Tomorrow’s Washington Post Book World includes a review of Professor Jennifer Scanlon’s new biography of Helen Gurley Brown, Bad Girls Go Everywhere. The reviewer is none other than Naomi Wolf, vanguard of Third Wave Feminism. I’ve occasionally had differences of opinion with Naomi Wolf, but I think she’s a righteous sister who generally speaks the truth and fights the good fight on our behalf.
So when I saw the title of the review: “Who Won Feminism–Hint: She’s the Diva Who Ran Cosmo” I was crushed. If Naomi Wolf was about to cede feminism to Helen Gurley Brown, I was going to have to sit a feminist shiva and declare Naomi Wolf dead to me. Because y’all know how I feel about Helen Gurley Brown, Traitor to Womanity. (Hint: she is to feminism as Budweiser is to Alcoholics Anonymous).
But I was pleasantly surprised as I read on. While I absolutely do not buy Scanlon and Wolf’s protestation that “Brown is a genuinely important figure who pioneered a feminism that championed women as cheerful, self-empowered individualists” the review goes beyond simply critiquing the book to giving an insightful summation of Second- and Third-wave feminism that I completely agree with. To wit:
Third wave feminism is pluralistic, strives to be multiethnic, is pro-sex and tolerant of other women’s choices. It has led to an embrace of what was once so politically suspect — the notion that you can be a “lipstick lesbian” or a “riot grrrl” if you want to be, that you can choose your persona and your freedom for yourself.
But that very individualism, which has been great for feminism’s rebranding, is also its weakness: It can be fun and frisky, but too often, it’s ahistorical and apolitical. As many older feminists justly point out, the world isn’t going to change because a lot of young women feel confident and personally empowered, if they don’t have grass-roots groups or lobbies to advance woman-friendly policies, help women break through the glass ceiling, develop decent work-family support structures or solidify real political clout.
Feminism had to reinvent itself — there was no way to sustain the uber-seriousness and sometimes judgmental tone of the second wave. But feminists are in danger if we don’t know our history, and a saucy tattoo and a condom do not a revolution make.
The fact is, we know the answers to Western women’s problems: The way is mapped out, the time for theory is pretty much over. We know the laws and the policies we need to achieve full equality. What we lack is a grass-roots movement that will drive the political will. “Lipstick” or lifestyle feminism won’t produce that movement alone.
As Scanlon puts it: “Ever the optimist, [Brown] chose to see pleasure where others saw danger, allies where others saw oppressors, and opportunities where others saw obstacles. If other feminists could be faulted for overemphasizing the ways in which women were victimized, Helen Gurley Brown can be faulted for underemphasizing women’s workplace and personal challenges.”
Well said. Enjoy your weekend, ladies.
I don’t buy that turning so-called feminists “cheerful, self-empowered individualists” is a particularly laudable accomplishment either. As Wolf points out,taking the anger out of feminism and replacing it with “cheerfulness” fragments the greatest thing that first wave feminism had working for it: collective drive. Feminism may snare more flies with honey–individualism, and economic incentives such as HGB’s whole “never pay for your date” BS–but in doing so we undermine what should be the unstoppable force of all women working for the same universal goals.
I don’t think HGB’s biggest fault is under “emphasizing women’s workplace and personal challenges”; I think, aside from being a gigantic twat, her biggest fault is creating a culture that implies that individual women are alone in their struggle for equality.
@Kelsium: Agreed. And HGB doesn’t want us to be together in our struggle for equality because then we might be stealing each other’s boyfriends or something. She’s all about undermining your fellow women in the pursuit of your own empowerfulment.
(and hey, welcome! good to see you here!)
@BeckySharper:
Thanks! I’m glad to be here, and I really really enjoyed going back and reading your earlier HGB piece. It is easily the highlight of my day!
I think Wolf hits the nail on the head here. What has this so-called “Lipstick” feminism really gotten us? The “right” to be a Girl Gone Wild? I’m all for sex positivity, but I think too much of what passes for feminism today is really a backlash: women asserting that they are wielding power by submitting to the whims of the Patriarchy. Or maybe I’m just a bitter old bitch.
I just realized that when an argument uses the word “empowered” unironically, I mentally check out.
If La Chica Lucy is a bitter old bitch, than I’ll proudly claim that title. (Can we ironically call ourselves “BOBs”?) I thought it had already been established that “sex positive” is an extremely divisive, pejorative term meant to demean those who simply can’t, in good conscience, support the sex industry. You can love sex, you can be a sex maniac, but you may very well be a feminist who sees an inextricable link between the sex industry and patriarchy, and who believes “raunch culture” is inherently harmful to feminism and the humanity of women as a collective whole.
Whenever a feminist uses the term “sex positive” unironically, I feel like I’ve been kicked in the teeth.
Nanella, I’m not a fan of “sex positive” feminism either. I like Twisty Faster’s take on it. An excerpt:
@Nanella: We will have a special wing of the Old Harpy House dedicated to Bitter Old Bitches. Reserve your room now!
I don’t think that “sex positive” is always associated with debates over the validity of sex work. I usually hear “I’m sex-positive!” in the context of “I can fuck whoever I want whenever I want and you can’t judge me!” And “fucking is a feminist act.” Which is a giant FAIL.
But I think there needs to be a term in the feminist movement for how women should be unashamed of our sex lives and our sexual needs, and in control of our own sexuality. That’s seeing sex in a positive light, and I think that’s an essential part of feminism.
@Um, a bunch of people:
I have heard “sex positive” associated in the way that Nanella and BeckySharper describe, but I’ve also heard it used to describe Planned Parenthood youth forums, GLBT outreach groups, etc. I like the term itself, as I think it accurately describes what it intends: an outlook that says sex is a positive thing. It saddens me that, like HGB and her Cosminions did with “feminism”, the same “individualists” have appropriated the idea and turned it into some kind of apologist term that means “I’m okay, you’re okay, no judgment! STFU!”
As a young woman who emphatically does NOT whip out her breasts every time a male drunkenly hoots for me to do so, the ‘sex-positive’ hijacking has made me roaringly angry for years(basically since the first time I realized that I had breasts, but they weren’t really mine, they were considered community property). HGB and her ilk have merely pushed playing the same gender roles that the patriarchy enforces, but merely smeared a shiny lipstick-pink veneer of ‘feminism’ over it. Taking the drive and anger out of feminism as my mother explained it to me has really just robbed my generation of a call to arms, and the sense of community that is needed to get anything done.
Can I join the Bitter Old Bitches, too? Pretty please? I’ll bake Buffalo Tofu Wings and bring wine.
Yeah, when I said I am for “sex positivity” I meant more the way Kelsium discribes: an outlook that sees sex as a positive thing, or as BeckySharper said: “women should be unashamed of our sex lives and our sexual needs, and in control of our own sexuality.” I’m sorry if I misued the term, because I do NOT support the sex industry.
Nanella, I do see myself as “a feminist who sees an inextricable link between the sex industry and patriarchy, and who believes “raunch culture” is inherently harmful to feminism and the humanity of women as a collective whole.” I hope I can still get a room at the Old Harpy House.