The 20-somethings should read this one!
From Amazon
Feminism is not dead, but it is endangered once more, perhaps especially because the general public thinks that a few positive female representatives on television and in government prove that there is no more battle to wage. According to Douglas, it is just that "we're past this" attitude that makes the proliferation of new attacks in the 90's and the new century so insidious. She makes an excellent point. We feminists expressed our outrage in the 70's and raised our daughters to be strong individuals. Those daughters, the "millennial generation" born in the 80's and early 90's, need to light that torch once again and say STOP to the media and the politicians who have had free rein once again to portray women as sex objects, bitches, helpless creatures slave to their emotions, etc....
Despite some resoundingly feminist icons in the media, like Buffy the vampire slayer, or even Xena the warrior princess, there aren't enough to stop the negative messages. Anita Hill was ridiculed for testifying against the sexual harassment of Clarence Thomas. Janet Reno was ridiculed because she "looked like a man." When Hillary Clinton ran for President, her laugh was criticized, as were her tears of compassion at a campaign stop, when she was having a local town meeting. Even Oprah, the billionaire who champions "being your best self," isn't blameless; her urge to empowerment focuses on the individual doing her own inner work instead of gathering with other women to make some kind of difference on a larger scale.
I liked the book, especially the section on Reality TV, the very dregs of the entertainment industry. Nowhere else are women portrayed more as stereotypes, as man-desperate, as backstabbing bitches to each other. I know these things, and watch almost zero reality TV, but it was nice to see the business of "reality" taken to task. "No one expects reality TV to compete with the BBC World Service. But it's on television dramas like Law&Order and ER where one has been asked to contemplate issues like restrictions on civil liberties during wartime, or the lack of health insurance, or debates about Muslim women wearing head scarves. Reality TV, by contrast, is fundamentally dedicated to ignoring and denying the real." Yep.
Funny, but dated
From Amazon
Feminists are subject to lots of stereotypes, such as "hairy lesbians with no sense of humor." Of course they aren't all hairy lesbians, but it's the rare feminist who actually has a sense of humor (thus the famous cartoon caption "This is a feminist bookstore! There is no humor section!). So it's refreshing to find an exception to that. Even a person who considers feminism a menace to society would have to admit that Susan J. Douglas is relentlessly funny.
Of course that doesn't make her philosophy any different than that of Susan Faludi or any other 1990-vintage orthodox feminist, however she may crack you up in delivering it. She basically alleges that despite all the advances American women have made over the last forty years, feminism's work will not be done until there are no statistical differences between the genders. In particular, the average woman must make as much money as the average man.
Would she insist that the average Irishman must make as much money as the average Jew? That a disparity between the two groups proves that Irishmen are systematically discriminated against? She'd probably concede that cultural differences result in varying desires for financial gain (and inevitably actual financial gain), but cannot visualize that as possibly being a reason for the male/female income disparity.
Douglas spends many paragraphs deploring the fact that women are under societal pressure to look a certain way in order to succeed. Yet she's blind to the fact that men are under pressure to make money in order to succeed, even though both criteria are equally superficial. She continually uses the word "patriarchy," referring to, you know, that shadowy conspiracy that keeps women from asserting themselves despite the fact that our laws protect them from discrimination. That's how orthodox feminists both demand equality and excuse women from asserting their right to it - it's the patriarchy that controls their minds! And of course it's a one way street - women have no control whatsoever over men's minds.
Douglas dismisses Christina Hoff Sommers, Katie Roiphe, and other female authors who have criticized the excesses of feminism as "anti-feminist," often misquoting them in the process. Neither Sommers or Roiphe could be called politically conservative by any stretch, but since they aren't feminist fundamentalists they are, in Douglas's mind, the enemy of all women.
None of this is meant to suggest that the book isn't a good read. I enjoyed it despite the fact that much of it consists of references to network TV shows, which I never watch (I skimmed those sections). But Douglas's arguments are, well, so 1990.
She Missed The Point
From Amazon
Having read 'Where The Girls Are' I was mildly curious to see what Douglas thought about women's icons for my generation. I probally should not have been. Her critique was less analytical, and far more personal attack.
It accidentally demonstrates why third wavers (and beyond) cannot take second-wavers like Douglas seriously. They are not emotionally capable of seeing the feminism which does exist in a media which is not exactly theirs. So naturally then the images become threatining.
Example: In the 1992 movie, Buffy realizes she is 'weird' for suddenly having dreams about women in history prior to finding out about her identity as the slayer. Brushing aside the very low-budget special effects, this movie screenplay does acknowllege it is weird for young women to know about women's history...BUT this very same weirdness is what makes it possible for young women to be THE ones to successfully save their communities and the world. So it better for a young woman to have this weirdness than to be 'normal' and remaining ignorant of women's accomplishments.
And in the retooled TV series, we see issues of gender and ethnicity (Incan Mummy Girl). Rather than having it all as romanticized in traditional interpretations, princesses are forced to do things--including sacrifice their own lives--as a requirement of their position. The screenplay carefully emphasized that the princess understood her obligation. But she herself had wanted more options and glamor was not everything. What a sharp contrast from Disney!
Princesses again were critiqued in 'Halloween' where Buffy, in an attempt to impress her centuries-old boyfriend, dresses up as a medieval princess. But because this particular costume is cursed, it literally transformed her into somebody who is incapable of thinking and independently functioning. All of her friends are immediately horrified by the temporary transformation--prefering the modern Buffy...and modern womanhood.
If Douglas, a college professor of media had actually taken more time to examine this series with a more critical perspective, she would have had simmilar findings. But she instead chose to 'slay' what is one of the most positive resources for women.
Absolutely worth reading
From Amazon
This is an incredibly readable, stunningly interesting, and deeply disturbing book. A must read for all women.
Who's the sexist?
From Amazon
First off, I will admit that after a few chapters, this book began to seem rather repetitive and so I began skimming. I agree with Douglas's basic premise, that today's young women have been deluded into believing there is gender equality and that feminism is no longer relevant. That said, I don't subscribe to the author's particular brand of feminism, which strikes me as a little old school.
Many of her points are valid. I am a high school teacher, and I can attest to the fact that many teenage girls nowadays believe that wearing provocative clothing and being sexually desirable to males is a form of female empowerment. Like Douglas, I find this problematic. I also agree that powerful women are represented in the media far more than we see them in real life, distorting our views of female power. I guess Douglas loses me because she writes as if feminism matters solely to women. I appreciate her sense of humor throughout the book, but when she gets indignant about her daughter's generation, she sounds like a crankity mother--and that's a voice many will find easy to dismiss.
In my experience as a teacher (and I consider myself a strong feminist), young people do not want to discuss sexism and feminism when it is limited to the oppression of females. Guys are sick of listening to it, and girls don't want to think of themselves as oppressed. However, both genders are VERY interested in talking about gender, and the cultural stereotypes, pressures, and injustices that each gender faces. Hasn't feminism evolved enough that we can give male inequity a look as well? Douglas quickly dismisses the gap in male and female achievement in school (she seems to find it sexist that males have gotten any attention for this, in fact) and devotes little time to examining the messages that various media send males. As a result, this book felt incomplete to me and, well, a little sexist.