Feminists Gone Wild Sascha Elise Cohen | Bio

Elizabeth Wurtzel

Remember Elizabeth Wurtzel, the sexy/suicidal Gen X-er who penned the classic 90s angst memoir Prozac Nation, in between attending classes at Harvard and vomiting up her Lithium?

She's back, with a smart article in The Los Angeles Times about the state of women today. Wurtzel points out some troubling realities: there are few females in positions of power, wage inequality persists, women are expected to be either well paid whores or passive housewives, and people still watch Entourage.

What is responsible for all of this? According to Wurtzel, it's the women's movement. We totally failed. We done screwed up our little lady liberation party, and after burning all of those expensive satin bras! (Well, not exactly.)

Wurtzel is concerned that third wave "Do Me" feminism, (marked by "lipstick glamour, a joyous embrace of femininity, and an affectionate embrace of men") has inadvertently morphed into a full-fledged, Girls Gone Wild panty-dropping raunch culture. Columnist Meghan Daum agrees.

Great, but didn't Ariel Levy already say this in 2005? After Time covered it in 1998? I'm over the diatribes about how six-year olds getting bikini waxes and wearing thongs with Disney princesses on them is somehow the fault of young feminists.

We aren't the ones to blame for your daughter's "trophy wife/streetwalker" Halloween costume, Playboy bunny tattoo, or infected nipple piercing. Advocating sexual expression is not the same as advocating sexual exploitation, and any link between the two is largely a media distortion.

Third wave feminists of all ages who are serious and critical of the status quo don't think everything a woman does is automatically empowering. But we also don't need to be, like, all judgmental about it. Time to find a new scapegoat.