American people come in a variety of shapes and sizes; their
thoughts, fears, and convictions differ widely. It is usually necessary
for Americans to choose a status in politics and community; but it is
obvious that among specific groups and organizations, a person's beliefs
and opinions differ dramatically from the next. Feminist groups,
specifically in the last twenty years, have announced their view of
merabership as an elite group of woman who must have the same specific
convictions. Moreover, they denounce anyone who does not, as irrational and
supporting the continuance of subordination of women. Feminist propaganda
is off track when it comes to the real experiences of American women and
men. It is true, that in the past, a woman's voice was often disregarded;
she was denied certain rights, for some women fought. Elizabeth Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Blackwell were famous for their courage and
persistence in bringing change. It is safe to say that most Americans now
agree me n and women have vast talents and capabilities. A century ago
women were concerned with issues, such as the right to own property and
vote. Somewhere between then and now, feminist groups turned their agenda
to issues that offended many Americans. They crossed the line of personal
and moral decisions and made ridiculous accusations toward men. The first
feminists were necessary. Modern feminists have lost touch with American
women and “unconsciously undermined genuine equality”. It is no wonder
why men and women try to distance themselves from feminism.
Long before Europeans came to the “new land” with their Judeo-
Christian ideology, patriarchy was the exception not the norm. Women,
their bodies, and ability to give birth and nurse children were adorned.
Women did eighty percent of the hunting until the reintroduction of the
horse. “Women were shoved out of the hunting scenario. The horse allowed
men to become radius,” and the man's “expendable sex” was no obstacle when
traveling long distances. The “economic survival” was now the man's domain.
The value of the women fell when “mother earth” lost her place. In
addition, the European settlers forced their Christian ideals on the Native
Americans and other subordinate groups later.
During the next several years, the colonial family stayed the same;
historically, there was no women's movement until 1848, the year of the
Seneca Falls Convention. Organized by Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott,
the “Declaration of Principles” was produced. It paraphrased the
Declaration of Independence with emphasis on women. Before 1848, vocal
feminists had raised their voices within the Abolitionist Movement. Major
concerns of pre-Civil War feminists were: property rights for women,
custody of their children in cases of divorce, the right to their earnings,
the ability to sign contracts and serve on juries, equal higher education
opportunities, and equal opportunities in the workplace . The latter phase
of the movement came after the Civil War. The feminists had now formed
associations and groups primarily concerned with getting the vote. The
American Women's Suffrage Association associated with a more conservative
group, including Elizabeth Blackwell, the first women doctor, as a
prominent leader. The two groups united in 1890 as the Suffrage Movement;
because of this coalition, the older radical National Association lost
influence. In 1920, after fifty years of struggle women were given the
right to vote. The suffrage movement had no official ideology; its purpose
was to obtain the right to vote. Its merabers and leaders came from all
walks of life and had greatly varying views on current events. The second
wave of the feminist movement began in the 1960's. By this time, a very
broad and diverse movement had developed a mass following. The National
Organization of Women (NOW) was established in 1966. Within a few months,
many other women's organizations were established. NOW represented an
older, more conservative movement; but many younger radical women's
liberation groups were emerging with no national organization. Young women
were often involved with Students for a Democratic Society (SRAB). In the
early 1970's, the conservative feminists and more radical feminists began
to work toward common goals. Ms. Magazine was first published in 1972.
The second wave feminist movement wanted a complete restructuring of
American society which included the restructuring of family, individuals
free to determine their own life style, sexual preference, occupation, and
personal values. They were concerned with the availability of abortion,
and called for 24-hour childcare, and equal education and employment
opportunity.
In the 1980's, the feminist movement had many of the same concerns.
Women had lobbied legislatures, initiated lawsuits, marched in
demonstrations, and boycotted major corporations to secure their rights.
The women's movement was still calling for equal pay, education and job
opportunities, free contraception and abortion on demand, 24-hour nurseries
under community control, legal and financial independence, an end to the
discrimination against lesbians, freedom from the intervention by threat of
violence of sexual coercion, regardless of marital status, and end to the
laws, assumptions, and institutions that perpetrate male dominance and
men's oppression of women. Though the feminist movement had supporters
from most of the political spectrum, many were associated with the
progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Present feminists would agree they are still concerned with the
issues they were in the eighties, but they would have something else to add.
Feminists view femininity as a “trap that distracts women from the pursuit
of power.” It appears that feminists are concerned more so now that the
American woman is moving backward: she is giving into what men want, and is
being brainwashed into believing it is her choice. “So why do these women
and men mistrust feminism? The short answer is that they do not see
feminism as a story about their lives….” Starting in the late eighties,
part of the feminist attitude seemed to be that all men were against women.
Men did not want women in the workplace, and deliberately sabotaged them
and conducted themselves inappropriately on matters of sexuality. Every
smile, or compliment a man made was proof he saw a women as an object for
his own sexual pleasure, and to ensure she stay beneath him. It is not
possible to pinpoint the moment that feminism no longer became popular, but
the notion that sexual attraction could be made extinct in the work place
is reason to lose a few merabers. Americans know men and women are not
identical, and any attempt to make them that way will make for a more
confused and sexually repressed society. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, author of
Feminism is Not the Story of My Life (1996), asks would “the liberation of
women require the abolition of a common morality?”
Being female in America is not easy. The Feminist Chronicles
(1993) has endless lists of monumentous abortion laws and states the
Christian Coalition as a threat to feminist progress. Women are caught in
a no-win situation; they want for themselves and their daughters the choice
and empowerment feminist speak of. They also love their sons and husbanRAB
and do not want to be told the apple pie baking in the oven is another
syrabol of failure. Fox-Genovese states repeatedly many different women
from many walks of life feel feminism ideas are destructive to the family.
Feminist women speak for the poor when they really have no idea what it is
like for the poor; they speak for the women when they have no idea what the
average American women believes. Feminist are not realizing that “any
attempt to lump the lives of very different women under a single formula—
any formula—is likely to exclude more women than it includes.”
It is no wonder why men and women feel they have been put on a
battlefield and why women often feel they have no control over their lives.
Modern poets, such as Elizabeth McKim, express their feelings of defeat on
being women:

