Why "fun feminism" should be consigned to the rubbish bin

[Alcibiades]

228. Can we go back to women's liberation?

I was raised in a father-free home by my feminist mom to support women's lib. I read Ms. magazine back in the 1970's when my mom had a subscription, and it occurs to me that I am not alone in this: there's a whole generation of men out there who were raised by feminists, and these feminist moms did more for the next generation of women by raising their sons right than anything Andrea Dworkin has ever done, said or written.

Women's liberation is a concrete political and social program. Feminism, of the brand this author seems to espouse, was directed at some sort of poststructuralist theoretical word war that I'm not smart enough to understand, except that another journal article doesn't make a damn bit of difference for most women one way or another.

My generation-and I'm 43 now, concieved during the summer of love-has heard this sort of thing our entire adult lives. This does not seem to be about feminism so much as generational politics. Feminism has achieved concrete things, though one wonders if perhaps it did more to crack the glass cieling for women at the top than it did to help the many more women who are service workers, for example. And yet the toothpaste is out of the tube. American women (and couples) practice birth control, and they have increasingly done so for about 100 years. Women are not going back to being homemakers, that's just not happening. The first act of the greatest Democratic president since LBJ was to sign the Lily Ledbetter Act. Left, right and center, these are real changes that the feminist movement can take pride in, and improve upon.

So what do they do? Sit around and gripe about the young feminist women. I cannot believe it! Instead of using the opportunity to show some of the solidarity with women they have professed to want to see, these older leaders of a successful movement shake their heads at the youngsters. It's as if the founding generation, around 1820 or so, took time out to castigate the younger foks about how they don't appreciate what they have because they never were part of the British empire.

If you feel superceded, it could be because you haven't kept up.