feminazis are funny

Last night I watched almost an entire episode of the Colbert Report for the first time (I also got to watch my mythological boyfriend, Jon Stewart, but I think it's best to leave that little episode for my own-ahem-fantasy life) and his guest was Linda Hirshman, feminist academic philosopher who recently wrote a book entitled: Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World. Granted, this was clearly not a serious interview. But what struck me was how, once again, academia manages to seem completely out of touch with reality (and by academia I mean The Left). The book is a polemic so it's obviously meant to generate discussion and take the other side of a much beloved point of view. One of my favorite books is: Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis so it's not as if I don't understand the point of polemics. But for some reason, last night this woman touched a nerve with me.

I consider myself a feminist. In fact, I can't imagine being a woman and not identifying with feminist principles-equal rights, equal pay, equal opportunities, blah blah blah. But I do have a tendency to get irked when I am told that I'm not feminist enough or when the feminist movement ignores the realities of the majority of women.

After doing a little more reading, I discovered that she's actually not addressing the majority of women. She's addressing the "educated and affluent" woman who is 30-40 years old, married and with children. Whew! Glad to hear I'm not failing feminism. Her research for that particular article I just linked was spotty at best (something about women who's wedding announcements were in the Sunday Styles weddings section of the NYT--and her inspiration for this little research project was the infamous Charlotte SITC episode where she agonizes over her wedding making the cut--rah rah for pop culture!) but the thrust of her argument was that well-educated women who "chose" to stay at home instead of pursuing careers are wrong to do so. The issue of "choice" in feminism is what failed feminism:

"The privileged brides of the Times -- and their husbands -- seem happy. Why do we care what they do? After all, most people aren't rich and white and heterosexual, and they couldn't quit working if they wanted to.

We care because what they do is bad for them, is certainly bad for society, and is widely imitated, even by people who never get their weddings in the Times. This last is called the "regime effect" and it means that even if women don't quit their jobs for their families, they think they should and feel guilty about not doing it. That regime effect created the mystique around The Feminine Mystique, too.

As for society, elites supply the labor for the decision-making classes -- the senators, the newspaper editors, the research scientists, the entrepreneurs, the policy-makers, and the policy wonks. If the ruling class is overwhelmingly male, the rulers will make mistakes that benefit males, whether from ignorance or from indifference. Media surveys reveal that if only one member of a television show's creative staff is female, the percentage of women on-screen goes up from 36 percent to 42 percent. A world of 84-percent male lawyers and 84-percent female assistants is a different place than one with women in positions of social authority. Think of a big American city with an 86-percent white police force. If role models don't matter, why care about Sandra Day O'Connor? Even if the falloff from peak numbers is small, the leveling off of women in power is a loss of hope for more change. Will there never again be more than one woman on the Supreme Court?" (my emphasis)

She's right about the elites supplying the labor for the decision-making classes--the most powerful classes. That's exactly why I want to be in administration some day. The power to enact change happens at that level and that's where the big boys play. But it's really not all that revolutionary. It's no different than the whole "if women ran the world there would be no more war" argument that's been passed around for decades (though I point to Margaret Thatcher and say REALLY?!). What bother's me is the judgment of the second paragraph. It's bad for them...there are alot of things in this world that are bad for people but one of the greatest aspects of this society is our ability to chose. It seems counterproductive to the feminist movement to admonish those who make a choice-a personal choice-based on what is best for them instead of attempting to shoot through the glass ceiling.

I know this is painfully long and but a few will actually read most of it, but I had to laugh when she suggests a way to follow her third rule: "...don’t put yourself in a position of unequal resources when you marry."

"You can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality. Taking the easier path first, marry down. Don't think of this as brutally strategic. If you are devoted to your career goals and would like a man who will support that, you're just doing what men throughout the ages have done: placing a safe bet."

AND

"Because money is such a marker of status and power, it's hard to persuade women to marry poorer. So here's an easier rule: Marry young or marry much older. Younger men are potential high-status companions. Much older men are sufficiently established so that they don't have to work so hard, and they often have enough money to provide unlimited household help. By contrast, slightly older men with bigger incomes are the most dangerous, but even a pure counterpart is risky."

Love.It.
I'm going to start working on my personal ad immediately.

Slate, of course, in typical Slated-out fashion has 2 opposing analysis of her book here and here.