No, Virginia, Feminism Died Years Ago

Posted at 4:38 pm on Wednesday, April 11, 2007, in Uncategorized, and tagged misc.

Feminism is dead.

That is what I have been telling my wife for years now (and my wife hesitantly agrees, at least somewhat). Case in point, my wife took my name when we got married. And so has almost everyone else I have known to get married; the women have all taken their husband’s name. And keeping one’s last name was a big part of feminism, retaining one’s own identity as a sign of independence.

My declarative statement is of course incorrect. Feminism exists, but it is different.

There are two types of feminism that are referred to in today’s society. There is “classic” feminism, which really began in the latter part of the nineteenth century culminating with the women’s suffrage movement. The women’s liberation movement decades later, in the sixties and seventies, built off that earlier movement and should be considered a part of “classic” feminism as it was rooted in the same idealogy. And a bit of classic feminism still exists — a woman Speaker of the House, a woman as a frontrunner to the president, are clear examples of so. But are Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton a part of an era now passed?

What exists today is a cultural neo-feminism, or a new type of feminism, that is based largely and almost wholly on sexuality, in some cases, explicit sexuality. Some may say that today’s feminism is in a way anti-feminism (and although, in a way, that could be argued), feminism is about gaining power for women, and although the tool prevalent in today’s feminism is sexuality, women are gaining control or power from it.

It is no longer, “I am woman, hear me roar,” it is, “I am woman, wouldn’t you like to hear me roar.”

With so much open sexuality from women in today’s society — on television, in music videos, in movies, and on the internet, at MySpace, on dating sites — it is sometimes difficult to discern the power grab. Posing in Playboy is a mainstream act in today’s world. It is now considered a publicity stunt, as well as releasing a sex tape. You would not have said that about the women’s liberation movement years ago. Porn stars are becoming a part of the mainstream Hollywood celebrity faction. Pop stars pose nearly nude on weekly and monthly magazines sold at grocery store checkout lines, just years out of high school. Maybe this is the result of the successes of the past feminism movements. Maybe taking the right to vote, the right to work and earn equal money, and the right to control one’s life has lead to this: more nudity.

Women are however gaining power as a result of today’s feminism, although they are using explicit sexuality to achieve it. Whereas years ago women used everything but their sexuality to gain power and control, as a sign of independence, women today are using their sexuality to climb the ladder.

Although I still consider feminism to be “dead,” it is the classic kind that has been buried, with a new feminism emerging, one more demonstrably friendly to the camera. And I will admit, if a god did create man and woman, he spent a lot more time designing Eve.

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