Susan Douglas on 'Pit Bull Feminism'

Susan Douglas reported masterfully about the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and the rise of Sarah Palin, Feminism without Feminism.

Choice quote from this must-read piece:

Pit Bull Feminism is about looking stylish and pretty so you can get away with attacking the accomplishments of those who have actually fought for women’s issues, like authoring the Violence against Women Act, as Joe Biden did. It is about using your status as a “hockey mom” (and now they’re better than other mothers?) to immunize you and your party against charges that you are, in fact, deeply anti-family when it comes to public policies.

But most of all, Pit Bull Feminism is about exploiting 40 years of activism, lawsuits, legislative changes, and consciousness-raising—all of which you have benefited from—in the hopes of then undoing them all if you manage to get into office.

Susan Douglas is the author of Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media and co-author, with Meredith Michaels, of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women.

Feminism I can live with

My Mojo Mom book revisions are going well, though it's always a challenge to find uninterrupted time to write. It helps to get out of the house, which is full of other distractions and obligations (i. e. potential work) even if I am the only one home.

Writing the book is such a linear process. I am blogging today because I just had to sink my teeth into some juicy hyperlinks. I am writing about feminism this week, revisiting the fact that I would never have predicted the fault lines that developed between myself and the Second-Wave movement. But between motherhood and Obama/Clinton, the gulf is there.

In book form, I have to explain all this in more detail. But on the blog I can reasonably say that we do have to first remember and appreciate what feminism has already accomplished, and remember that those gains are currently threatened--and then jump into the hyperlink dimension to point you to recent writings by Katha Pollitt and Dahlia Lithwick. From the Supreme Court's rejection of Lily Ledbetter's pay discrimination case against Goodyear Tire, to the fact that our reproductive rights including contraception are under fire, we need to wake up and smell the backlash.

At the same time, many mothers including myself feel that feminism left us behind in favor of a focus on the paid workforce that invited us to work in the guise of male clones. This approach to feminism did not address the realities of motherhood and the unreceptive atmosphere created by many employers. I don't quite consider this a failure of feminism, but rather serious unfinished business that is left up to today's mothers to take on.

Which is why I was so excited to read Joan Williams' book Unbending Gender last week. I have been a fan of Williams' for quite a while, but had never read her book cover to cover. It's quite a challenging read, written with the detail and scrupulous referencing of a talented law professor. I wasn't sure if I'd get past the first few pages, but I soon felt engrossed in a description of feminism that truly spoke to me, Aha, here is feminism I could live with. As I dove into the book, there were pages where I started highlighting and didn't know where to stop.

Wiliams' model of reconstructive feminism values parents' contributions within the family, and realizes that paid child care is not the sole solution. Family caregiving must really count and be reflected in laws and social safety nets.

Williams exposes the Myth of the Ideal Worker as a privilege that employers think they are entitled to. The Ideal Worker standard discriminates against women, particularly mothers (from a Mothers and More Q&A with Williams):

A The term "ideal worker" is designed to focus people's attention on how we define our ideals at work. Good jobs typically assume an ideal worker who is willing and able to work for 40 years straight, taking no time off for childbearing or childrearing. This ideal is framed around men's bodies-for they need no time off for childbirth- and men's life patterns-for American women still do 80% of the childcare. Not surprisingly, many mothers find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet a standard designed around men's bodies, and around the assumption that workers are supported by a flow of childcare and other family work from their spouses that many men enjoy, but most women do not.

Two-thirds of mothers aged 25 to 45 do not perform as ideal workers even in the minimal sense of working full time all year. Ninety-three percent of mothers do not work substantial overtime during the key years of child (and career) development.

Williams' approach unites women who may have appeared to be on different sides of the Mommy Wars or the Opt-Out Revolution. She puts choice into context: women choose from the options available to them. If continuing their careers as before becomes a non-option, many women will "choose" to stay at home. But many of those women might choose employment if they were presented opportunities that were compatible with their family caregiving responsibilities. I think most of us could agree that truly expanding the range of authentically fair choices offered to mothers would be good for all families.

