Out Of Step
So I'm reading the terrible rag that is The Chicago Sun Times when I come across this Lifestyle story and I was disturbed. Part of what you can not see is that front page blurb / title they used to draw readers in. It said "Not your Mother's Feminist" next to a picture of two attractive yuppie women sitting at a restaurant table with glasses of wine conspicuously visible.
So I read the story and I start thinking has NOW sunk so low that they now use a trendy lifestyle image to recruit new members. This may seem a low blow but the article talks about "hip" young people it makes a point to describe the wine one of the members is drinking and it ends with a quote, "'And look at how much fun we are having!'" Disturbing.
The apparent reason that membership is up "they see a conservative shift in the country that has clamped down on individual rights -- particularly reproductive right." Now I'm not a George Carlin fan. I think he went from being a genius young man pointing out some of the problems of the world to a bitter old man complaining that no one has done anything about these problems he has been pointing out. I do, however, find a bit of wisdom is his rant about feminists. He basically states that it is a middle class organization that is almost exclusively concerned with reproductive rights.
I think these rights are important. NOW does important work in this area and could probably do more. (The time is ripe to do a documentery about women and life before Roe vs. Wade. Real life stories, tragedies that occurred everyday, draconian law enforcement.) Yet it seems so limited, especially considering the number of women's issues that aren't dealt with.
I looked at the NOW website and the only Global story I saw was about women voting in Iraq. The real focus of the story was not to show the plight of the women in Iraq, but underscore NOW's pledge to get George W. Bush out of office.
Slavery is alive and well. Why should this be front and center as a Women's issue? Because the Natasha Trade is just one example of the unspeakable sexual horrors that are committed daily to women (and children)world wide.
Then there is the example of fair treatment in labor for women of all social classes. I remember when I worked in a warehouse the company would hire only the quota of women. Educated Women in business may have a glass ceiling that they need to break through but the poor and unskilled need help just getting equal representation in decent paying jobs.
I suppose I could go on about sweat shop practices around the globe, but I think y'all can see my point. I have one niece and another on the way and I fear for the type of world they are going to grow up in if we take steps away from the hardline of equality for all. I'm afraid to see something as important as feminism be co- opted by trendiness. I wonder when NOW will start recruiting not just college students and graduates but the poor women who really need a voice.
More Laters
So I read the story and I start thinking has NOW sunk so low that they now use a trendy lifestyle image to recruit new members. This may seem a low blow but the article talks about "hip" young people it makes a point to describe the wine one of the members is drinking and it ends with a quote, "'And look at how much fun we are having!'" Disturbing.
The apparent reason that membership is up "they see a conservative shift in the country that has clamped down on individual rights -- particularly reproductive right." Now I'm not a George Carlin fan. I think he went from being a genius young man pointing out some of the problems of the world to a bitter old man complaining that no one has done anything about these problems he has been pointing out. I do, however, find a bit of wisdom is his rant about feminists. He basically states that it is a middle class organization that is almost exclusively concerned with reproductive rights.
I think these rights are important. NOW does important work in this area and could probably do more. (The time is ripe to do a documentery about women and life before Roe vs. Wade. Real life stories, tragedies that occurred everyday, draconian law enforcement.) Yet it seems so limited, especially considering the number of women's issues that aren't dealt with.
I looked at the NOW website and the only Global story I saw was about women voting in Iraq. The real focus of the story was not to show the plight of the women in Iraq, but underscore NOW's pledge to get George W. Bush out of office.
Slavery is alive and well. Why should this be front and center as a Women's issue? Because the Natasha Trade is just one example of the unspeakable sexual horrors that are committed daily to women (and children)world wide.
Then there is the example of fair treatment in labor for women of all social classes. I remember when I worked in a warehouse the company would hire only the quota of women. Educated Women in business may have a glass ceiling that they need to break through but the poor and unskilled need help just getting equal representation in decent paying jobs.
I suppose I could go on about sweat shop practices around the globe, but I think y'all can see my point. I have one niece and another on the way and I fear for the type of world they are going to grow up in if we take steps away from the hardline of equality for all. I'm afraid to see something as important as feminism be co- opted by trendiness. I wonder when NOW will start recruiting not just college students and graduates but the poor women who really need a voice.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 3:15 AM
3 Comments:
zac, i'll agree with you on that one....why else did i try and whiten my teeth?
a lot of womens issues aren't dealt with. is it because of women like me who are too apathetic to do anything about it? in part, yes.
There have been any number of papers on the change in female attitudes over the last couple of decades. I think there are a lot of women out there who are angry at parents who put careers first and are now determined to be mothers first. then there is the idea that tackling the business world isn't the highest asperation for any person so many women have given up on feminism as they see it as trying to adopt a male outlook on power.
I'm thinking it may be Sheri Tepper's books that introduced me to these ideas but I'm not sure. I read to much.
Part of the problem with feminism is the same one that all large groups have. Getting them all to agree. Every person believes a different issue to be of the greatest importance.
I think criticizing feminists by saying they should all get together oversimplifies both the issues and large group dynamics.
I don't agree with you about NOW using trendy lifestyle images to recruit women. Almost any means should be acceptable to get women, young women, to realize that women are still not treated as equal to men. Young women have been inundated with angry feminists and lovely Rush Limbaugh's corruption of the word feminism to equate with Nazis. I refuse to use that word, because men like him are walking penises with no conception of what it's like to be a woman in day to day life.
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