Whatever happened to Second Wave Feminism?
I was in high school from 1968 to 1971. The "news" of the day included much palaver about "Women's Lib." Norman Mailer made an ass of himself as the self-appointed cultural voice of ridicule toward "the Libbies." Within the foment of that era, there were many seemingly loony ideas floated on television talk shows: "Sexual intercourse is rape." I have to cut Mailer a dab of slack for his Male Chauvinist Pig routine. My own first sexual experience occurred on New Year's Eve, the last night of the 60s, and I was the one getting "raped" by my first girl friend who was extremely horny, and was very aggressive about it. When my inexperienced love-making skills pretty much rendered our post New Year's Eve front seat of the car virginity loss pretty much a farce. The following day we tried again and she was happy about it. She was the aggressor coming and going, and I fell madly in love with her.
Looking back to the era, I am still awed by the success of Women's Lib. The worksite environment was indeed a Male Chauvinist Pig playground as of the 70s. Today calling a co-worker, "honey" would get you a hassle. And rightly so.
The most disturbing aspect of that successful movement was its doctrine about the "objectification" of women. Playboy magazine and strip clubs and similar cheesecake manifestations were not just shallow and silly, but oppressively evil. At the time, it occurred to me that paying somebody significant money to show her breasts may be creepy or stupid, but it is torturing the English language to call it oppression.
Now one quarter of the way through the next century, I see that the objectification of women is now simply style. On television, you see female thighs and cleavage galore. On todays' ESPN, the camera shows female talking heads from head to toe, including a view of her legs and spike heels.
At the start of this century, there was a sitcom starring Charlie Sheen that was about the objectification of women. Sheen played a "player" who went through eight seasons of boinking bimbos, with no intention of ever getting married or committing to any kind of exclusive relationship. The comedy came from his arrogant insistence that his find em and fuck em lifestyle was normal, while the other characters rag on him for his "shallowness."
In one of my favorite episodes, an old high school acquaintance shows up, looking like a bimbo in contrast to her homely and ridiculed high school self who could only dream of dating Chalie. Now, after working her ass off to get in bimbo shape, she tracks him down to flash her cleavage and legs at Charlie, who takes the bait on cue. She then tells him off, angrily reciting how much effort went into making "this"(her now beautiful body"). Then she shouts, "You will never never never get THIS!" She then gestured toward her torso.
She objectified herself.
So what happened between "intercourse is rape" and 21st century titillation?
Comments
Couldn't begin
to tell you. We're contemporaries- but my dating life was disastrous the first time around, which is why I didn't marry until I was past age 30. I do know that I very carefully minimize the contact I have with the women that I work with, because several of them are very angry me-too types, and I'm frankly uncomfortable interacting with them even under the best of circumstances. Not worth the risk.
Outside of work, I feel less constrained. However, I can say without any fear of contradiction that if my wife were to pass before me, there is absolutely zero chance that I would try to start a new relationship, at this point.
I recall one time back in Boston in the late 70s when I was sitting at the bar in the Bull and Finch (the pub on the Common that was the model for "Cheers"), and I asked a very attractive brunette if I could buy her a drink. She looked me top to bottom very coldly, and said "Explain to me why I should let you live", and turned away. End of conversation. That was by far the most comprehensive brush-off I ever received...
Just one person's opinion follows: the whole "intercourse is rape" trope led inevitably to "sex outside a relationship is optional", which equally inevitably led to "sex outside a relationship is not really all that desirable", followed in very short order by "sex is for procreation only", and on to "Jeez, why even take the risk?". The upshot of this observation being that, when I see a woman who has gone the Kardashian route and had themselves "perfected" by the surgeon's knife (presumably, in order to improve the odds in the meet market), I run the opposite direction as fast as is reasonably possible: there, there be dragons. (;-) I guess that I'm kinda hard to titillate.
