Reply #28: The underlying attitude towards women's rights is more important, I think [View All]

[pmbryant]

As long as they are for equal pay and opportunity, I don't think it matters what they choose to call themselves or not.

I do think it is important for people who feel strongly about taking back the language to self-identify, proudly and often, as feminists. This is likely a key step in reclaiming the word. But even reclaiming the word isn't going to erase the strong negative feelings that the push for women's rights arouses in many people.

I'm currently reading the classic book "Backlash", published in 1991 but still extremely relevant. The author, Susan Faludi, proposes that the backlash against women's rights gets its strength from the attitude of a large fraction of men whose economic fortunes have been steadily declining since the 1970s. These men, with prodding from the media and the right wingers, have latched onto women as a scapegoat. (I believe it is essentially this same group of people who now also scapegoat "liberals" for all their ailments.)

So perhaps the best way to counteract the anti-feminist tide, would be to deprive the backlash of its grassroots by developing a strong economy for all. How to do that with the GOP in total control of the levers of government is obviously going to be a difficult problem.

As for Shlafly and Coulter, there have always been and there always will be women willing to play those roles. We just have to find a way to make them irrelevant.

Peter