I have always found Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique troublesome. I could never put my finger on why exactly. Of course, I am writing from a privileged position. No one has questioned my desire not to be a housewife or have children. No one has told me that I can’t go to graduate school based upon my gender. The world has changed a lot since 1963 when the book appeared.

Christina Hoff Summers reconsiders this groundbreaking text:

But in building her case, Friedan made a fatal mistake that undermined her book’s appeal at the time and permanently weakened the movement it helped create. She not only attacked a postwar culture that aggressively consigned women to the domestic sphere, but she attacked the sphere itself — along with all the women who chose to live there.

Perhaps, what my issue with the text is that some women did choose to live in the private sphere of that time. However, how many other choices did women have?

Whatever the issue may be, The Feminine Mystique’s influence is still felt over sixty years later.

Yesterday, I tuned into NPR and listened to Talk of the Nation. Journalist Meghan Daum discusses her aptly named article, Raunch is rebranded as ‘confidence.’ Her commentary on the program and article are brilliant.  She certainly hits many features of women and spring break life right on. What I like most about Daum’s journalistic style is that she calls certain statistics and reports “news of the ‘no duh’ variety.” I only begin to chuckle to myself when I think of all the news I read on a regular basis that induces a “duh” cringe in me. The kind of “duh–don’t we all know this already?!?!” reaction that makes me want to run away from the media crazed USA and move to a quiet British Columbia hamlet and be done with it all.

Daum’s no duh news:

The American Medical Assn. released figures about sex and alcohol use during rowdy spring break vacations. The poll, which surveyed female college students and graduates aged 17 to 35, found that 74% believed women used drinking “as an excuse for outrageous behavior”; 83% “had friends who drank the majority of nights while on spring break”; and 12% “felt forced or pressured into sex” during spring break.

Apart from Daum’s almost mischievous, hilarious terms, there is a troubling side to this column.  Daum correctly states that young women are equating their spring break antics with confidence. The wackier, riskier and raunchier they get, the more confident they can claim to be.  Ultimately what this article reveals is that young women are not only partying during spring break but that spring break represents an enlarged version of what is going on today with today’s youth (ie teenagers and young twentysomes.)

Yet another reason I am glad I went to high school in the 1990s.

So between Obama’s latest speech, Geraldine Ferraro’s comments, and what have you, it seems like the hierarchy of RACE, CLASS AND GENDER is among us. On all the mainstream news stations, print journals, and online media, the news anchors and journalists are acting like this is a BRAND NEW issue that America has never dealt with before. Well, clearly its been everyone’s minds for a LONG time but since this is the first time that a woman or an African American man is thisclose to winning the democratic candidacy, the topic is all over the place. But we still aren’t addressing these issues in the right way. Instead we are tip toeing around them, only mentioning them as abstract terms and theories. Leave that to the academics. it is up to the media to really get into it.
Even Clinton’s summary of the topics and Obama’s speech is strained at best:

In her opening remarks, Mrs. Clinton said she was “very glad” Mr. Obama had made his speech, given that she said that race had been a “complicated” issue in America that had been marked by “pitfalls” and “detours.” Asked why she was glad, she said that issues of race and gender are “important” and twice called them “difficult issues.” via

Meanwhile, alternative media like Alternet is approaching the categories of race, class and gender with full force. One of their latest pieces called “Veterans Decry Institutional Sexism in Military” excellently details issues female veterans deal with because of their gender.

As soldiers, then as veterans, and, even now, as members of the anti-war movement, women in the military are still fighting to be taken seriously. “It’s hard to be a veteran of the war and a woman,” said Iraq vet Patty McCann. “… A lot of times my experience gets boiled down to what I experienced as a woman — and I don’t get to talk about some of the things that I experienced as a soldier.”

One’s identity as a soldier versus a woman is fascinating. It is a dichotomy that is not explored on CNN or Fox news. It is one that could easily be applied to Clinton and Obama, their racial and gender identities and their identities as political candidates and public personalities.

Major news organizations should take a lead from media like Alternet to deliver us news we deserve.

I think its time to start a petition! Details to follow!