Blame women for the death of feminism?
I am a guy.She has some good points. I do not agree with everything she says. But let’s get a debate started, shall we ?
Sure. In Great Debates. Moved.
samclem Moderator, General Questions
But let’s get a debate about what started? Are we debating that feminism is dead? Are we debating whether this author is right or wrong? Are we debating whether hyper-sexualisation is the prison sentence that the author posits, or whether it’s freedom for women to do what they want?
Surely to have a debate, you have to submit your position to allow people to debate it with you.
You’ve said she makes some good points. Which points, why? Which points do you disagree with? Why?
I think she’s correct, to an extent. OTOH, I think she’s entirely missing the point.
I do agree that some of those things on her list do give (or keep) some people a poor or different view of women. I’m not sure i’d go as far to say it’s caused the death of feminism, but i’ll go with it. My problem is that her theme is that women are seen as sexual more often than men, or that they resort to using their sexuality more. To that I say; so the fuck what? Equality is a good idea, but only if it’s a practical thing. Women being paid the same as men (all else being equal), yes, that’s fair. Women being hired for top jobs? Again, great. I am all for practical equality. And like I say, I imagine that some of the things on her list may reinforce the view that women are unsuitable, or less suitable, than men in certain cases, and she’s right in that’s had an effect. But that doesn’t mean that any kind of difference, or any kind of sexuality, is ipso facto bad. “Women who claim to have Brazilian waxes for themselves” - yes, gosh, all those women are promoting the idea that women are just sex toys!.. to their partners. Who’ll be the only ones that know. Pole-dancing instead of a non-sexual workout? Again, wow, I know all the women I know who do that have gone down in my esteem. Except of course I don’t know who does it. Those who believe it’s more important to be beautiful on the inside than the outside? In some cases, it pretty much is (I mean, look at Tom Cruise).
I think she had a good point and then she’s entirely added enough tangents that her argument’s become flawed again.
Oh, and I don’t think this is the reason for the “death” of feminism alone anyway.
it’s ironic though, that most of her points became mainstream because of feminism. Men needed an outlet, somewhere to go where they did not have to treat women equal, as in strip clubs, porn, etc…
For a long time I was baffled that women continued to proffer themselves in a sexual context. Why be subservient? I wondered.
I didn’t realize, and I don’t think the author of that article realizes, that women’s beauty is a source of great power. Tremendous power. The next wave of feminism should incorporate it, rather than attempting to negate or ignore reality.
I also think she’s discounting the progress that HAS been made. I remember the '70s, with all the “first female” thises and thats. Feminism isn’t dead by any means. Some of its mission HAS been accomplished. It just needs to evolve.
Yea, I’d say like a lot of social movements, its died from its own success. Which isn’t to say that woman have gained complete equality, but most of the institutional, legal and many of the cultural barriers that made them second class citizens are gone (in the west, anyways). As a result, people feel less strongly about the remaining issues then they did even a decade ago.
Also the article seems to posit that the objectification of females is a new phenomenon, or that woman’s active and open participation in it is new at least, I’m pretty skeptical of that claim. Indeed, if feminism has caused an increase in the sexual objectification of anyone, I’d say it would be men. Because being able to support a family is less of a factor in choosing partners now then it was a hundred years ago (especially since woman feel more free to take a short-term sexual partner now-a-days, and even when they choose a permanent partner, are able to still work and bring in income), and woman are more comfortable openly selecting a partner based at least partly on sexual desirability, I’d say the desirability for men of being physically attractive has greatly increased in recent times. I doubt all those guys in the gym or running laps around the neighborhood are doing it purely for the health benefits, anyways.
Waitaminnit – who says feminism is dead?
Feminism is dead? News to me. And feminists around the globe.
All of her points are regularly discussed and debated by the feminists I know. Doesn’t mean feminism is dead, doesn’t mean women are to blame. There is something to be said for certain women assuming every single thing they do is ‘empowering’ just because they do it alone or out of their own volition. That’s crap, and I believe the watering down of feminism/‘girl power’ is partly to blame. But again, it’s not as if all feminists agree on everything in the first place.
FYI, I regularly got brazilian waxes when absolutely no one but me saw below the belt.
Huh, just looked it up, and dictionary.com listed millenniums before millennia. 'Course, MW had it the other way around, and I trust them more. Anyone with a subscription to OED?
I didn’t even know “millenniums” was possible. Yay for feminisim!
It depends on how you look at it. Is “millennium” an English word or a Latin one?
