Postfeminism and Other Fairy Tales
This article from the NYTimes is right on when it asks:
But the politics of the last few months have certainly opened a spigot on the question of where exactly society stands on gender matters.
It’s hardly that all women are on the same side — there were plenty of women making the points men were about prostitution after Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York resigned following the news that he had paid perhaps tens of thousands of dollars for sex. But there seemed to be a starker split between men’s and women’s reactions to the scandal. And women who for a long time felt they were on opposite sides of a generational divide on gender issues were finding things in common.
Its true this week has been an extraordinary one for women, gender and politics in the media from the Spitzer mess to Geraldine Ferraro and whatever else latest Clinton news.
What else I really appreciate about this article is the acknowledgment of women as political spouses giving real identity to those people who choose (or don’t choose that role) and all the consequences of that role. Unfortunately, it should not have taken an extramarital affair for the media and people to take notice. The only real discussion of the political spouse has been about how the former President Clinton interferes and causes problems for his wife’s campaign. Another branch of this storyline is to compare other political spouses to Clinton and discuss how they don’t measure up to him.
The article also touches upon the generational divide between women by discussing how women of different ages and political identities are finding more in common.
Don’t know what quite to say about the postfeminism issue, but hopefully we are not living in a POST anything era!
