A Glass Half Full

~ Laura

On Sunday, Dowd claimed that the gains of feminism are being undone in recent years. I thought I should just isolate that point and get feedback on it.

I think that feminism has been widely successful. Using the completely unscientific but fun method employed by Dowd, let me prove my case.

After watching umpteen hours of TV, my son believes that whenever there is a dual between a girl and a boy, the girl always wins.

Women compete side-by-side with men on reality shows like Survivor and the Apprentice. They have a fair amount of success on these shows. On the other hand, the first thing that they do when they get off the show is take off their clothes for Maxim, so perhaps this example is a draw.

There is no one size fit all feminist anymore. Take for example the blog Feminist Mormon Housewives and please read their funny take on polygamy.

And look at all the strong, independent women in the conservative blogosphere. Is there anyone who doesn’t think that women can compete with men?

Women and men who don’t have children make roughly the same amount of money. After women have kids, then things go to hell, so things aren’t perfect.

I mentioned yesterday that the two potential candidates for the next presidential election may be Hillary and Condi. More women than men are now entering the university. More men are staying home with the kids. This is progress that should be celebrated.

I think the notion of a woman’s equality has become ingrained in society. Perhaps, women today are so comfortable with their equality that changing their names and wearing frilly aprons don’t seem threatening.

What do you think?

Published by Laura

15 thoughts on “A Glass Half Full”

  1. Feminism has been widely successful. 57% of college students are women. This is a huge change from the fifties.

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  2. Since I started working, thirty years ago, most of my supervisors have been women. At the beginning, people thought this was a big deal, asked me if I had a problem with it, asked me sort of delicately what these women were ‘like’ (interestingly, the questions came from men and women.) Now, no one asks.
    Childless women and childless men in the work force, with comparable credentials, make almost exactly the same money.
    My mother was driven out of a chemistry major at San Jose State College by a professor who would not give any woman a grade higher than ‘C’ – these days there would be black rubber acceleration marks all over the road from the vehicle taking someone like that off campus.

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  3. I think feminism (should be) is about having choices. So from that perspective I think we’ve been mostly successful – I have lots of choices available to me. At the same time, I think that there are still some biases against women that are strong enough to think we’re not done yet….
    In interviewing for an academic job, I was told not to wear a wedding ring or talk about family attachments. People might think that I would be less than committed to/qualified for the job because I might want a family. Some of the tenure discussions I’ve heard hinge on family issues.
    Studies that show that although more women get PhDs fewer get tenure also concern me.
    I’m not sure we’re done yet.

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  4. I had a discussion with my students about feminism just yesterday, in which a large number of them said that of course they were for gender equality – who wouldn’t be? – but that feminists were about proving that women were better than men. They earnestly told me that if feminism were just about women and men being equal/having equal opportunities in society, then everyone would be a feminist. From which one might conclude: ideas of gender equity are ingrained in today’s society. Feminism as a success? Maybe not so much.
    (I figure this method of analysis – “my students said” – has to be just as scientific as Dowd’s.)

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  6. IMHO feminism has done a couple of things.
    First, at least when it comes to work, we’ve moved beyond making assumptions based on gender alone. We’re not shocked by female airline pilots, for example, or female astronauts. (Less clear how shocked we’d all be by a straight male kindergarten teacher.)
    Secondly, it has revealed that the real issue is with how our society treats parents, not just women. The American workplace is hostile to involved parents, period. (It’s actually hostile to anyone who doesn’t live to work.) Having broken the tie between gender and parenting suddenly it becomes clear that this is really about time and flexibility, not scary hormone fluctuations.
    I can see where young women don’t see frilly aprons as threatening. It’s so far removed from their reality — the idea of a woman who actually has no other options in life than to stay home. And I’m not surprised that they don’t turn into bitter feminists until after they’ve tried to return to work.

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  8. I agree with you. I read Stephanie Coontz’s “The Way We Never Were;” she informs us that as recently as the fifties, women could not serve on many juries; as late as the seventies, women could not get credit in their own names; marital rape was legal until the seventies, as well.
    Now, women own their own businesses in rapidly growing numbers. They serve on the Supreme Court. It’s taken for granted that we will go to college and get jobs. If I may drag this back into MoDo marriage territory here for a moment, think also of the much wider choices women have in marriage partners. The options of interracial marriage, or marrying a younger man, are no longer shocking and scandalous but pretty much normal and accepted. One-quarter of women now outearn their husbands. We can afford to marry that cute poet because we have good jobs. More and more men are connecting with their kids. You see dads, not just moms, toting babies in their Bjorns and pushing strollers.
    Things are by no means perfect but if we look back to the 70’s when the second wave of feminism launched – we really have come a long way, baby.

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  9. I’m reading Dowd’s book right now, and I’m getting a better picture of her argument than what was presented in the Times.
    As she recounts every slight and slur from ex-boyfriends and political adversaries, I find it amazing that our experiences were so different. Until I had kids, I never felt that being a woman barred me from certain occupations. In fact, I have a PhD in a traditionally male field and never once got hassled about it. After I had kids, then the problems happened.
    Maureen is 15 years older than I am. I think that those were very important years.

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  10. I also think that we all have different priorities and different ways of defining “feminism.”
    I took my husband’s name when we married – gladly. I liked his name better than mine and it never was a matter of dependence or feminism for me. I have friends who are shocked by this. How could I join the patria
    But, one of the reasons that I work outside the home (only part-time, but still it’s outside the home) is because I do have a problem with him being the only breadwinner in the family. I don’t want to be dependent on him for all the money. I know, I know – we have an equal marriage and it would always be “our” money and he certainly makes a whole heck of a lot more than I do, anyway. But it is a pretty big issue for me.
    I’d like to see a new group of “mother-feminists” take on the issue of part-time/flexible work for mothers AND fathers. Or health insurance that resides outside one’s employer – so if you do need to take a break from a job, your kids can still get medical attention. Or some sort of very large tax break for any person who takes care of children full time (be it a mother, father or daycare provider or preschool teacher.)
    Just rambling now. I’ll have to read Maureen’s book. As for the padded bras, she obviously hasn’t seen her bosom decrease by 2 full sizes after nursing for 4 straight years, now has she? Sigh. I’ll take the push-up bras, thank you very much. And I’ll proudly wear them to work.

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  12. We’ve certainly come a long way. When I was interviewing twenty years ago for a corporate university scholarship (at 17) I was asked what my plans were for having children (I honestly said I had no idea, and failed to get the scholarship). There is zero chance that question would be asked now, even down here in Australia.
    But I’m still only one of 8% female equity partners of my big 4 accounting firm, and you can’t blame that (as the management still does) on lack of time for women to emerge through the ranks. I don’t even think you can blame it totally on parent unfriendliness. There is still some old fashioned sexism (hidden behind other criteria) going on.

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