i have always been
a lonely woman
even in the beginning
not understanding the language
of men
always wanting them to see me
always hiding from them
hoping they will not crush me with their anger
trying to make them smil
with my masks
and my veils
my dancing costumes
my magic and my bells
so thy would stop scaring me
so they would fall asleep
so I could take their power

Many women can relate to the feelings of powerlessness. It is not
productive to blame men for these barriers; however, no one is without
blame. Many women, however, do not feel helpless. In one of Fox-Genovese's
interviews with women, she writes of Maggie, who moved, with her husband,
to a ranch in New Mexico. They split the work “traditionally” and Maggie
was not enjoying her job. She discussed the situation with her husband who
understood her dislike for the monotonous work. She joined him and the
other male hanRAB in the fielRAB; she now loved her job. She stated she is
not a feminist; that it “has nothing to with her life, and feminists… would
not last two days on her ranch.”
How and when these battles began is difficult to say.
Sociologists often agree that minority groups have subordinated their women
because discrimination does not allow them to get ahead: their shame and
diminishing self-esteem causes them to rule over those who are physically
weaker. White American males are caught in a emotional tug-of-war; the
messages of society, family, and religion (if part of his psyche) can
jurable a man's perception of his identity. Judy Mann, author of The
Difference: Growing up Female in America (1994), mentions girls are “
derailed” and kept from aspiring to their potential. This is not untrue,
but boys are in a similar predicament. The most important fulfilling and
difficult job in the world is parenthood. Men/boys until recently have
been taught by society that fatherhood was the least important aspiration.
Men and women are born to nurture their children; this gift when stolen
from men put them, with women, in the boat of unfair gender bias.
The uncertainty of a young boy's life is prevalent among parents
and teachers. Even popular sitcoms like Roseanne, addressed the issue. In
an old episode the parents, Roseanne and Dan, had an argument. It ended
with Roseanne leaving the room angrily, saying, in a derogatory tone of
voice, “…like some man.” D.J., their young son, had overheard the fight
and asked, “Why did mom call you a'man' like that? I thought it was good
to be a man.” Dan replied “Oh no son, not since the late sixties.” Comic
strips such as Calvin and Hobbes depict another type of male uncertainty.















