aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Ariel Levy on Feminism

Listen to Ariel Levy on Fresh Air. There’s so much there, I choose today her take on the word feminism:

I think that the word itself, of course, has famously fallen out of favor with my generations and the generations younger than I am. I’m 32. I don’t think that’s so surprising or so problematic… nobody’s walking around calling themselves yippies, anymore, either… I just think that the various names for revolutionary movements for social change that were, you know, comfortable and popular in the `60s and `70s, you know, that they’re just not--they just don’t fit necessarily now…

[T]here’s no such thing as a unified woman’s movement right now. I think it’s fragmented, and I think people are doing lots of important things. And I think that, you know, the ongoing struggle for reproductive rights is crucial, and I think that--I mean, people are doing so much important work, I just don’t think it’s got a sort of solid, unified center.

If you’re not familiar with Ariel’s writing, I wasn’t either before picking up Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women And The Rise Of Raunch Culture in The Strand last year at about this time. I highly recommend it.

Here I quote excerpts in which Hugh and Christie Hefner describe the Playboy bunny. See also the Slate Book Club discussion of it and Pornified entitled Is Porn Really Transforming Our Sex Lives?