September 6, 2006 3:20 PM
Feminism and the sexual revolution
Re: Moms for Modesty: just a little more food for thought from one of the founding mothers of the Second Wave Feminists (circa 1968 and on) - me. Looking around you today, you would never believe that eliminating the treatment of women as sex objects was a bigger part of our agenda than abortion rights.
This is an excerpt from my book Reaching the Left from the Right - it starts in the middle of a discussion of the current feminist obsession with abortion:
There was also another force that was shaping the direction of feminism – and that was the Sexual Revolution. While at first it may have appeared that the two movements, the counterculture’s Sexual Revolution and feminism’s Second Wave, were on a collision course, at some point they made peace with each other. Feminism, ignoring the very real differences between men’s and women’s sexuality, passed on the issue of women as sex objects and instead embraced complete sexual freedom.This has often led to absurdities such as women demanding the right to dress in a sexually provocative manner, while blaming men for not taking them seriously.
It has led to a society in which modest clothing is hard to find and fashion dictates dressing little girls like prostitutes – even as we cope with abductions and abuse.
It has led to soft-core pornography becoming mainstream. While in the early days of the Second Wave, feminists would have regarded Victoria’s Secret bra-studded women strutting their stuff on TV as exploited victims, once feminism took a turn and yoked itself with the Sexual Revolution, the outcome was predetermined. Today the hardest-core pornography and child abuse is no longer of concern to the women’s movement.Now everything’s up for grabs. Prostitution and pornography are just career choices. And if the lines are sometimes blurred by women looking like they’re dressed for these professions while showing up to work at mainstream jobs, they cannot be responsible if men pick up the wrong ideas. Mention that women should dress less sexually and run the risk of being accused of siding with the Taliban.
Logically inconsistent? Yes. But then so was the union of Second Wave feminism and the Sexual Revolution.
And really, the Second Wave of Feminism was never true to the ideals of the First Wave.The First Wave feminists – the ones who championed and won voting rights for women at the turn of the century – were staunchly opposed to abortion. Susan B. Anthony, in her publication The Revolution, called abortion child murder and wrote,
"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!"
Elizabeth Cady Stanton referred to abortion as infanticide. She likened it to slavery: "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential candidate and strong opponent of abortion, affirmed, "The rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the fetus."And finally Alice Paul, author of the original 1923 Equal Rights Amendment is on record as saying: "Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women."
Second Wave feminists didn’t agree. They saw abortion as a key to women being in control of their bodies and their lives. They refused to deal with the question of their own exploitation of the small and vulnerable beings within their wombs. Refused to see the parallels with slavery, where another group of beings was denied their humanity, their unalienable right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Just as the master had complete control over his dependent slaves, the pregnant woman now had complete control over the dependent child in her body. Instead of God being the author of life and death, now woman claimed this for herself.
Posted in Current Affairs, Feminism, Mothering, Teens and Tweens | Permalink