On edit: in self-defense, I should also acknowledge that I was active in the feminist community in college, as a male supporter: that was when "Our Bodies, Our Selves" first came out, and it was badly needed and quite empowering among the young women of the time. I was also active in the efforts to drive the ERA forward, back in the day. I stayed active in that effort until I was told that my efforts, and indeed my very presence, were no longer wanted. The point of this aside is that I'm not at all a misogynist: but I am very, very cautious in my dealings with women, having run across altogether too many women who do, without question, fit the definition of "misandrist".
They weren't born that way. The sexes have been divided by the same, unceasing propaganda mechanisms that have divided us by political leaning, skin color, and eye shape or national heritage. I don't know why we think that it should be any other way; it has been done to us for generations, and it is just finally reaching the point at which our population numbers will naturally begin dwindling- as desired by Someone With Power. It is a terrible state of affairs, but it has been carefully curated by persons unknown to me. I'm just glad that I met my wife, who at the time was just as lonely and bitter as I was. Dating and relationship building can be quite odd when you explicitly do not want to manufacture children.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
I'm stayin' outta this.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
You are among friends here
Telling my own story from 55years ago was not intended to induce a tell-all thread. What I am interested in is how and why Corporate entertainment has embraced the objectification of women, even as the corporate offices have been purged of its Harvey Weinsteins.
Culture and money can go their separate ways. I take a modicum of comfort in this strange world we live in.
If you call this living.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Still think sex is used as a weapon
Many fems seem to have become indoctrinated
into the commodification process judging by the
beautification industry. Expensive accessories,
cremes and lotions, dyed hair and time spent
following fashion mavens is telling IMO. Maybe
in my youth was just not aware, but is obvious now.
Zionism is a social disease
vanity is an old, old human weakness
And very profitable.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
It was coopted in a thousand different ways.
Great strides were made in the 1960s and 1970s. Legally and socially. At the beginning of that period women were never quite adults on their own. Couldn't qualify for credit without a husband or father. Contraception was difficult to obtain unless married -- even that was denied in some states. Took a while before equal opportunity laws began to be enforced or businesses lost lawsuits and were forced to comply. Enough older women came around. As did men in those years because shouldering the total financial burden of their families wasn't easy. MS magazine enlightened a lot of people. Still much work needed to be done.
Then came the backlash. The ERA failed to be ratified by the 1979 deadline. The anti-abortion forces had gained power. Reagan was elected -- a real man that would stand up for all those men that had begun to feel emasculated. (Men too stupid to recognize that feminism had nothing to do with the flat lining of their income.) GenX women didn't want to be associated with feminism (even though they liked the gains that the 2nd wave had given them).
In the early 1980s, I was on a special project assignment. The programmer co-worker was emotionally unstable and incompetent. Made for a difficult working relationship. Anyway, one day she began telling me that she and her girlfriends did something wild and crazy once a year and she invited me to join them on their male strip joint outing. My response -- "How kind and generous of thinking to invite me. Unfortunately, my notion of feminism isn't about women behaving as badly as men. As such, I'll have to pass, but thank you for the invitation."
Thank you for responding to my query
As a male lefty union representative, I always looked at feminists as allies. I did not appreciate much of Second Wave rhetoric, like the klinker, "Intercourse is rape." If it had been coined this century, I would have deemed it a poison pill, like "defund the police," which I figure was intended to undermine Black Lives Matter, which was an inspirational success until it got co-opted.
As I suggest in the OP, I was disgusted by how the secretaries were treated in the first office in which I worked. One of them asked me, without so much as a hint of irony, "Will you be calling us sweet names like the business agents do?" Baby and honey were the most common condescending monikers. As a hippie era college boy, I was embarrassed by the male chauvinist piggery but did not imagine there was anything I could do about it.
Litigation was the cutting edge of the societal reform of relations between the genders at work, but even as Reagan gave us a preview of Trumpism, this change was necessary for capitalistic enterprise so that fully half of the population could graduate from decorative adornment in the Executive Suite to productive contributors to the bottom line.
Corporate culture evolves, and that is our only realistic hope of attaining a peaceful and fair social order.
I would love to hear from Baby Boomer feminist activists about their successes and setbacks over the last half century. There will be clues for us Today.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.