In the last year, we've seen a flurry of articles about women. Women who can't have it all, women who are deciding to be homemakers over careerists, women who can afford short maternity leaves, and let's not forget, women who lean in.
All of these articles and book(s), at one point or another, ponder the question: are we letting down our foremothers in their fight for total gender equality, is feminism dead? While it's healthy to keep asking ourselves that question, I'd like to now answer it with an unequivocal NO, feminism is not dead in America. And the very reason I know this is because we ask ourselves the question approximately every week in the media. A month from now, there will be a long form article in the Atlantic Monthly titled Is Feminism Dead Now? 3 months later, How 'bout now? 6 Months later Did Sheryl Sandberg Inadvertently Just Kill Feminism?
There are a few modern day societal truths we need to recognize when it comes to discussing feminism in general:
1) Nowadays most households need two incomes to stay afloat. It's actually a luxury for a woman to make the decision to stay home for the kids. Not that it can't happen from time to time, say if one loses his or her job, a couple can tighten their belts and live off of one for a bit, but generally speaking, having the ability to live off of one income means you're one of the lucky few. So basically, women in the workplace is a fact of life that will probably never go away. When given a choice, women have, well, the choice. A choice indicates that the decision is theirs, which was not the case back in the 50s.
2) Feminism is so alive, we barely talk about straight men anymore when discussing gender. In all these articles about women, men are very one- dimensional. The last time I saw an actual article about men was in 2010 and it stated that the end of men had arrived. Before that, it was all about metrosexuals, essentially, the feminization of men. In print media at the very least, we've managed to emasculate men pretty well. In real life, there seems to be a group that has accepted their new fate, another that seems to react violently against it.
3) Not all women, just like not all men, should be leaders. I don't mean to say hey we can't all be Sheryl Sandberg, but hey, we can't all be Sheryl Sandberg (and by we I mean you). I'm going to throw in a whole bunch of men into that pile too. Women and men are different, but on this fact, they aren't all that different. I personally don't believe that the fact that there are less women in leadership positions is a result of men holding them down, except maybe in very sexist and cromagnon environments like the financial industry.
So back to the now age old question, is feminism dead? It seems pretty clear that the idea behind it, that women should and can do anything men can, is alive and well. Obviously though, the conversation has evolved and become more subtle. We're realizing the impact that a more powerful female population has on gender overall and it's not simple by any means. If women are changing, men have to change as well, as do the children they raise. There are ripple effects on society that we couldn't necessarily foresee. The post-feminist world is not anti-feminist, it's just one in which new complexities in gender relations have emerged. For instance, there is still a lot of confusion when it comes to women and men regarding their conduct towards sex and relationships. Men don't really know how to act anymore, women think they need to aggressively demand that men treat them like the Godesses they are even though they are totally not Godesses but human beings, and the best they can ask for is to be treated with the respect they deserve, but whatever. It's all kind of a mess. There aren't clear cut laws we can implement as we do in the workplace to dictate romantic behavior (besides the "no means no" rule which is essentially a law). This leaves some folks yearning for yesterday when dating and mating were simpler because they followed suit from entrenched gender roles.
Another confusing aspect of the blurring of gender roles is child rearing and household chores. It is known that infants need their mothers most in those first months of life, it is known that that women tend to be more efficient at cleaning the house than men are. The latter is generalized, but still, the majority of women are better at that stuff than men. There are things that men tend to be better at than women like fixing things and faking it til they make it (see leadership positions above). Know that these days, when we do talk about men in general, it tends to be to point out their failures (less men attend college than women, they tend to do more poorly when they do, the male blue collar worker is in decline and suffering). And we say that sort of triumphantly to point out how far women have come. We're right to encourage and empower women, but I don't believe it should be at the expense of men. We know what happens when a gender is oppressed. Shouldn't we, as a society, encourage both men and women? Total gender equality is far from a utopic state in my opinion. Double standards exist on both sides and while some are unfortunate, I think they're rooted in our biology more than our psyche, i.e. they probably won't change much. Men are good at shit and women are good at shit and they just need to play up their strengths and not try to outplay eachother. What we need to focus on is rewarding these strengths as equally as possible. I actually think that this is where "feminism" should head next.
Note: A lot of the above doesn't necessarily apply to the developing world, where feminism has yet to actually be born.
No comments:
Post a Comment