The article about Lessing (which is from 2001) doesn't give much context about exactly the subject of the class she was sittin in on. With 9 and 10 years olds, my guess is it wasn't Gender Studies. The article reads like she's taking one experience and extrapolating it to the entire culture. I'm a big fan of Lessing's books, but this article seems like the author was cherry-picking some of her comments. I'm not saying she doesn't believe what the article says, it just doesn't give much context to support her arguments. (If you want to see one example of who is perpetuating the idea of men as macho warriors, just have a look at the Bush administration and the padded flightsuit photo op, and the perpetual "brush clearing" and the painting of political opponents as effete.)

Feminists are certainly no monolithic block. Read some feminist bb's: two feminists, three arguments. I guess there are those of us who still call ourselves feminists and still do believe that feminism is about working toward equality. Most of the feminists I know are not extremists or man-haters (in fact, most are married with kids, as am I). Sure there are the extremists, and they, being the squeaky wheels get the most media grease.

Better childcare, yes, as well as equal pay and opportunities, preserving reproductive freedom, and improving the rights of women in other parts of the world are the issues the feminists I know and respect are concerned with today. Yes, we've certainly made some gains, but there's always backlash. In this country religious right which wields a lot of influence on the GOP, is pushing to set women's rights back a few hundred years. Look at the news yesterday about the the new Iraqi constitution and the influence of sharia law. Will the women in Iraq be denied employment, freedom to go out of their homes unescorted or without covering their faces? It's entirely possible. We still need a voice for women, and right now there aren't a lot of people aside from feminists who are willing to be that voice.

I don't see the rights of women in Iraq as a feminist issue, but as a human one. And that's part of the problem of feminism. Like religion, it's very divisive. I care about men's rights as much as I care about women's. And equal treatment for all, not special treatment for some.

I agree that it's a human rights issue, but other than Amnesty International, I don't see a lot of concern and attention being brought to this other than from feminists.

Regarding the "divisive" issue, I don't see feminism as any more divisive than any other movement such as the labor union movement, the civil right movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the anti-Iraq war movement, and the environmental movement. There is going to be one group that favors the changes being advocated, one group who is against, and probably a thousand others somewhere in the middle. Change and challenging the status quo are inherently divisive.

I love men, as long as they're properly cooked.

Seriously, I've had good and bad experiences moving with/for men. It's all in what you make it.

Women who publish 'feminist' tomes may be expressing their own anger towards men, and not defining a valid political or social stance. Take it with a grain of salt and go out and collect your own valid experiences.

Feminism certainly has had it's devisive moments, I won't argue that. Social change spawns some extreme reactions.

Better childcare, yes, as well as equal pay and opportunities, preserving reproductive freedom, and improving the rights of women in other parts of the world are the issues the feminists I know and respect are concerned with today.

As Coco Chanel famously said, the only way women will achieve equal rights with men is to give some up.

Well, Richard, you may soon get your wish, as least in Iraq. Reuel Marc Gehrect of the Weekly Standard said this on Meet the Press yesterday regarding the potential loss of voting rights for women with the adoption of an Iraqi constitution based primarily on Islamic law:

In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.

Here's the MTP transcript:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8926876/

Yeah, I saw the show and heard his speculation, and we'll see how it really turns out.

Back in America, women live longer than men, women comprise 58% of our college students, women control two to three times as much wealth as men, and women prevail in child custody case nine times as often as men.

This is not what oppression looks like.

women control two to three times as much wealth as men

You know, I've seen this trotted out a few times over the last few years, but have never seen numbers to back it up or how it's being measured.

The Census Bureau collects data on assets by family structure. You sum the assets of single woman households and compare, voila.

Have a link?

By coincidence, I have had two utterly apalling encounters recently with professors of women's studies. The first was a woman I sublet my house to--she withheld rent because I hadn't been thoughtful enough to provide her with three-pronged outlet adapters, and called me 1000 miles away in acute distress when she found ants in the kitchen, or couldn't find the lid to a pan. She was in a constant state of victimhood with a permanent whine in her voice. The second was a woman who I met last week at a cocktail party, and who lit into me with withering derision the moment she heard I was working on a "microfinance" project. She actually recommended that I not use the word microfinance because I wasn't qualified to, i.e., I wasn't part of her "in crowd" in academia. She was acting exactly like a vain high school prom queen attacking the clumsy "new girl."

I agree with Amy that building yourself a ghetto and occupying it defensively is no way to live. A gender is not a minority group! My blood boils every time I hear women in Iraq discussed as if they're a special interest.

A friend's sister did an analysis of microfinance for her Ph.D. and found it's not as effective as large-scale investment for improving living standards in the Third World. Her findings were so disruptive to the status quo that Kofi Annan personally paid her a visit for an explanation. What you have here is a sacred cow that's being protected by its priesthood.

