The benfits of night shift Gena, over at Spinsters.com tells us that she is going to write a piece on Why feminism sucks
Since I am up, I'm going to take a crack at it and see how closely we agree. Since I'm fairly conservative, and she's fairly liberal, this ought to be an interesting comparison.
I could make this a big long piece, but I'll keep it brief.
Modern feminism has two major flaws. First, instead of bringing women into the mainstream, it continues to marginalize them by trying to create a "women's culture," separate from mainstream culture. While trying to get rid of laws which exclude or discriminate against women, it also tries to keep laws which treat women preferentially. There is a sharp dichotomy in the feminist view of women. They are strong, and equal to men in all respects, but must be protected from men because women don't have the same power as men. The way they justify this apparent contradiction is to claim that women have a culture all their own which must be respected by the male dominated mainstream world.
Second, modern feminism seeks to limit the choices a woman can make just as drastically as the male dominated culture which feminism was responding to. The only difference is that the favored choices have changed. Instead of being limited to hearth and home, women are limited to the nine to five rat race. Women who choose to fulfill a traditional role are ridiculed. Girls are discouraged if they show a desire for a more traditional role. Women who stay home to have a family are made to feel inadequate.
In short, modern feminism is not acting to free a woman to follow her own wishes, but is actively advocating what they consider to be an acceptible range of choices.
OK, that's my critique on feminism. I do have to say that the women's lib movement, before it was co-opted by the feminist agenda, accomplished some real good. The workplace has certainly changed for the better, and I'm not just talking about sexually. Yes, we now have sexual harrassment to deal with, but there hae been benefits which far outweight the problems.
When women first entered the workplace, they came in with fresh eyes. Things that men took for granted as part of the cost of doing business, they saw as a problem. Just as one example, the private club. Men took it for granted that if you weren't a member of the club, you didn't advance as quickly, regardless of the quality of your work. You just couldn't make the connections. So, you tried to get invited to join, and paid the outlandish dues if you were. Them women entered the work force, and weren't allowed to join the club. They saw that they were being held back, and sued. And won. But in the process, the advantage of being in the club was diminished. This contributed towards leveling the playing field, not just for the women, but also for the men who weren't allowed to join the club.
Another example would be the flexible work schedule and telecommuting. Both of these were originally proposed as ways to accomodate a woman's schedule. But how many men have benfitted from these programs, and others like them? Before women entered the workforce, a man couldn't get any time off to spend with his family when a baby was born. Now he can take the same amount of time as his wife.
So, while feminism may have gone off on a tangent and wound up deep in irrelevency, the rest of us appear to be reaching some very reasonable accomodations.
Posted by Rich at May 20, 2002 5:01 AM