Step Zero: Get A Match.
Part 1: The Consumerization of Feminism
June 1, 2009
by Janis
|This is part one of a three-part series. Janis presents her own opinions, not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
In Part 3, Janis explains "Get a Match"
Okay, clearly feminism needs some help lately. We all pretty much agree on that. Knocked out for a nine-count by scope creep of astronomical proportions, it got distracted, started bickering, and forgot what the hell it was supposed to do.
It’s the second wave’s fault with their hairy legs! It’s the third wave’s fault with their glitter eyeshadow!
Now, I’ve got to be skeptical about arguments that are predicated on differences between human beings from generation to generation; humans have been poo-flinging, nose-picking, slap-fighting monkeys since the days of the Babylonian Empire, and we always will be. We just don’t change much. There has to be a more enlightening way of thinking about What Went Wrong than to just point the finger at someone else (or even ourselves, no matter how grimly satisfying), and end the discussion there.
I’d hazard a guess that part of the problem with Where Feminism Screwed Up lies in two places, This isn’t an exhaustive list, but I think it’s the biggies:
1) We got consumerized.
2) We thought we were further ahead than we really were.
Let’s take a look at both of those and see if we can glean any useful lessons.
The Consumerization of Feminism
This one’s easy. Feminism became less about making measurable legal progress for women as a whole than about watching the right movies, wearing the right shoes, and using the right catchphrases (like the ever-nauseating “Feminism is about choices!” which I never want to hear again as long as I live, tyvm). 
The world stopped worrying about boring, un-fun things like pay equity and ending rape and instead started reshaping feminism into something bouncy and cute that you could buy in the mall, and we all got suckered, you and me included. You didn’t have to think about or change your life. Just ideologically gerrymander yourself into feminism by buying a pink bracelet that supported breast cancer. How? Hey, it’s pink and has a ribbon on it, don’t be such a nitpicker.
But is this really a problem peculiar to the third wave of feminism? Turns out it’s not.
Environmentalism rapidly degenerated into buying the right products to advertise your membership in the right tribe, too. So you drive an SUV forty miles every day to get to work. Hey, don’t actually move beyond your comfort level — just buy some swirl lightbulbs and make sure you tell your friends you did! Did you buy a not-terribly-energy-efficient refrigerator? Use some string bags at the supermarket — and make sure they have a little picture of a green leaf on them so when you ostentatiously use them to carry your lunch to work, everyone will know you care about the Earth. You aren’t flying any less, but what the hell. You’ll buy your offsets … someday. Or else you’ll harangue other people (who make less money) about whether they’ve bought them, but only when someone else is listening.
Hate breast cancer (hell, who loves it)? Don’t support hard-nosed, unglamorous cancer research, support cancer awareness instead! You get to buy lipstick and jewelry that way. Of course, we’re all so goddamned aware of breast cancer that we live in mortal fear of our tits, but who needs a cure when you’ve just put a breast-cancer-branded leather handbag on your pink-ribbon credit card?
Liberalism in general fell victim to it, as well. Instead of not giving a damn what shirt you wore, buy a t-shirt with a catchy liberal slogan on it from a megacorporate superstore. Conservatism? That took a big hit, too — don’t question when your “small government” representatives in Washington bloat the government to galaxy-sized proportions, they use the right God-flavored catchphrases so they’re in your tribe even if they are operating in direct opposition to what you claim to support.
Mass consumption and mass media have made possible the coca-colonialization of everything on Earth.
So feminism is not unique in its having been co-opted into the pointless nitpicking of plastic pop culture trivia, watching the right shows and wearing the right clothes. Everything fell victim to that, because that’s what today’s communications and manufacturing technology have created. We take that which is fresh and innovative, water it down to make it suitable for assembly-line manufacture, and mass-produce the hell out of it. When Henry Ford did it with cars, he was hailed. When it’s done with political movements, it sucks the life clean out of them. Even Holocaust remembrance has been astonishingly enough similarly poisoned in some instances, bitterly referred to by some members of the Jewish community as Holo-kitsch.
So don’t blame the kids too much for being sidetracked by Consumer-Friendly Feminism Lite for $15.99. Everyone was if we’re honest. For every young woman who gerrymanders her favorite TV show into a feminist victory or who tells herself that her platform pumps are a victory for female body image while those of a meat-eating, conservative woman are anti-feminist, there’s a parent who drives an SUV that gets 15 mpg and has a Sierra Club bumpersticker on it, which turns their engine exhaust into fairy farts and rose water.
Tune in tomorrow for Part 2: Not As Far Ahead As We Thought
Love this Janis. Thank you!
Janis, I usually love your stuff, but anti-consumerist backlash can be as much of a distraction from the real aims of feminism as consumerism itself can. The third-wave sites I’ve mostly weaned myself from have generally made anti-consumerism a big focus, and to what end? Faux-feminist as they may be, things like the Dove Real Beauty campaign and breast cancer awareness ribbons have annoyed misogynists (“why do I have to look at these fat women in their underwear at every bus stop?” “what about cancers that affect MEN?”) to enough of a degree that I have to think there’s something good about them.
