okay, i'm pissed. i am so tired of all these newspaper articles coming out written by women in their thirties or forties who blame "feminism" for not their lives not turning out the way they wanted them to. you know, women's liberation and early feminism had many different leaders and a lot of different strands. yes, there were some people who equated heterosexual sex with rape or touted separatism or believed that motherhood was like slavery, but you know what? if you don't buy that, then don't live as if you do. feminism is about equal rights for EVERYONE, and although that concept sounds simple, it's not. it's anti-racist, anti-poverty, for abortion rights, anti-classist, anti-capitalist, anti-globalization, anti-heterosexist (and more) and all of these things constitutes re-imagining the status quo completely. feminism is striving for much, much more than just equal pay for equal work. it's asking questions from an different angle, such as, instead of asking why feminism told women they 'could have it all' when they "clearly" can't, why don't we ask what are the reasons that working women today don't have it all? that way, instead of being able to conveniently hang all the blame on feminism and thereby skip over truly examining the issue, we can actually find answers like exorbitant child care expenses; the set-up of most of corporate america (and most workplaces) still forces most of the care for children onto the mother (ie no family leave for fathers, less flexibility in schedules for fathers, etc.); and many many other transgressions that i'm not going to list here for fear of getting so mad i do damage to my computer. the reality is that life is harder for women in a white supremacist patriarchy-and it will continue to be so until we don't live in a white supremacist patriarchy anymore.
as for the disenchanted women who feel second wave feminism "owes" them something: feminism doesn't mean trading one set of rules to follow for another. yes, early feminists wanted to ease the pressure women felt to have babies early, or at all. yes, early feminists wanted to show how difficult is was to be a mom and be in the workforce. neither feminism as an idea nor feminist leaders "promised" anyone anything. there are some indignant women out there who are forty without partners or children demanding to "get" what feminism promised them.
as far as i can tell, what seems to have happened is that they stopped "listening to men" tell them what to do (i.e. get married and have children) and started "listening to feminists" tell them what to do (i.e. have a high powered job and forget about love or kids). so, wait, it's feminists' fault that these women couldn't think for themselves and make up their own minds about what they wanted? it's the fault of feminism that these women blindly toed what they saw as some strict party line and "sacrificed" what they "now realize is really important"? sounds to me like they made the choices they thought were the best for them at the time (which is all anyone can do) and feel shafted 'cause they now feel differently and want to blame someone other than themselves. um, seriously? everyone changes. find a man/woman if you want one. if you're too old to have kids, adopt one of the thousands all over the world who need good homes or volunteer to be a mentor or a big sister to a kid who needs one. stop fucking whining about "what feminism promised you" and take responsibility for your own life. THAT is what feminism taught me.