“Millennium” may have started as a Latin word, but it has gladly settled into its role in the English language since. It has no one-word synonym in the conventional sense; “one thousand years”, “one-thousandth anniversary”, “10th turn of the century”, etc. all capture roughly the same meaning as one or more sense of the word, but they’re clunky and they’re phrases anyway. If millennium were considered a foreign word, subject to the rules of a foreign language, it would presumably need (at least!) a native English counterpart with just as much utility. For example, “mayonnaise” is generally considered an English word, but faux pas is often considered French, in no small part due to the fact that the concept of faux pas can be explained in an English phrase with just as much utility (“social mistake”, for example), albeit without the exact same shades of nuance.
So, with generations of native English speakers internalizing “millennium” as an English word, it’s only natural that a few of those speakers will consider it subject to the rules of English exclusively. It’s not unreasonable that the standard plural form will be “millenniums” soon enough. (FTR, my Firefox dictionary includes “millenniums” and not “millennia”.)
For now, though, it’ll still make me laugh at her.
DISCLAIMER: the writer of this post is a proud bearer of a Y chromosome. And is about to get off on a rant.
Ya know, I’d say that Murphy is emblematic of all that was wrong with previous waves of feminism, why it became something of a joke or something to cringe at, as well as why so many women currently refuse to self-identify as feminists. In many ways, the most vocal (and looney) image that has affixed itself to feminism is that of man-hating, prudish, hypocritical nannying.
Let me elaborate.
To begin with, feminism certainly once served a purpose, and did indeed make great strides. However, feminism is properly merely part of humanistic individualism. People, regardless of sex, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, politics, (etc), deserve equal pay, equal protection under the law and perhaps most importantly, the right to make their own choices and live their own lives as they see fit. As long as they harm nobody else, at least.
Past a certain point, feminism began to perpetuate the Us-Them dynamic, especially with some of its more insane proponents sinking into a true swamp of misandry, double standards, and bigotry.
Now, let’s take a look at some of Murphy’s specific claims, and why they are, to put it mildly, either really stupid or really, really obnoxious. The causes of the ‘death’ of feminism, instead of her busybody, nosy, anti-individualist twaddle are:
That this is a position often adopted by self-identified feminists is something that amuses me to no end. To begin with, it takes a, for lack of a better word, paternalistic view of individual women. They can’t choose for themselves what type of work they want, how to view, exercise and use their own sexuality and whether or not they should be paid for something that other women find distasteful.
At its heart, Murphy’s position on this issue is pure hypocrisy. It suggests that women are to be treated as responsible agents in their own lives, that they are free to choose their own path, that they are to be treated as equal citizens capable of entering into contracts for work. But if they view their sexuality different than Murphy views hers (and theirs), they’re traitors, unable to make the correct decisions for themselves, and to be ashamed of. It’s bullshit. What, a woman can decide to sell the use her body in a meat packing factory and get home exhausted and sore, and that’s fine. She can sell the use her body and clean sewers and return home reeking of shit, and that’s fine. She can sell the use of her talent, her mind, her energy, her even her very life (via things like military service)… but heavens fucking forfend that she sells the view of her naked body or sex for money. She’s not responsible enough to make that choice for herself, Murphy knows better. Women are totally free to enter into contracts as they see fit, unless they hold different views than Murphy, and then they need her guiding hand.
And, speaking of empowerment, those women I’ve known who are sex workers generally feel empowered by their decision. Many opinions that I’ve seen and read, as well, speak of how they’re actually in a position of power as they lead around weak willed men by the, er, desire.
I’m not quite sure what this covers. Women posting on sites, like adult friend finder… looking to fuck someone? College girls posting pictures on something like facebook, looking to fuck someone? Women posting pictures anonymously and enjoying the rush, trill and power coming from knowing that they’ve directly influenced someone’s emotions and made someone want to fuck them?
Okay… so maybe I do have a bit of an idea what she’s talking about. And it seems just as absurd as her first objection. What… a man who was trolling for sexual partners or who wanted to feel sexually desirable would somehow be a traitor to men, or something? No? So why, then, is a woman who wants sex or who enjoys feeling desired somehow causing the ‘death’ of feminism?
What if the woman in question is a PhD who enjoys being appreciated for her brilliant mind when she’s with colleagues during the day, and then wants to feel sexy and have something think that she’s got a nice ass, at night? Are women not allowed to chose, for themselves, what role their own sexuality is allowed to play in their own lives, and what balance, if any, they want it to have in how they project themselves and how they’re perceived?
