Anne Kornblut has a new book, which I'm going to have to read: "Notes from the Cracked Ceiling: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and What It Will Take for a Woman to Win." According to the Washington Post, the book explains why women lost. Kornblut touched on the topic of young women who "don't vote for women" in yesterday's paper. I say "touched" because I couldn't find a mention of the historical pattern of young women denouncing feminism in favor of pleasing boyfriends. At a certain age, women in patriarchy prefer pleasing boyfriends to eating food, drinking water and engaging in any and all rational thought.
Other than the small minority of women who sign up for feminist studies in college, young women get their ideas about feminism from a popular culture and media steeped in misogyny. Inspirational movies about courageous women who devoted their lives to fighting for and winning rights that today's women take for granted pretty well don't exist in this country (well, I can think of exactly one.) The fight for the vote alone took 72 years, yet few can name even a handful of the brave women who fought all their lives for women's basic citizenship rights.
Except as wives, mothers and mistresses, women are still not in the mainstream history books, which in 2009 is pretty damn incredible. The absence fuels and confirms the patriarchal propaganda, the lies which drum into our children's heads the myth that the only people in history who have done anything worthwhile are men. Yeah. Pretty well everything about male-centered culture tells young women to listen to, respect, and vote for the men.
[See more on Notes from the Cracked Ceiling here.]
Politics Feminist News Gender
[See more on Notes from the Cracked Ceiling here.]
Politics Feminist News Gender
