As today was my last day of classes for this semester, I have begin flipping through my no-longer-needed textbooks to decide which ones I should keep and which ones I should sell. While this question is highly pressing, it is not what this post will be dedicated to considering.
In looking through my Political Ideologies textbook, it happened to open to a passage that we did not cover in class, but was written by the infamous Phyllis Schlafly, talking about her concept of the "Positive Woman." In part, it contained one of the most interesting criticisms of feminism I've heard: "The women's liberationist . . . is imprisoned by her own negative view of herself and of her place in the world around her."
While Ms. Schlafly and I ideologically agree on . . . well, nothing . . . her criticism of the negative-worldview-perpetuation of feminism is interesting. I think that Shlafly's über-conservative woman-as-happiest-fulfilling-her-maternal/male-serving role is repulsive, but I also ascribe to the notion of self-fulfilling prophecies (for which I'm sure I could use a more psychological and scientific term than that, but I can't think of what it might be at the moment).
The comment that feminists are stuck in the mud just because they think they are is fascinating. I can say that I have seen plenty of people that are in fact doing fine, but their perspective on the world is so negative that it APPEARS to them otherwise, causing completely unnecessary problems and distress. I 100% agree that if things are okay, one shouldn't get so caught up in the mind that things seem that they aren't. As my boyfriend likes to say, perspective is everything.
However, I think that the glaring issue with Ms. Schlafly's criticism is that women's issues aren't just illusions, they are factually provable. Women don't just think they are making less money than men, studies have shown they receive lower compensation for the same work. It's obviously evident that institutions are not in place that would allow women to create a manageable work-life balance, and are forced to pick one or the other if they want to have families. (Now that I think about it, even that last sentence, which is pro-woman in intent, is built off of the current cultural sexist assumption that women are the ones who create and have families, and that men just participate in them as visitors.)
The other beef that I have with Phyllis Schlafly's statement is that it assumes that recognizing the disastrousness of a situation only leads to depression and doom and gloom. Sure, realizing that women still have to deal with institutional sexism doesn't make you want to throw a party in celebration, but recognition of a situation that should be changed leads to revolution and change and adjustment. If you substitute historically oppressed groups into Ms. Schlafly's statement, it becomes evident how ludicrous it is, and how much a justification it is for existing power structures by blaming those who are oppressed. Take, for example, slaves. "The slaves . . . are imprisoned by their own negative view of themselves and of their place in the world around them." Bam! Suddenly slavery was the fault of the slaves having such a bad attitude about their situation. Recognizing a problem is the first step in solving it.
Reading the passage in my textbook reminded me of all the other 1970's anti-women's rights campaigners, and how they uniquely made feminism look like it was bad for women. Anita Bryant and Marabel Morgan come to mind. I can somewhat sympathize with a more conservative outlook, wanting to restore the family and maintain old-fashioned values (though if one takes that statement literally, it means we should go back to segregation and feudalism, so who knows how good of a position that is to take). However, it is astonishing when one considers that the very women who declared their desire for a return to the home weren't walking the talk . . . somewhat reminiscent of Sarah Palin's push for abstinence-only sex education while her daughter was unwantedly pregnant by a boy who later proved himself to be an unabashed attention whore, taking advantage of suddenly being famous just because he didn't use a condom. But I digress.
Anti-feminism is a sticky subject, and trying to stay somewhat on-topic and in-decade (the decade in question, that is), the logic used by Schlafly and Co. is so obviously motivated by a fear of challenging existing power structures that it defies serious examination. Fearing the breakdown of the traditional family: valid. Fearing that women will become lesbians so that they can't get pregnant: crazy. Homophobia: not valid, but understandably social conditioned. Assuming that homosexuals need to "recruit" because they can't reproduce: crazy.
When all is boiled down, the arguments of the anti-Feminists of the 1970s are based in what seems to be nothing more than terror of the unexpected and presuming a breakdown into chaos if women gained any kind of power outside the home. Using logic that employs victim blaming to make women the ones responsible for their own problems is terrifying, and I'm not sure I'll ever wrap my mind around the fact that it was women who were some of the most outspoken proponents of 1970's anti-Feminism. There's no denying that the Feminist movement has made some missteps, but when you think about it, it has given a women a voice they never could have had before.
In fact, without Feminism, the anti-Feminists would never even have been able to have enough prominence and power to speak out about their feelings against Feminism. How's that for a mind bender?
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