I’ve had trouble comprehending older feminists’ take on my generation of feminists for a while now, but I really have a problem with Linda Hirshman’s piece about Jezebel.com. She writes:
“These Jezebel writers are a symptom of the weaknesses in the model of perfect egalitarian sexual freedom; in fact, it’s the supposed concern with feminism that makes the site so problematic. How can Tracie, who posted this picture, criticize the men who go to Hooters? How can writers who justify not reporting rape criticize the military for not controlling…rape? It’s incoherent.”
For Ms. Hirshman, the behavior exemplified by the Jezebel writers—behavior which she deems outrageous—is troublesome because it also identifies as feminist. But doesn’t this expectation resemble those of Betty Friedan’s time, in which a woman behaved herself in order to esteem herself to others? The message is one that suggests if you don’t, then you suck, and you don’t merit respect and, according to Hirshman, you must not have a brain either so you shouldn’t be using it to analyze or critique the world around you. She cites two pictures of the Jezebel writers in unladylike positions to, sadly, further illustrate her point.
These types of generalizations by older feminists disturb me (like the one made by Debra J. Dickerson of Mother Jones, and the more recent comment by Naomi Wolf that “a saucy tattoo and a condom do not a revolution make”). They write from this almost morally-superior platform, from which they look down on our visually driven culture and everyone who engages in it. Why not take the example of the intelligent and insightful Ariel Levy who makes awesome points on this particular issue? She strives to make sense of our female generation’s obsession with exhibitionism and the so-called feminism that poses in its stead. This type of analysis enhances the feminist discourse more than does pointing and blaming other feminists’ sexual promiscuity and candid lifestyle, as if it were a worthy emphasis to make. Like Jess McCabe says, wrong question, wrong emphasis. And, oh my god, where is your sense of humor and irony?
The most problematic passage of Hirshman’s piece is when she poses the following question:
“How can women supposedly acting freely and powerfully keep turning up tales of vulnerability—repulsive sexual partners, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, even rape?”
It’s a shallow point to make; to be human is to be vulnerable. That is to say, if we were living in an era in which it no longer became necessary to fight in the name of feminism—the way history often smoothes out the wrinkles that were once institutions that structured society, like, say the gradual movements from feudalism to democracy, or slavery to freedom—well, life would still occur, in the form of gross sexual partners and STDs and, possibly still, rape. Vulnerable moments will always exist for both males and females.
This consequence of our physical vulnerability, as you say, is actually about violence, and you shouldn’t have used it as an attack on rape victims who’ve kept silent, feminist or otherwise. Rape isn’t about sexual libertinism nor the so-called symptoms of outrageous behavior that so often include the assertion of sexual agency. It is about power, degradation, and dominance over women—and that which allows this behavior to exist includes a majorly flawed legal system.
Jezebel is not without its flaws—in fact, the main reason I wrote this is because I had to hunt for Hirshman’s piece myself, and after I found it, I realized that instead of linking to it and fully critiquing the piece or letting their audience be offended for themselves, they simply went on the defensive and sorta put words in Hirshman’s mouth.
But ultimately, the focus of each is misaligned. The reason my generation is not getting it right, is because we’re not there yet, we never were, and it’s a long road ahead. So, stop, because it’s too easy to blame the feminists of my generation for this. We don’t know how to advance The Cause any more than you do in these modern times when information moves so fast it becomes an issue of time-management to sit down and think for longer than twenty seconds. But we do know that our own advances are going to look very, very different than yours.
And that’s ok. But please. Don’t accuse us of being shallow, narcissitic hedonistic creatures of the moment, who only operate with what feels good, and then use that as a reason to dismiss our feminism.