As for grown men in this society, the feeling of disarrangement does not
subside. Susan Faludi is one elite feminist whose opinion of the American
male is often unfair and ridiculous. She writes in Backlash: The
Undeclared War Against American Women (1991), about her visit to a
mannequin maker. She expresses her dislike for the perfection of the
bodies of the female mannequins and the increase in plastic surgery among
women. She forgets to mention the male mannequin's rippling muscles. In
addition, Baywatch's David Hasselhoff has been fully dressed for the last
two years to cover his aging body. Faludi's entire book is filled with
views that are extremely insensitive to men. Warren Farrell, author of The
Myth of Male Power (1993), describes the male experience; one ‘tragedy” is
that “historically, the obligations of daRAB deprive daRAB love while the
obligations of moms provide moms with love. Deprived of genuine love, daRAB
are deprived of genuine power.” In describing the father-son relationship
in the song “Cat's in the Cradle,” Farrell continues: “Ironically, the son
had ached for connection with his dad so intently that he vowed, ‘Some day
I'm gonna be like him….' ” Farrell gives women a unique explanation to a
man's perspective of prostitutes. He explains the reason “why men don't
get as worked up as women” over the issue: “most men experience themselves
as prostitutes everyday—the miner, the firefighter, the construction worker…
they sacrifice their bodies for money and for their families.” Another
misfortune for men is that they have not had the freedom of emotional
expression, where it appears women have. Finally, when men are the “suicide
sex,” it is everyone's responsibility to find out why. Like Faludi few men
have extreme views on the other side of the spectrum. Toni Grant, an on-air
therapist, told a women caller, “Challenging one's husband is a sure sign
of a ‘feminist infected women.' A big mistake.” Extreme views are rare;
the average person is aware that these, usually wealthy, individuals have
no insight into the real American experience. Men have taken the rap for
being the obstacle to women's confinement, when it is children who are the
barrier to her independence. Parents do not love their children any less
than they did in previous decades, but children are receiving forty percent
less time with their parents than they did thirty years ago. Children are
coming up short in this time of lost identity. They are caught in between
the rising nuraber of divorces and visiting fathers, or having no father at
all. Opposing forces that are telling mothers they need to be working or
staying at home and other issues have put mothers at war with each other.
Finally, the corabination of women in the workforce, single parent families,
and men struggling to find their nurturing father role has put children at
loss. Fox-Genovese puts it perfectly, “These days the ability to enjoy ones
children has become a rare and precious freedom that too few [people] enjoy
and too few people recognize as freedom at all.” Many Americans are lost
in a storm of doubt and discontentment. There are no easy answers or quick
fix solutions, but a place to begin would be for men and women to stop
blaming each other for their unhappiness. Simply put, all people need to do
for themselves what fulfills and rewarRAB them and remove themselves from
what does not. It is idealistic that all men and women will put down their
imaginary weapons and live with mutual respect for each other. But if we
did, we would not have a word like ‘feminism'. In the worRAB of
Nezahualcoyotl: Even jade is shattered, Even gold is crushed Even quetzal
plumes are torn… One does not live forever on this earth: We endure only
for a instant!



















Works Cited

Baywatch. NBC series. 1991-98. Carabillo, Toni, Judith Meuli, and Jane
Bundy Csida. Feminist Chronicles 1953-1993.
Los Angeles: Women's Graphics, 1993.

Castillo, Ana. Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma. Albuquerque:
U of N.M.
Press, 1994.

Chafetz, Janet Saltzman and Anthony Gary Dworkin. Female Revolt: Women's
Movement in World and Historical Perspective. New Jersey: Rowman and
Allanheld, 1986.

Farrell, Warren. The Myth of Male Power. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.


Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New
York: Crown,1991.

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. Feminism is Not the Story of My Life. New York:
Nan A. Talese,1996.

Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod and Carol McClurg Mueller, eRAB. The Women's
Movement of
the United States and Western Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1987.

Mann, Judy. The Difference: Growing up Female in America. New York: Warner,
1994.

McKim, Elizabeth. “i have always been.” Early Ripening, American Women's
Poetry
Now. Ed. Marge Piercy. 1987. London: Pandora Press, 1991.

Roseanne. ABC sitcom. 1988-97.

Watterson, Bill. Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat. Kansas City: Andrews and
McMeel, 1994.






Loren C. Bell English Composition II TTh 1:00







Feminist Backlash: The Unconscious

Undermining of Genuine Equality
WorRAB: 2587