And pop culture — TV shows, movies, books, whatever — really does matter. Even if I did want to watch TV or movies, call it a feminist victory and stop there, I’m not even sure where to start. The Biggest Loser? Wife Swap? Judd Apatow’s oeuvre?
- I’d like to see a plank of the TNA platform advocating unionization of clerical workers all across the nation – bad pay, terrible benefits, near sweatshop conditions in some places, easy prey for sexual harassment and bullying, grounds for just that to happen. I see alot of talk about inclusion so lets extend that to women who don’t have the luxary of reading this blog during the day, whose drives and needs are a lot less intellectual , and aim for more than just some Law to bring about workforce parity.
Stay tuned for the second part — I know that stuff matters, but we’re nowhere NEAR where we need to be yet where we can even begin to make a dent.
Well, I’m excited to see you contributing here and I’m definitely looking forward to Part 2.
I think numerous issues have distracted feminism since the 1920s. I have gathered the impression that the suffragettes spent so much of their time and energy into getting the right to vote that they forgot to consider all the other issues affecting women. They believed – rightly so – that the vote would solve all problems and never campaigned to end all problems.
Another distraction for feminism is abortion. I am really sensitive on the topic of abortion. I believe abortion has become the biggest distraction to women’s rights that ever existed. Abortion became the end-all/be-all to feminism.
The original feminists believed that abortion was in fact infanticide and also an evil created by the patriarchy. They blamed men for abortion and never condemned the women. They believed that once women’s bodies were respected, rape, prostitution, and such would cease to exist. Then, there would be no need for abortion because women’s bodied would be respected.
Unfortunately, modern so-called feminists cherish abortion as the end-all/be-all of women’s rights. Modern feminists ignore rape as an anti-woman evil. Rather than striving to eliminate rape, they strive to increase the number of abortion clinics.
I am neither pro-choice nor pro-life, but I believe that rape is the worst crime ever to be done against a woman.
When I was researching the sexism of 2008, I discovered that quite a lot of people do mind if a woman is raped as long as she can have an abortion. In fact, a lot of the people who spouted out pro-choice views and hated Palin for being pro-life… all those people also think rape is hilarious and joke-worthy.
I do not take any side over being pro-choice or pro-life, but I am very angry with the fact that abortion has become the biggest distraction and downfall of feminism that I have ever seen.
I think the original suffragists focused on winning the vote … but it ended up that all it meant was we could all vote for the male of our choice.
That’s the main problem for me. I can vote for … what, exactly? The filthy-rich male buttkisser to the filthier-rich of my choice? Whoopee.
Karen, I agree that abortion has become a distraction, but not because if only we’d fix the right behavior, we’d never need it. Even if all rape ended tomorrow, there would still be valid reasons for a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy. The majority of abortions go to married women who already have children, whose choice to abort is driven by economic reasons (lack of health care or risk of losing a job on which her family depends), or by violence or other turbulent circumstances at home. And even if every one of those reasons were magically erased, not every pregnancy continued to term ends in a living baby and mom. Birth, no matter how healthy the pregnancy, carries the risk of death for mother and child. Unless humans find a way to eradicate disease and genetic malformation entirely, there will always be heartbreaking cases where a woman is carrying a child that cannot live, or when the mother’s life and health would be sacrificed if she continued to term. Who among us has the right to force a woman whose fetus has no brain to risk her life by carrying to term? To label abortion “infanticide” for the mother facing death or sterility if she bears her child is cruelty on top of cruelty.
The reason abortion is a distraction is that the discussion has been marketed and sound-bited into political shorthand — far removed from understanding the issues in all their complexity, with the aim of finding solutions to real-life, human problems.
*****A
By the way, as regards women’s bodies being respected, I’d say nothing conveys respect more than the principle that a women is a fully autonomous, free human being, able to determine the course of her own life, in consutation with no one but her own conscience. That is the standard men apply to themselves.
*****A
Janis, I love the paragraph on breast cancer consumerism, especially your important point about how decidedly unsexy causes like cancer research have sometimes taken the back burner to pink ribbon-adorned awareness.
I think some of the same forces are at work regarding lung cancer research funding. Lung cancer actually kills more women than breast cancer in the U.S., but public funding for lung cancer research is a mere fraction of what is dedicated to breast cancer. If you think breast cancer research is unglamorous, try getting people to fund (or wear a ribbon for) a disease that’s been stigmatized as self-inflicted.
The suffragists faced considerable animosity, threats and intimidation which limited their focus and goals. There is an undercurrent flowing today that advocates and seeks the same kind of response to women of today asserting their inherent rights of self determination. The Post on Playboy is a clear example of this, where women are hate-fucked into submission.
I find it sad and depressing that most women today are not aware of what they endured. We really need to educate women about their history. Lobby for women’s history classes in high school. I think that once women understand their history, they will have a newfound appreciation for feminism. I know I certainly appreciated feminism more as I did my research.
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