and some angry women come thirty-something.
I'm getting tired thinking about it! I've met a lot of women who seem suspicious, hard bitten, and not very patient or charming in their quest to land a ring *now*. A sane man's response: this is how she is *now*, when I'm not even married to her? Get me outta here!
Anyway, I know it might upset a lot of people, and perhaps even a lot of Freepers. But I think the largest part of the dating problems now among the 35 and under crowd is because of women, not men. Really. Their expectations are just way too high, they give so little in a relationship, and they scare a lot of men off. Women should do more thinking. If they don't want to be wives, then they shouldn't push men to marry them. If they want to be married, they need to think more seriously about why men want to marry women, instead of why they're not getting what they feel entitled to out of the world.
Phew. Feel better! Rant over. Articles like these, and the Dowd article referred to, just bug me.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1192723/posts
http://www.propagandamatrix.com ^ | March 18, 2002 | Henry Makow Ph.D.
Posted on 08/16/2004 2:29:55 PM PDT by fiddlerselbow
Gloria Steinem: How the CIA Used Feminism to Destabilize Society
By Henry Makow Ph.D.
March 18, 2002
"In the 1960's, the elite media invented second-wave feminism as part of the elite agenda to dismantle civilization and create a New World Order."
Since writing these words last week, I have discovered that before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA spying on Marxist students in Europe and disrupting their meetings. She became a media darling due to her CIA connections. MS Magazine, which she edited for many years was indirectly funded by the CIA.
Thanks for the links.
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