What Happened to the Revolution?

In one of his better endeavors to discuss gender issues, Kevin Drum ended a recent post with this pronouncement:

This is why gender equality per se should get more attention from the liberal community: because it's the underlying core of so many emotional, election-deciding issues. I know, I know: this kind of talk is just so 70s. And it's true that the tone of feminist rhetoric — especially academic feminism — probably puts off a lot of liberal men, including me from time to time. But it's hard to make headway on all these disparate issues without understanding the core sensibility that drives so many of them. We shouldn't allow pique to get in the way of that.

Ignoring, for the moment, the grand oversimplifications implied in his observations about “feminist rhetoric” and “academic feminism,” Kevin suggested some interesting issues for discussion. But, because his post also included some tidbits about Michigan’s Conscientious Objector Policy, his comments section got bogged down in a debate about that specific policy instead of the larger issue of political power.

The social movements of the 60s and early 70s promised needed reform for the benefit of women, people of color, and other constituencies under-represented in a whole host of spheres. A few improvements were made in the lives of the most vociferous. While I was but a wee one during this era, I recall feeling like humanity was moving forward.

In the early 80s, it all came to a grinding halt. Why? Was it backlash? The Reagan Revolution? AIDS? Whatever it was, we haven't recouped.

I tend to believe that those who had power didn’t want to relinquish any more of it. They gave some of us a few crumbs to keep us sated. It was the “steam control” Tom Wolfe describes in his 80s classic, The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Kevin is also right to point out that "issues of gender and sex are at the core of so many contemporary hot button social issues." Yet, the voices of the greatest stakeholders still go largely unheard.

Comments

[Kat]

"feminist rhetoric": All that silly female stuff men simply don't want to hear.

[Eli]

Like you said, people who have power don't want to give it up. As embarasing as it is, it is specially true for liberal white men. Because before they are liberal, they are white men. Before they are white men, they are men.

Conservative men don't seem to have the same issue with sharing power with conservative women. That may be because both groups are in lock-step position on all the issues. Liberals have a tendancy to allow more disagreement on issues.

[Ken C.]

off-putting feminist rhetoric: " "feminist rhetoric": All that silly female stuff men simply don't want to hear"

[Amanda]

Good god, someone take his shovel away from him. He just digs and digs and digs.

[Kat]

Apparently my sarcasm is way too covert.

[Christie]

Christina Hoff Sommers and the amazing "framing" of feminism into two completely imaginary camps: The so-called equity feminists (good, they just want equality), and the so-called gender feminists (bad, they want to steal your daughter's minds - AKA "academic feminists" because they have infiltrated our colleges).

How it looks to me is that "equity" means we try to get treated equally, but we never, ever actually discuss or think about WHY we aren't already. And heaven forbid we ever put an academic, historical, economic, philisophical, or religious analyis on women's issues. Just focus on equal pay and don't think too hard. That's a good girl.

[susan]

I'm delurking (I know this is the wrong post, but nevertheless) to second Christie's comment & to add that the most beloved equity feminists are the ones who complacently say "We're already pretty much there. Yes, women don't make quite as much as men, but isn't it great that we at least have the opportunity to point that out?" And women are so much prettier when they smile & aren't shrill. . . .

[notway]

e.g. feminist rhetoric:

Andrea Dworkin: all heterosexual intercourse is rape;

Catherine MacKinnon: Speech must be controlled to prevent "subordinating" depictions of women and minorities.

(supply your own examples)

[Lisa]

Dworkin never said that: check http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mackinno.htm

[notway]

Well, I looked it up, and there are plenty of examples of Dworkin talking about the "violence" of penetrative heterosexual intercourse. She wrote a book about it, titled "Intercourse."

So, the biological process that led to your existance (unless your origin is "in vitro") was given an book-length theoretical critique by Dworkin. lol

Personally, I think the fact that such a whacko can make a living off of such kooky stuff is a great thing. Hey, even the craziest ideas can make us think: doesn't mean the ideas aren't crazy.

MacKinnon, as a more presentable ally of the right-wingers, is more dangerous.

This is academic feminism.