Again… who is Murphy to make this call? Who gets to decide how she wants her own face to look, Murphy or an individual woman? Who gets to decide how they want to use their own sexuality and whether or not they want breast implants, Murphy or an individual woman? Women who decide to use sex appeal to get what they want are no more ‘anti-feminist’ than the men who pack gyms all across the country, who dye their grey hair, who spend a few hundred more to get a suit that makes them look better, are ‘anti-man’. It’s moralizing twaddle.
And, hell, what is inherently wrong, at all, with wanting to be desirable?
I have known a few women who preferred being totally clean shaven, simply because they felt more comfortable that way. But all that aside, let’s say that none of the women who did that were doing it because they liked it better, let’s say they were doing it to increase the quality of their sex lives. The problem with that is what… exactly?
And, here I thought that a ‘feminist’ goal was to get other people’s noses out of the bedroom, to give women the choice of who, where, when and how to fuck? Or whether they just wanted to warn sexy lingerie for the hell of it even if they’re going home alone. No? Is Murphy really “offended” by women, obviously anonymous to her unless she makes a habit of asking, who’ve dared to wax (gasp!) ‘down there’? Does she actually not only waste time wondering about what women do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, but also spends time worrying about it and being offended by it?
Yikes.
Well… Murphy may actually have a point here. But she is, of course, lacking any explicit statistical data to back her up. I would certainly accept that, to the degree it actually happens, women simply assuming that taking care of all aspects of the home is “woman’s work” would be working against their own rights and privileges as an individual. However… not arguing over the issue doesn’t mean that there’s a problem there, either.
If a couple, for themselves, are both happy with a certain division of labor and feel no need to argue over it, so what? A woman (or a man) who wants a different arrangement but is afraid to ask for it is, indeed, doing themselves a disservice. However, a woman (or a man) who decides, in partnership with their spouse/lover/whatever, how to divide household chores, even if one person accepts the lion’s share of household duties, and then doesn’t fight about it? No fault, no foul.
Oh noez! You mean we actually give women the right to choose natural childbirth or not? To decide if they prefer good sex and a c-section? What is the world coming to when a woman can decide, for herself and without a guardian, to make such a decision?!?
Women’s reproductive and sexual rights are only right when Murphy agrees with them, of course. Of course.
Those whores! They’re ruining feminism! Down with women who wear high heels and like it! Traitors, traitors!
Again, Murphy evidently knows better than parents do as to how their own children should be raised. Certainly, we can assume, that parents who let their young boys have hair gel and stylish clothes (before they turn 10 years old!!!) are equally debauched and worthless as parents.
On her second point, however, she actually scores. Yes, education is important and it shouldn’t be neglected. And yes, traditionally many girls feel that they can’t (or shouldn’t) achieve in school. But something tells me that Murphy would also objects to parents who balance asking about what their daughters’ favorite subjects are with asking what cute boys their daughters like.
Hah. And my 50-something year old mother has video tapes for belly dancing. Maybe she’s a traitor, too? So let’s assume that there are women out there who want to stay in shape, be sexually desirable and who feel sexy being able to pole dance, or belly dance, or perform a strip-tease, or what the fuck ever. So? Again, Murphy seems to know better than individual women do what their individual views of their own sexuality should be.
If feminism can be killed by actresses and sports stars, down on their luck and trying to attract a buzz by showing off their tits, then feminism doesn’t deserve to survive.
What? How dare they?!? There are women (those uppity skanks) who place different priorities on their own lives and who view different things as being important to themselves, as individuals, than Murphy would choose for them? Obviously, such freedom of choice is simply killing feminism.
An interesting double standard, of course. Men who pay attention to their appearance and try to be sexually desirable are strong, in control, powerful and dominant. Women who do the same are weak and are killing feminism. If a man wears a ‘muscle shirt’ so that women will want to have sex with him, he’s a stud. If a woman wears a halter top so that men want to have sex with her, she’s a slut. Murphy is supposed to be a feminist… right?
And then, of course, we’re told that there might be some great cost to women choosing their own lives, priorities and sexuality. And enjoying their choice. The horror. The horror.
Hrm… I wonder why that might be. Could it, perhaps, be because of statements like:
Someone choosing, of their own free will, how to live their own lives, “offends” this moralist. She is “offended” by whether or woman enjoys wearing high heels or keeps her crotch waxed. Offended.
And she wonders why her brand of feminism is a joke.
Whatever the reason, we can be assured, it’s certainly someone else’s fault.
Karen Murphy states that Feminism is Dead. But she doesn’t prove it.
