My declining action and involvement isn't uncommon, I know, as age and adulthood often moderate earlier passions. Over the past five years or so, though, anti-feminist sentiment and behavior have increasingly caught my attention. There are plenty of major public examples, like Limbaugh's feminazi label and Beck calling Hillary Clinton a bitch, but more subtle things are beginning to bug me: Sarah Palin labeling herself a feminist, my female students mentioning how back in the day, "before men and women were equal...," and the increased frequency with which 30ish-year-old women with advanced degrees are taking their husbands' names upon marrying--something that declined with my generation. And, while it's not yet enough to make me hoist my protest sign or act in the angry manner of my youthful days, I do spend a lot of time thinking about it and what it will mean for my 3-year-old niece when she reaches college.
Fortunately, Susan Douglas has been not only thinking about current trends in feminism, but she has been studying and quantifying them. In Enlightened Sexism, she explores the impact that a media-dominated culture is having on women and equality, concluding that even when seemingly empowering women, many TV, music, and movie products do quite the opposite. At the heart of her exploration is what she calls enlightened feminism, "a response, deliberate or not, to the perceived threat of a new gender regime. It insists that women have made plenty of progress--indeed, full equality has allegedly been achieved--so now it's okay, even amusing to resurrect sexist stereotypes of girls and women." Enter The Bachelor and The Man Show, The Spice Girls, and Victoria's Secret ads.
There were a lot of concepts introduced in Douglas's book, along with a ton of information about popular music and shows with which I've had no contact, and I'm still chewing it over. One thing I keep coming back to, however, is a point she makes about the role that strong female leads on TV have contributed to enlightened sexism. I have to admit that one of my guilty pleasures is crime shows of all sorts. So, when Douglas discussed the fact that these shows--The Closer, Law & Order, the CSIs--all have a large number of highly successful women in positions of power, my first reaction was, "That's good, right?" And, to an extent, it is good to have shows that provide girls and women with strong, positive role models. (In fact, I'm convinced I'd be a forensic scientist if I was a girl growing up today.) However, these same shows--as well as West Wing, Rizzolli and Isles, and a slew of others--have also contributed to enlightened sexism by making it seem as if women have, indeed, made it in the world--in numbers equal to men. In these shows, we're police chiefs, head investigators and lab supervisors, and even the President of the United States. In reality, women today still hold such positions in much lower numbers--and some not at all--than do their male counterparts. However, because they see these women in powerful roles in our media lives, Americans begin to believe women are equal to men in the workplace, creating the basis needed for enlightened sexism: the belief that feminism has done its job. It's a fascinating concept and one that has me thinking anew about my DVR list.
At the end of the book, Douglas says. "I think that, in our heart of hearts, we do miss feminism: its zeal, its audacity, its righteous justice. So let's have some fun, and get to work." I'm beginning to think more about where my job within this work will be, and I'm grateful to the boost that Douglas's book provided.
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