The F-word

Feminist backlash is the perfect excuse for everything. Prior to feminists of the 1960s, life was perfect.\nAfter all, everyone was safe in the 1950s. There was no threat of nuclear war, no blatant racism, no thought-police blacklisting powerful people holding the wrong political opinions and no organized crime. Everyone was safe and happy until those rabid women and girly men came along.\nSome would like to tell us the women's movement has led to an increase in crime, an increase in on-demand abortions as birth control and more stressed-out women pulling "double duty" working full-time and still being responsible for most of the housework and child-care.\nBacklashers want us to believe feminists are man-hating militants who want to take over the world, steal men's sperm and deny them access to their children. Of course, there are just as many different kinds of feminists as there are different kinds of men and women, but as the 2004 presidential election proved, explaining the complexities of a situation doesn't exactly make good press. \nWho wants to read about all the different kinds of feminists: traditional feminists, gay and lesbian feminists, postcolonial feminists, poor feminists, et cetera? It's too much to explain and too boring. Generalities are easier to digest.\nSo instead of saying feminists still haven't achieved complete equality, they want us to believe that because of feminism, women now must have a high-powered job while still maintaining a perfect household with perfect children -- and this dis-empowers them. \nInstead of saying that some structural inequalities still exist that lead to so many unintended pregnancies and single mothers living below the poverty line, we say it's the fault of feminism and the sexual revolution that led to the children in the first place.\nThere are a few men out there who feel emasculated and threatened by feminism, and a few women out there who feel feminism has nothing to do with them -- that they would be happier if only they weren't so darned equal. They want to blame feminists for the lack of satisfaction they feel in their own lives.\nWhen people try to say "the world was better when I was a kid," or better yet, "before I was born," -- when mom was "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen," dad didn't have to be sensitive, and no one had to turn to a life of crime -- there's not much I can do except roll my eyes. This "reality" never existed for most people. \nBut of course a lot of baby boomers think the world was better in the '50s -- they were children, and children usually live under the protection of their parents. The country's problems were not yet their concern. One day, we will all be saying that "things were better in the 1990s," believe it or not.\nPoint being, we tend to ignore the facts of history in favor of a romantic view of it. For example, if we still had "traditional marriages," we'd all be "sold" into marriage with someone in a family with whom our parents wanted to close a business deal. Likewise, we fail to realize that a rise in crime rates can signal an increase in reporting and acknowledging crime as much as increases in crime itself. In the past, some women didn't report rape because it meant that they were no longer "marriageable." In that vein, a rise in reports of rape signifies that women are willing to come forward to report the crime. \nIt's OK to look at the past with rose-colored glasses, but not if that means sacrificing future generations. And as long as women are made to be afraid to use the f-word -- feminism -- that's exactly what's happening.