Rather than seriously* discuss ongoing feminist issues, she lists a bunch of “pet peeves”–mostly about fashion choices. (“Countless women have offended me.”) Yes, she mentions lifestyle issues; but prostitution is hardly new. Is every woman who ever wears spike heels a whore?
I wear appallingly sensible shoes. But I also wear makeup–& use henna when my hair looks too dull. Whether I get bikini waxes or let that hair get long enough to braid is none of Ms Murphy’s effing business.
- Of course a serious article would get less attention than a jeremiad against floozies, jezebels & loose women!
Where would ugly women fit within the paradigm?
Marc
Well, we need someone to clean the sewers.
::d&r::
This is mostly a response to FinnAgain. He wrote, “At its heart, Murphy’s position on this issue is pure hypocrisy. It suggests that women are to be treated as responsible agents in their own lives, that they are free to choose their own path, that they are to be treated as equal citizens capable of entering into contracts for work. But if they view their sexuality different than Murphy views hers (and theirs), they’re traitors, unable to make the correct decisions for themselves, and to be ashamed of. It’s bullshit.”
I don’t think that Murphy, or what other so-called “feminists”, are saying is that women can’t make these decisions. What they’re trying to get across is that there are invisible, unspoken assumptions about women (that both women themselves are susceptible to as well as men) that float around in a male-dominated culture that lead women to make these decisions about their sexuality-- and these decisions, when taken en masse, feed into the unacceptable, invisible attitudes that promote those bad decisions in the first place, and the whole thing is a negative cycle.
Murphy lists a lot of examples of these decisions that FinnAgain tries to debunk as hypocrisy or BS. Most of these examples revolve around women sexualizing themselves in various ways, such as getting brazilian waxes, wearing stilettos, taking erotic dance classes, posting half-naked pictures of themselves on the internet, etc.
FinnAgain, many of your responses can be boiled down to the sentiment, “so it makes them feel good about themselves! so what?”
The question to then ask is, why is this the PRIMARY way that girls in our culture make themselves feel good? Where has the value in these acts originated? Can a woman be attractive without being overtly “sexy”?
Why is it that women automatically turn to sexualizing themselves in order to elevate their self-esteem? If that’s the FIRST and EASIEST way of feeling good about oneself, it’s a problem. Feminists’ arguments concern the priority that women place upon being a sexual object-- and not privately, but in a show-offy, “look at me”, window-display sort of way-- in order to feel satisfied with themselves.
There is NOTHING WRONG with wanting to be a sexy individual, to play sexually, to embrace that part of you. But when it becomes the foundation for how you see yourself, dress, portray, and measure yourself against others, it becomes a problem. And this is a cultural epidemic for women, young and old.
What Murphy is saying is that any woman who does not do what Murphy wants has been brainwashed.
Women, IOW, should be free to do as they are told. The only difference is who is doing the telling - some women, instead of some men.
But there is the crux of what is wrong with Murphy’s analysis. Largely due to the historic feminist movement, it is no longer the case that women can only achieve thru their sexuality. Certainly it still happens. But choices are now much wider than they formerly were.
And thus feminists are less relevent than they formerly were. Not all has been accomplished, but much has. Unfortunately, feminists are still fighting the last war, as generals are said to do.
Women have choices now. So, often, they make choices that do not appeal to various others. If the feminist movement were serious, the response would be “so what?”
Women should be free to make choices about their careers, but if they become SAHMs then they are brainwashed and worthless. Women should be free to make choices about their relationships, but if they agree to make sacrifices to sustain a marriage, then they are exploited and stupid. Women should be free to choose about abortions, but if they are pro-life then they are evil brainwashed repressive mindless blah blah blah.
Feminists of a certain type remind me of a stereotypical mother - “After all I did for you, and now you want a bikini wax? That I should live to see the day…”
Regards,
Shodan
FinnAgain, fantastic post. Very well said.
This is categorically incorrect as far as Murphy’s article is concerned. She repeatedly states “women” with no qualification whatsoever. There is no leeway given, no chance for some women to be deriving satisfaction from their sexuality for psychologically healthy reasons, and she even goes so far as to unequivocally deny the very veracity of those women who act in ways that she finds offensive.
I take your point here, but this is not the argument that Murphy makes in the article.
Shifting, then, from Murphy’s dumbass arguments to your very sensible arguments, I have to wonder whether it’s possible to determine whether the masses of women are choosing sexuality as the “primary” way of building their self-esteem, whether that’s the “first” and “easiest” way for so many people. That could easily be true, and we should certainly continue to offer different ideals for self-expression. But we should also be aware of the difficulties in measuring this and in defining success. Ultimately, it’s not computer-generated pictures of women on magazine covers that’s the problem, but rather our reactions that matter. If the fake images on the covers remain exactly the same a hundred years from now, but our reactions have altered for the best, then the problem is no longer so serious.
