Burning issues for girls today

[CHIMO]

THE word “patriarchal” has been running through my mind ever since I heard of the death of feminist writer Andrea Dworkin. I once shouted it at a colleague who had annoyed me: a pretty lame epithet, but the anger behind it was real and shared by most women of my generation. It wasn’t that we hated our fathers, but that we hated the way society tried to keep us forever children. We could be teachers, secretaries or shop assistants so long as we were mothers, wives or mistresses as well; we could be anything we wanted so long as we depended on men.

It’s over 35 years since the first bras were burned, and the women’s movement launched into public consciousness. The women of that baby boomer generation thought they’d invented feminism, though of course they hadn’t. They had come up with the most powerful image of female revolt since Emily Davidson flung herself under the hooves of King George V’s horse in the 1913 Derby. There’s doubt now as to whether anyone actually burned anything in 1968, but they did throw bras, girdles and suspender belts into a trashcan at that year’s Miss America contest.

They also lit a match to a prolonged public debate about gender equality. Andrea Dworkin brought an elemental fury to the debate, a volcanic outpouring of fiery emotion and radical thought. She wasn’t a particular heroine of mine – the denseness of her ideas could be so impenetrable that at times you felt as if you were reading hieroglyphics.

For Dworkin, patriarchy was a life and death matter. We are still in a world where adults make war, not love; where the culture has led women to become more female and men more male. If a young Dworkin came onto the scene today, she would probably just be ridiculed for the size of her thighs.

http://www.sundayherald.com/49097

[izzie]

1. Interesting how you feel

I was a little shocked that the women movement made a lot of women just second rate men. But some things are a little better. Would like to see more real women in Congress and not those poor women who play the game of men. Maybe they must play with the boys to make things better. That I have never been sure of.

[Eloriel]

3. Not written by CHIMO but by Jean Rafferty - you might go to the link

I was a little shocked that the women movement made a lot of women just second rate men.... Would like to see more real women in Congress and not those poor women who play the game of men. Maybe they must play with the boys to make things better. That I have never been sure of.

Let me tell you something. There are two key, essential reasons for what you're complaining about and neither of them women's fault.

First -- and perhaps you weren't around back then -- in the late 60s and esp. the early and mid-70s when women began discovering their freedom to be anything they wanted to be, without the severe restrictions placed on them by society, labor practices and the law istself, we didn't freakin' KNOW how or what to be. We have few if any role models -- with the exception of a few "exceptional" women like Eleanor Roosevelt, movie stars (not a particularly good role model), and the like. I can vividly remember my own personal confusion and bewilderment, and the enormous flurry of activity women in academia and elsewhere went thru to try to dis-cover what The Authentic Feminine might be. The effort created a huge surge in knowledge in such areas as women's literature, women's history, women and religion and myth, Goddesses, etc.

Second -- we might have been able to be freer than we ever were before, but we were STILL (and ARE still) playing on the men's court. That we've been able to impact it at all, given all the resistance and then unending backlash against us, is rather remarkable.

It's very much like government: it's fine to have ethics and a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, but once you get elected you've got to fit into the system into which you've been thrust, for good or ill. If you're a freshman, whether at state or federal level, you've got your dues to pay and IF you want to accomplish anything agenda-wise (like get some legislation passed), you're going to have to learn to play the game. I personally HATE it -- hate that good people have to be bent to conform at least in part to the way the game is played, and could NOT do it myself, but if you want to accomplish ANYthing, you learn. And fast.

There's actually a third issue: the acculuturation of women. Too many women (and based on your remarks, I might even include you in this category!) are NOT friends of women. They are NOT on their own gender's side, even a good many women who think they are. They end up arguing things that are counter to the best interests of women's equality, things which extend ignorance of women's issues and history, things which promote patriarchy and its interests, etc. They either don't know any better, or they THINK -- because of the way they were raised, and their natural, innate pro-authoritarian, pro-patriarchal bent I suppose -- that their ideas are the right ones. And really, that must be so, because who holds ideas they think are wrong??

Edited to add: All of that's not to say that women who ARE conscious couldn't do a better job of promoting The Authentic Feminine in every sphere of influence on the planet. But let's not blame THEM because they stepped into a rigged game and have done -- for the most part -- the best they could.

[fortyfeetunder]

5. Bravo, Eloriel!

I couldn't have said it better!

[fasttense]

2. Did you know Judaism and Christianity once

debated if women had souls. I'm surprised the issue hasn't come up again. Religion is the most patriarchal group there is. Men don't try to keep us children, they try to keep us as animals. The feminist movement is dead and Judaism and Christianity had a big hand in it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. If they did they were going against Jesus, who treated women as

worthy of having serious discussoins with--something unusual for his time.

Much of the extreme anti-women writing in Christianity came during the medieval period, when monasticism was strong. Some of the most misogynistic writing came from abbots and bishops who were trying to convince their monks (some of whom had been placed in the monasteries as children--this was a favorite way of getting rid of unwanted children) that they weren't missing anything by being celibate.

By the way, some varieties of Buddhists believe that women cannot achieve Enlightenment unless they are first reincarnated as men.