For that matter, what is a feminist these days?

After stumbling across a rather ridiculous blog written by someone convinced that "feminists have gone too far" (where? I ask myself) and the "delicate male ego" is something that has not existed since the '50s, I wondered (again) at the hate, mistrust and fear people have for the "feminist" label. That the blogger in question (and please forgive me, I was so disgusted I just closed the browser window so I don't have a link, but I think she was a "slithering lizard" in the TTLB Ecosphere [link bottom right on this site]) seemed to think that there's no reason for feminism today did not surprise me. People only know what they know, and for most that can be a pretty narrowly defined experience. The way the media played the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, you'd think it was because everyone just felt it wasn't needed. I'm not saying things aren't better today, but there's more to do, more to accomplish, and that will only come with self-awareness, empowerment and enlightenment. The boys aren't going to give up their privileges on their own.

But what is a feminist today? To some people, we're all Birkenstock-wearing pissed off vegetarian bitches with hairy armpits and legs and entrenched hatred of all things male. But that does not define me. Neither does the stiletto-botted vixen in black leather sex trip that some men seem to desire from female power.

Wikipedia [as of today] defines feminism as:

Feminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. While generally providing a critique of social relations, many proponents of feminism also focus on analyzing gender inequality and the promotion of women's rights, interests, and issues.

The wiki goes on with a laundry list of feminist issues, but I hate doing laundry (which, in and of itself, does not necessarily make me a feminist), so let's go on to something I did not expect to find there (my my, I love my Wikipedia!) -- a whole list of "subtypes of feminism":

• Amazon feminism
• anarcho-feminism
• cultural feminism
• ecofeminism
• existentialist feminism
• fluffy feminism or girly feminism
• French feminism
• gender feminism
• lesbian feminism
• liberal feminism
• libertarian feminism or individualist feminism
• male feminism or men's feminism
• Marxist feminism or socialist feminism
• material feminism
• multi-cultural feminism
• pop feminism
• post-colonial feminism
• postmodern feminism which includes queer theory
• psychoanalytical feminism
• radical feminism
• separatist feminism
• sexually liberal feminism/sex-positive feminism/pro-sex feminism
• social construct feminism
• socialist feminism
• spiritual feminism
• standpoint feminism
• third-world feminism
• transfeminism
• womanism
• Certain actions, approaches and people can also be described as proto-feminist or post-feminist.

...which seems rather exhaustive, if not exhausting to ponder. But it doesn't strike my dim wits as very illuminating as to where feminism stands as a whole. [Wikipedia's being a wiki, these passages could change at any moment.]

So let's take another tack:

Amanda of Mouse Words has written an interesting bit about make-up -- more specifically about how the use of make-up has changed over the years -- not the style of make-up, though that has changed, too, but rather the why of make-up:

My mother, when we lived in Alpine, was not willing to leave the house without make-up. She saw it as a mask, a necessity, like wearing clothes really. And she would occasionally do my make-up as a lark when I'd go to school or to dances.

But my mother's worries told me a lot about what it means to be a woman, mostly that you are onstage all the time and that you are obliged to keep in character all the time, even when you are trying to relax.

It's a tough lesson to shake.

In the context of make-up, I felt she's captured a bit of the essence of how what we now call "feminism" has changed over the years.

To my grandmother, make-up is whorish. To my mother, it is womanhood. To me, it's a game with a definitive sexual subtext, like wearing garter belts. Not necessary, but hot.

There it is, through the lens of make-up: Empowerment. Femininity. Feminism. As our context changes -- and as we change our context -- we change how we empower ourselves. For ages, empowerment consisted of ingratiating oneself to the men of property, so one could have a job or be taken in marriage. Disempowerment was life on the streets in a world where life was nasty, brutish and short.