And Murphy, and those like her, actively hamper that effort. She claims that “feminism” has failed when her only evidence is freely acting women, rather than the motivations for those women. She does this because to do the actually dirty grunt work of research is too hard. It’s much easier to redefine “feminism” to fit only those people who agree with her, while simultaneously ignoring the modest gains in other areas, such as the fact that the next president of these United States could quite possibly be a woman.
It is maddening.
I also believe that FinnAgain’s link to the Atlantic Monthly article about the label “feminist” is particularly relevant. I don’t often label myself as a feminist because I believe it too often conveys the wrong impression. Maybe Rush Limbaugh and his diseased ilk are primarily responsible for that, but I can’t help but hang onto my sneaking suspicion that people like Murphy, who narrow the definition to fit their own agendas and then cry out the “death” of feminism, are equally as harmful.
Just this week, a woman became the top officer in the Indiana National Guard. Feminism is not dead, it’s alive and kicking. Karen Murphy starts with that faulty idea, then she trots out a laundry list that adds up to a notion that feminism made obsolete. She believes that a woman’s expression of her sexuality is anti-feminist. That’s preposterous. In her mother’s generation, an openly sexy woman was scorned by “good” women as a slut/hussy/slattern. Feminism freed women (and men) from that stereotype.
The fight is not over, even now. Women like Karen Murphy still heap scorn on women who strive to look good and enjoy sexuality. Who is she, to tell an actress how to choose her roles? Who is she, to make another woman’s decisions about division of housework? The whole point of feminism is giving each woman the right to make her own decisions.
By the way, I’m a man. I have been pro-feminism for a long time.
I think Finn Again missed the mark, butonly by a little. Murphy isn’t claiming that women are incapable of making their own decisions. She’s claiming that any decision that disagrees with her personal notion of what is in the feminist intrest is a wrong decision. And that’s where Murphy is full of shit.
Murphy also buys into the idea that there is such a thing as an all-encompassing patriarchy bent on keeping women down. You know who’s keeping women down and limiting their choices now? Feminists. You want to stay at home and raise kids? You’ve failed feminism by living your life under the patriarchal rule of a man who works outside the home and thus believes he gets to control every aspect of your life, which you’re not actually happy living but you’ve deluded yourself that this is so. You want to work in science, engineering or mathematics? You’ve failed feminism by particpating in a patriarchal scheme that values male-biased thinking and assumes that there are rules and correct answers rather than taking feelings into account and living life as if there are no right and wrong answers. I wish I was joking, but I couldn’t possibly have made something like that up. There are feminists who actually believe that mathematics is the patriarchal oppression of women!
What feminists mean when they say they want women to have choices is, ‘We want them to choose the life we tell them to.’
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
You have yet to prove that it is the primary way that girls in our culture make themselves feel good. I will admit that many of those things are things that I enjoy, and that they do feel good in some way or give me some kind of enjoyment, but you seem to think that because I like being completely clean shaven and have done the ‘raunch picture’ or two on the Internet that it’s all I have to offer, and that it’s the primary way that I feel good.Well, your assumption is what’s demeaning. You’ve posed it as some kind of a dichotomy where no matter what my other accomplishments (and they are many), because I’ve chosen to remove all my body hair, I’m unable to feel good about myself for anything that you consider to be a valid reason.
That’s not how it works. For one, it’s not anyone’s place to tell me what I am and am not allowed to derive pleasure from, because I am not a slave and I have no master. For another. enjoying the act of pole dancing takes nothing away from the enjoyment of delivering a finished software product. Knowing that my partner finds my clean-shaven crotch a turn on doesn’t diminish the accolades of the VP of our division when I make the company a couple million dollars.
You don’t get to decide which of those it’s valid for me to enjoy.
First you need to prove two things. One is that they actually do this, and the second is that there’s something objectively wrong with it.
You have yet to prove that it is a problem, or that it’s wrong, or that it’s harmful.
Feminists… who cried and bitched and moaned from the safe, touchy feely environment about how the sciences and mathematics and engineering were so closed off and hostile to women. They weren’t there, in my classes, being equals (and by the way, not being shown hostility but having the damn engineering department bend over backward to try to figure out how to get more women interested).
They whined from the stands.
I was on the field playing the game.
And now they want me to not only thank them, but quit shaving my crotch? I have no use for feminists.