Why feminists are confused...

"And the Future . . .

Having boomeranged once, will women do it again in a couple of decades? If we flash forward to 2030, will we see all those young women who thought trying to Have It All was a pointless slog, now middle-aged and stranded in suburbia, popping Ativan, struggling with rebellious teenagers, deserted by husbands for younger babes, unable to get back into a work force they never tried to be part of?

It's easy to picture a surreally familiar scene when women realize they bought into a raw deal and old trap. With no power or money or independence, they'll be mere domestic robots, lasering their legs and waxing their floors - or vice versa - and desperately seeking a new Betty Friedan."

-- Maureen Dowd The New York Times; October 30, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine/30feminism.html?pagewanted=1&incamp=article_popular



As a woman in my twenties, I don't really think there is confusion amongst young women in their 20-30's. If you choose to look at the world a certain way it's not really angst. Many young women look at the lives their mothers wanted and reject it. They go to college, get a good education and even start out of a successful career path. But, they don't want to look back at 45, unable to have children and regret that they bought the lie that they could do and have it all. Because it is a lie. So, women my age, raised by nannies, would prefer to go another route.

The thing that has always frustrated this twenty-something about feminism is that the true feminist is one that should be about choice...truly. If I choose to get my education, work for a few years and then be a stay at home mom, that's my choice. And I should be heralded as a feminist. Because I can make that choice. Because I want to make that choice. And women my age do make that choice, more and more all the time. Therefore, women my age are true feminists. There isn't much angst there. Some of the women I respect the most have, even recently, made choices to subjugate their very successful careers to their families....because they wanted to. They are shining examples to me. They still have their careers but under their terms. Because I am a political nerd, I adore the Karen Hughes' of the world because she had the uhm...let's just say strength...although I feel another word is appropriate...to tell the President of the United States that she wanted to go home to TX because it was best for her family. And...if he wanted her advice...he could get it but under her terms. Mary Matilin did the same thing. I happen to know from my personal knowledge and experience that these two women in the Bush White House are not alone. I worked for one. And she point blank told Karl Rove, her boss, that she served at the pleasure of the President, but...my kid comes first. And if I choose between the two, it will be my child.

While these women are not of my generation, they serve as the model for what women my age have already figured out. I do not see this as angst. I see it as choice. Honest to goodness, choice. Honest to goodness true feminism. My heroine, Campbell Peyton Robertson, a successful attorney, and political operative, will choose the life she wants because she can. Will it be the one she was trained to believe showed that she was equal to a man? Or the one her heart wants? Uhm....the one her heart wants. Campbell is a feminist.

While I'll be somewhat charitable to Dowd by saying that she is correct about the disturbing nature of the ridiculous physical standards women are playing into. And it is disturbing. I will say that Dowd is truly disturbed because she fears that what she has stood for all these years was futile. She is one of the most bitter women I've ever had the displeasure of reading. She doesn't like that women my age would choose a life she rejected. Because now she wonders, did I spend the last 50 years barking up the wrong tree? And now here I sit, alone. And she is alone if any of you are at all familiar with Dowd. Did she choose that life? Yes. Do I choose mine? Yes. Both are feminists, but in our own way.

I don't think women my age are confused. I think they know what they want. Yes, the issues related to our highly sexualized culture are a problem. But I don't really think this is as much as Dowd's problem as the other issues, if you know anything about Dowd. After all, Cosmo has always been that way. I think she's more concerned that women today don't view feminism the way she does.