Today it all seems so different. Here, in this media-driven culture with Beatrix whooping heads and Gwen Stefani's melodic whispers of "this my shit," it's hard to imagine what life must have been like then. Stepping back (watch out for the cat), let's see what phases of gradual female liberation we've achieved:

1. A woman is not a man's property. Not only that, she can own property, too. This radical idea actually existed at various times in history, such as back in Medieval England, but went out of fashion with the Renaissance.
2. A woman has the right to vote. I'm still pretty stunned that this did not happen until fairly recently.
3. A woman has the right to prevent impregnation. Oh, the rage that this spurred! The Catholic Church still has not gotten over it. Neither has the pseudo-Christian evangelical right.
4. A woman has the right to be independent of men. This is where things started to get dicey. It seems like men just got confused here. They didn't "get" the concept of male privilege. (They still don't.) Robert Bly came along and got them to beat on drums, which just made everybody chuckle. But really, guys have not "gotten it" any better since then, and I wonder if Bly wasn't onto something in his thesis about the "sibling society," where boys teach each other what it is to be a man.
5. A woman has the right to control her body. This ruling of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court has proven tenuous at best. Unless something changes for the better, my hunch is that Roe will be dismantled by the radical right before the decade is out.
6. A woman has the right to embrace her sexuality without peril. This is the Madonna brand of feminism, and the kind that spoke to me (though I never really got the lingerie-as-outerwear thing). She's her own woman, does her own thing, owns her own company (which publishes many other artists, including Alanis Morissette [see next item]). Erin Brokovich as played by Julia Roberts is the epitome of this kind of feminist. Sandra Bullock has made a career out of playing women who are strong and sexy, and stronger for the combination.
7. A woman has the right to all of her feelings and opinions, without shame. Alanis has been at the forefront (IMHO) of an entire wave of female artists who are strong and unafraid of saying what's what. (My first 45 single was Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," with "I Am Woman" on the flipside, if I remember correctly. Those songs by her and Joni and Judy were revolutionary, but those voices were flickers in the night, lost in hard rock and new wave camp that followed until Lilith Fair.

So why this "f-word" treatment we see today? Why the reluctance of young women to embrace the feminist moniker? It seems that the gains of the past 200 years are now taken for granted. The struggles of the past seem so dramatic compared with the subtleties of male privilege today that perhaps many, if not most, young women don't even believe it exists. Perhaps.

Except for our corner of the blogsphere, the feminist movement seems practically dead. The Democrats are even talking about selling out a woman's right to choose so they can pander to the "red states."

Where does that leave us? We have a handful of women in Congress. There is a smattering of women running big corporations. Yes, there are women all over in the public eye, many of whom are feminists. (No, Ann Coulter is not one of them, no matter how loudly she shouts.) But when it comes to running things, it seems not all that many women are in charge. Why aren't there more? On the local level, we see much more female influence and participation. Most PTAs are almost all-women. Also, a majority of small businesses are started up, owned and operated by women. So why don't we see more women in the higher ranks of government and business?

My (radical, perhaps) intuition tells me that it's because men (and many women) don't want to be led by a woman. In fact, I would go so far as to say men (and many, if not most, women) believe that women are inferior to men.

(Hey, it's just an observation. I'm just a woman. What do I know?)

And so when I look at what we have not (yet) accomplished in women's rights, I do not see any great chance that any of these things will be achieved soon:

• A woman's body is not the government's property. Right now, a woman's right to control her own body, her own reproductive organs, is permitted by special dispensation by the federal government. There has been no all-encompassing recognition of a woman's sovereignty over her own body. Roe v. Wade has been eroding year by year.
• Women's rights worldwide are human rights. As it is, the rights of women to basic human dignity and respect are not major priorities in our culture, let alone our policy. In fact, the pseudo-Christian right has actively and successfully opposed any foreign aid that includes birth control, a policy whose impact is upon women primarily. Female "circumcision" (a euphemism that itself dismisses the seriousness of the violence), cultural laws of oppression like Sharia, child prostitution are footnotes among the concerns in this country's foreign policy (under Republican and Democrat alike).

So what are we to do? Blast "What You Waiting For" from our iPods ("take a chance you stupid ho") and read our shÅ?jo and thank the stars Kobe isn't in the house?

I ask the women, the girls, who are most definitely not feminists to consider what our society would be like -- what the world would be like -- if women had a greater voice in running things.

Really, would that be so bad?

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