Deja, check this link for the raw figures, and remember, the computer is your friend.

Tell the three-prong lady to move to New York, where she'll be lucky if there's electricity and hot water at all times in her building.

The microfinance lady, I just want to slap.

Deja, check this link for the raw figures, and remember, the computer is your friend.

No need to get snarky. :-) It's been my experience that "netiquette" dictates that he who throws out the statistic backs it up with a link or source, that's all.

Ok, I'm looking at another census link and seeing something different. According to this census data

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p70-88.pdf

median net worth of male households is $24,659 and female households is $23,028. There are more female headed households than male, but median assets per household are still less for female households than male.

Hi Amy... remember me from Glenn's show?

It's funny. Doris Lessing has long been one of my heroes. When I was an aspiring pro-feminist, her "Golden Notebook" was one of those "must-reads"; her feminist credentials are so exquisite that any criticism she offers must be listened to very seriously. Thanks for the link.

I'm not a women's studies major, but alot of the classes I took were inspiring and had no interest in crippling men. Try feminists like Bettina Aptheker and Angela Davis, or Tricia Rose and Gina Dent- feminism is like anything; it comes with its brilliant and its screwballs, with a lot of people who never attempt to seperate them because it's easy to lump them together and dismiss them all.
Any issues I have with men have everything to do with who I am, where I grew up, and what has happened in my life. But I do try not to lump all men together under the heading of "The Oppressor" because that would mean thinking all women were "The Victim" and that's just not true. I am a feminist, but from the sound of it, I'm nothing like who you guys are dealing with. I think we need a new name for the rabble rousing/ always bitching but never moving forward nuts. A friend of mine suggests "femme-nazi" and I think it fits.

How about we just call them "extremists", the same as we do with the fringe elements in any other movement? Comparing even the most radical feminists to "nazi's" is offensive on many levels. As far as I'm aware, no feminists have been rounding up and gassing any particular segments of the population.

I do, Hugo...thanks so much for dropping by. She's fantastic.

Yes, but the "extremists" brainwash so many -- or rather, so many allow their brains to be snatched -- that it's really hard to differentiate.

In other words, much of feminism seems to be "fringe" feminism.

Yes, but the "extremists" brainwash so many

Really? I guess in the circles in which I travel I just don't see this at all. Maybe it's more prevalent in academia. I never meet people in my work or social environment who espouse a radical feminist (and only rarely a moderately feminist) viewpoint. I certainly don't see it embraced by any MSM I've been exposed to lately.

but median assets per household are still less for female households than male.

I don't dispute that, and in fact I explicitly point it out in my post. But you're changing the subject, because my point was that women AS A GROUP control more wealth than men, which they do by some $500 billion in the US.

Only because there are more female households. If you're using that to show that "women are better off financially than men," well that dog doesn't hunt if the median assets are lower for female households than male.

Married households as a group have the largest number of households AND the highest median assets by far of any group.

This is a good time to take a lesson in reading comprehension. Originally I said: "Back in America, women live longer than men, women comprise 58% of our college students, women control two to three times as much wealth as men, and women prevail in child custody case nine times as often as men."

Deja pseu seized on one point and left the others alone, which I take as agreement on all those other things.

Women control a lot of the wealth in married-people households and own half of it as a matter of law in most states; so we can't really use these to say anything about which sex has the cash, can we? Unless we want to get into who pays the bills and does the shopping, but that's not very interesting.

The man-hating femorrhoids (which is most feminists, as Ms. Alkon points out) like to concentrate on salary in alleging financial disparity between the sexes. But as we all know, salaries aren't wealth, assets are. And if members of one group can earn less than the other by taking happier, sillier, less stressful jobs and doing them less often and still end up with as much of the assets if not more, then the whole financial oppression thing is pretty much a fiction.

And that's the point: the idea that middle-class American white women are oppressed is silly, but it's the cornerstone of the feminist man-hating program. No wonder fewer and fewer women call themselves feminists any more.

Well, Richard, as soon as someone starts condescending to me, I stop reading what they've written. So whatever you said past "reading comprehension" is just so much chaff in the wind. Cheerio!

'femmorrhoids'? So what do we call male assholes who whine in the same way female extremists blather on?
And I'm speaking as a non middle class white woman on this, but of course they can be oppressed you douche! And black feminism made up a huge (uncelebrated) part of the feminist movement in the 1960s-70s, and the chicana feminist movement has made huge strides too.
and most feminism isn't about man-hating, it's about empowering women. all you hear are the man hating ones because they make better television. like black folks on COPS; there are domestic disputes in every community but no one notices which areas will never be filmed. So get off that high horse before you fall and break your neck.

Call us whatever you want.