Feminism is a corpse and today’s feminists are the pallbearers. Modern feminist leaders are not really friends of women, but friends of the men whose politics they share.
No longer is the “women’s movement” inspired by a brighter future for our daughters – a society where young women would be raised to realize a range of potentials, would be respected as individuals and would not become objects manipulable by the brokers of power.
That’s the women’s movement I remember from the very early ’70s, when the battle cry was Off Our Backs!
One of the founding mothers of the Second Wave, I began my personal feminist journey in Washington, D.C., during the antiwar movement, when activist “chicks” were stung by the reality that no matter how idealistic the rhetoric of our male comrades, they could be just as overbearing, insensitive and downright creepy as the men in business suits and uniforms we railed against in clouds of tear gas every weekend.
I was a rare bird then, for I was a mother – the mother of Samantha Sunshine. That I had a daughter already – a MiniMe in a Geri Carrier – made “women’s issues” as palpable as her weight on my back. Having a daughter gave guts to my feminism.
It was never only about me, but about her as well.
Somehow, I must have gotten it wrong. Either that, or the others – the ones who sat with me in consciousness-raising groups, who wrote theses about the subjugation of women in the music of the Rolling Stones, or who worked on the San Francisco rape crisis hotline – changed, because in the course of 30 years I’ve watched the sisterhood twist and contort itself as relentlessly as a Chinese acrobat preparing to lower herself into an urn more suitably sized for ashes.
And in the course of their contortions, they’ve become as overbearing, insensitive and downright creepy as any man I ever met. Today’s Twisted Sisters are thoroughly ensconced in the ways of the Good Old Boys (as long as they’re on the left side of the aisle), strutting their support for the Clintons and the Condits when they treat women like Kleenex – something you need many of and use without much thought, convenient and disposable.
Apparently, the only thing that matters to a “feminist” these days is the sacred rite (yes, rite) of abortion. So the man who finds the cure for breast cancer better not be pro-life. So the worst exploiter/abuser of women – even a pornography king – is the feminists’ friend if he loves abortion. And what selfish man wouldn’t? After all, as the founding mothers of the First Wave of feminism pointed out, men would be the real benefactors of abortion, and it would destroy a woman’s soul.
We’ve heard for years about the mean, old, nasty men who want to take away our “right to choose.” Maybe it’s time to look at the harsh, grim-jawed Patricia Irelands, Barbara Boxers, Hillary Clintons, Eleanor Clifts, Geraldine Ferraros and all the other contortionists who’ve trashed the true sisterhood of women, dragging women in chains behind the pickups of their own agendas, leaving pieces along the way.
Let’s talk about Washington interns being used as temple prostitutes to satisfy the desires of aging but powerful men – some with apparently way too much time on their hands – and let’s talk about the aging but powerful women who refuse to condemn the practice.
Let’s talk about what happened when the sexual revolution collided with feminism. A brief visit to any supermarket checkout reveals a landscape littered with landmines. Every little girl shopping with her mother (or nanny) must gingerly wade through the covers of glamour, fashion and even housewife’s magazines – all screaming in 42-point type the shallowness of women’s current identity:
- “Your Man Unzipped – How To Be A Genius With His You-Know-What”
- “Be The Babe Who Never Stops”
- “Lust Survey: 3,000 Men Confess Their Deepest, Darkest, Dirtiest Desires – And The Sex Position They Rank #1.”
Apparently all grown-up women care to know about – except for the shrill anti-Republican, pro-abortion reminders of fanatics like Karenna Gore Schiff – is getting men, pleasing them in bed and keeping them from wandering off.
Of course keeping men around is much harder than it used to be. And while feminists may think that it’s liberated behavior for one 20-something legend-in-her-own-mind to flash her thong at a president or another to dream of marrying a Congressman and having his baby, I don’t think so.
And by the way, what in the world are the mothers and aunts of these girls thinking to support their daughters’ dalliances with married men? Did they get them started early by pouring them into the kiddy-hooker clothes designed for little girls? Did they buy them their first copy of Cosmopolitan? Are these aging Baby Boomers reveling vicariously in a groupie scene more prestigious than the one they used to read about in Rolling Stone? My daughter’s involved with a rock star! Oh yeah? Well, my daughter’s servicing a legislator!
Once upon a time, feminists weighed in heavily on power imbalances in men/women relationships. So a congressman would be accused of exploitation for taking advantage of a starry-eyed young woman offering sex in the hope of something more substantial. And if by some teensy chance she succeeded in becoming a replacement model, she would be reviled for stealing what belonged to another woman.
Sisterhood was supposed to be powerful. Now it’s just a scramble – every woman for herself.
Especially for the sisters already at the top.
