THE FREEBORN PROJECT

Lipstick Feminists

In the forces of resistance, certain young women stand out as the third main group. These are the “I’m not a feminist, but....” Or, “We’re feminists – but different. We wear lipstick and high heels!” Said one about my generation: “I do feel it’s time for those feminists to step aside....It’s like, we’re grateful for what you did, but it’s time for you to hand over. We’ve got a different world-view, and we might have something different to say.” [Source: “The New Feminists: Lipstick and Pageants,” by Gemma Soames, The Sunday Times, 21 December 2008.]

The Uninformed

The message of the backlash is that feminism is bad. But such is not the problem. The absence of feminism is the problem. Where some see feminism as a failure, it has been a verifiable, qualitative and quantitative success. A working knowledge of feminism and feminist history allows us to expand on our ability to see the truth of our own reality from all angles – intellectual, moral, psychological, emotional, political and philosophical – and to imagine ways to change our individual situations for the better.

Conservatives

Conservative women resist the personal and political maturation that one develops as a feminist. This underdevelopment allows them to ignore the paradox of living modern, educated and financially independent lives (available as a result of women’s rights activism) while choosing to barricade themselves behind the traditional shield where males control everything, including their minds.

Resistance

Not everyone likes women’s advancement toward equal power with men nor do they like the idea of doing what has to be done to move forward, except in their own little microcosm.

Resistance comes from people who want to control women and are angry because they can’t. The resistors are, namely, legions of men and their colluding women all around us: spouses, the “guys,” educators, employers, the entitled, powerbrokers, traditionalists, politicians; and most importantly, those who devote themselves almost entirely to women’s subordination – religiosos. This lot is particularly active in acting on their anger against women for liberating themselves from male dominance.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (cont’d.)

So! The perfect world that the women’s liberation was supposed to deliver did not come to pass. Not because feminism is a failure, but because there is no one answer. Nothing can be all things to all people. The feminist paragon is an excuse for the naive and a bludgeon for the mouthpieces of the status quo. A childish fantasy for the first; a misogynistic barb for the second.

8. GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day (and its 100th anniversary) and millions will be celebrating women’s achievements and making the case for women's rights around the world. And I will continue with this blog and its feminist purposes.

What will the world of women’s equal power combined with the feminine principle look like?

7c. EVOLUTION: Pulling Away From The Herd

Evolution is a bold thing. It requires leaving the herd behind and developing into something new. And it’s dangerous. Those left behind don’t like to have their worldview undermined. And feminists certainly know something about that!

As feminists developed their ideas and acted on their capacity for self-expression, the risks involved in doing so became obvious. The reactions from the status quo were severe. Most prevalent were vilification, ostracization, hatred, resistance to their vision and the wish to eliminate feminist concepts altogether. Susan Faludi describes this in depth in her book, Backlash.

Evolution (cont’d)

What feminist thought and activism achieved for women between its early rise and recent developments – and more so in the last 40 years – is now history. In spite of blathering from naysayers and the fearful, resistant and misogynistic, the evidence of change in society to improve women’s lot has been clearly established. Not only is feminist knowledge reliable, it is dynamic. Generations will continue to use this knowledge to improve their mental potency and position to negotiate the conflicts between women and men and subordinately-minded women.

7a. Evolution

The evolution of women from submissive to sovereign individuals controlling their own lives is a response to the millennial pressure, tension and conflict caused by male domination. Initially, the emphasis of the women’s movement was to “remove women from men’s power and its abuses.” As we progressed and improved our faculty for developing thought and language that expressed what we needed and wanted, our objectives and goals increased in value. As we removed ourselves from the conditions of male dominance and created supportive environments in which we could be actors on our own behalf, the evolution of the definition of power also presented itself.

7. THE FEMINIST IMAGINATION: Prime Mover

For millennia, women accepted life as they knew it as a given. They had little or no independent models as reference through which to articulate their vision and establish their own narrative. Nor did they have the social and cultural wherewithal. Confronting entrenched beliefs was done in a vacuum and individual contemplation produced imaginings such as The Woman’s Bible – a rewrite of The Holy Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1895/1898) – criticizing biblical interpretation that denigrated women and women's role.