Lest you thought feminism's battle was over, let me reassure you, we've only just begun. Not only that, but despite all the work we've left to do, many facets of feminism -- facets that are, by all proper measure, actually settled by now -- continue instead to rerun like so much sitcom syndication. Consider three articles that crossed my desktop this week: First, another spot-on piece by Ann-Marie Slaughter -- this time in Foreign Policy magazine, expounding on the many reasons why we need more women involved in high-level foreign policy (and why we need to change policy around parenthood and attitudes about non-linear career paths if we want to see them there... and why the people most likely to make said changes happen to be women). Next, a throwback piece of "feminism ruined everything" hysteria claiming that women really really really want to get married but can't find men to marry them because, thanks to feminism, "women aren't women anymore." (This by one Fox News' Suzanne Venker, a woman with a career who is also married with children. Just... seriously?) And finally, a lengthy Washington Post piece dissecting, in full hand-wringing anxiety about What It All Means, the fact that women newscasters can now sport long hair and ditch the blazers.
The blogger in me can't help but wonder: which one got the most clicks?
I jest, but also not. Because the thing is, scare tactics can be compelling. You'll never get married, you with your dirty career ambitions, you're not woman enough! And an article about fashion (even newscaster fashion) might generate some interest, likely of the screwing-around-at-work-by-consuming-mental-junk-food variety. Whereas real, substantive discussion is a far harder sell. Which makes sense. But it leaves me wondering: Given what's "clicky" and what's not, how many women are left with the false impression this junk "news" sells -- that feminism is about making women unwomanly and pitting them against men, or having a right to bare arms while delivering the 5:00 news -- as opposed to the stuff that is real, and that really matters and really affects you and your girlfriends and sisters and coworkers, your mothers and daughters? Like reworking work for the new -- nay, the now -- reality, the reality that includes unmarried women who work to support themselves, married women who work to support (or help support) their families and women of all stripes who simply want to work, because they're smart, ambitious and interested in being productive members of society?
Feminism is not about being "angry," "defensive" or an ethos of "men as the enemy." I kid you not, this is the language Venker used. And the calls for "returning to a simpler time," lamenting the loss of the good old days (hi, Republicans!), are about as useful as pining for the return of Beverly Hills, 90210 The Brenda Years. They're over. They're not coming back. Time doesn't go backward. Brenda has moved on. The more you moon over bygones, the more you render yourself irrelevant. Out of touch. And yes, even kinda pathetic. (Though I'll happily go on record as a fan of the Brenda years, I certainly don't expect them to come back.)
Worse, though, is that all the yammering about bygones keeps us focused on the bygones, arguing about things that aren't even issues anymore, that are just reality, the stuff that, by comparison, just doesn't matter that much. Whether or not women should work and be independent is not a question any longer. We do, and we are. And that's, as many of us believe, as it should be. (And, once and for all: The men that don't want to marry someone who'd qualify as an independent woman... is that a guy you really want to spend every bleeding night with, foresaking all others, from here until Ear Hair and Depends, so help you God? Hint: No. No, it is not.) Feminism should be looking forward, not behind, considering what's happening now, and what will come after that.
Time, after all, only moves in one direction.