Why do so many women answer the question “Are you a feminist” in the negative? To read Christina Hoff Sommers’s new study of the history of “freedom feminism” is to understand that the current fad for radical interpretations of the oppression of women in the West might just have a lot to do with it.
Sommers provides the history of feminism in liberal societies from founding mothers Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton through the 1970s fight over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) down to today’s academic and comedic representations of women’s empowerment. And her basic conclusion is that while there is much work to be done in the developing world regarding women’s basic human rights—freedom to marry, freedom to get an education, freedom from real abuse and oppression by men—the situation in liberal countries just isn’t comparable, even as professional feminist advocates continue to argue that it is.
Sommers explains that today’s feminists aren’t speaking to millions of their fellow country-women when they denounce or degrade those who would rather work less and raise their families more. “Christine Rosen, in her 2002 report on the five leading women’s studies textbooks, found them all to be hostile to traditional marriage, stay-at-home mothers, and the culture of romance,” Sommers writes. And the root of this definition of women’s empowerment as radical egalitarianism is quite longstanding. For example, in the 1970s, the newly formed National Organization for Women denigrated those females who wanted to serve society in traditional roles. “Volunteering is yet another form of activity which serves to reinforce the second-class status of women . . . and thus is detrimental to the liberation of women,” NOW stated in one brochure.
Sommers argues that the feminist ideal of the late 20th century was an “egalitarian dream of an androgynous, gender-integrated society.” Reminds me of one of the songs on the Replacements seminal 1984 album Let It Be called “Androgynous”:
Here come Dick, he’s wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, y’know she’s sporting a chain
Same hair, revolution
Same build, evolution
Tomorrow who’s gonna fussAnd they love each other so
Androgynous
Closer than you know, love each other so
Androgynous…..
Sommers states that even as this ideal is “celebrated in books such as Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In,” it “has shown no sign of materializing” in the real world. That hasn’t stopped some commentators from indulging in over-the-top praise for shows like Game of Thrones for the “badass women” represented there or keeping score of how well or not GOT girls are keeping up with the men.
Sommers’s conclusion isn’t that there are no problems with representations and treatment of women in the West. Instead, she agrees that not everything is hunky-dory, but she wants a little more perspective on the degree of the problem faced in the US versus, say, the Congo. And she persuasively argues that the “movement” would do better if it could define women’s rights and power much more broadly. Quoting British comedic writer Caitlin Moran’s definition of feminism puts Sommers’s recommendation in proper perspective:
“You can be whatever you want, so long as you’re sure it’s what you actually want, rather than one of two equally dodgy choices foisted on you. Because the purpose of feminism isn’t to make a particular type of woman. The idea that there are inherently wrong and inherently right ‘types’ of women is what’s screwed feminism for so long—this belief that ‘we’ wouldn’t accept slaggy birds, dim birds, birds that bitch, birds that have cleaners, birds that stay home with their kids, birds that drive Pink Mini Metros with ‘POWERED BY FAIRY DUST!’ bumper stickers. . . . You know what? Feminism will have all of you.”
Amen to that, now let’s try and get to that freedom feminism, shall we?
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