For alternative work to be genuinely family-friendly, it must be available to all workers (rather than a dead-end "Mommy Track"), paid proportional wages and benefits, and retain possibilities for advancement in proportion to work experience.

A focus on performance and productivity rather than time ties in with the new movement toward the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) model that I am so excited about.

Movement in this direction will end up helping men,too. One-third of male workers work 49 hours a week. How many couples would jump at the chance to have each parent work 30 hours instead?

Reading Joan Williams, I can see a glimpse of where we need to go in the future. It will take a lot of work to get there. In the meantime I'd like to mend the rift with older feminists. We have a wave of caregiving coming that will affect all generations, and we are going to need the Baby Boomers' force of will and political clout to get these changes made. I am hopeful that when they decide they want to take phased retirement, truly flexible careers will become the norm.

More "Stretch Marks on Sisterhood" follow-up and fallout

Phew. There has been a flurry of response to my Women's eNews commentary, Obama v. Clinton Puts Stretch Marks on Sisterhood. I feel that I need to address this topic one more time and then let it go for a while, if that is possible.

I feel fortunate to have talked to Deborah Siegel about the responses, because she and I came up with a consensus that it would be productive for younger women to learn the history of the women's movement, and remember to show appreciation to the women who came before us and fought hard to win our basic rights.

And for Boomer feminists, you really need to start seeing us and taking our points of view seriously.

And both sides need to think, act and write with empathy. Linda Hirshman wrote a response to younger women's commentaries selectively quoting us without really engaging us on the issues. But that paled in comparison to what the Mother Jones blog did by reporting on Hirshman's piece without (apparently) reading our original work.

In Mother Jones, Courtney Martin and I are told that we have a "false consciousness" get characterized as "young women who inherited what we mothers fought for and now want us to disappear so our girls can go wild and pole dance without feeling all guilty. Caricatures work both ways, missy."

Whoa. Seriously. You'd think this was left-wingers calling out right-wingers here. Writers such as Courtney and myself are working to help feminism stay relevant for younger women! In the 1970's I was the idealistic 10-year old sitting in the basement, reading my mother's back issues of Ms. Magazine. We want to work with you but such thoughtless, knee-jerk, stereotyping is the kind of divisive rhetoric that is getting in the way.

The Mother Jones blog post is called Throwing Clinton Under the Bus to Spite Mom and I want to challenge it in two additional ways. First of all, my own mother is voting for Obama and so is my Obamican father. So this is not a personal Mom-Daughter conflict for me, but I do believe that there is a genuine generational dynamic within feminism that needs our attention.

The ridiculous caricature that Mother Jones pulled off the shelf brings up another pet peeve of mine about the Boomers: they have a serious blind spot when it comes to seeing Gen X leaders and activists coming up behind them. We've made our mark in Silicon Valley (think Google) but seem to be struggling for visibility in the political arena.

On New Year's Eve I did stand-up comedy for the first time, addressing this issue for a largely Boomer audience. I ended with a group chant among the few Gen Xers in the room, "We're here, we're 40, get used to it!" For people who said "never trust anyone under 30" to think I am still a kid would be amusing if it wasn't getting in the way of having them take my political discourse seriously.

While Mother Jones wants to pigeonhole me as a girl gone wild, I am actually a 39-year old mother and entrepreneur with a Ph. D. from Stanford and 12 years of work experience. In 2008 I will be voting in my sixth presidential election -- and in all five contests so far, a Bush or Clinton has won every single one of them.

So it's not just idealistic new voters who are attracted to Obama's grassroots engagement and message of hope. There are many of us with more than a little gray around the temples who are ready to move beyond the era when the Bush and Clinton families take turns being President.

I am grateful for the good things that happened during the Clinton years of the 1990's but I truly believe that Washington is frozen by two decades of loyalty demands to one of these families, or the other.

Bill Clinton's campaign theme song was "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow." We should remember the following lines, "Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone...don't you look back."

Mojo Mom's commentary on Women's eNews

I'm pretty excited today because I've written a political commentary for Women's eNews, an online news service providing professional coverage on a wide variety of issues affecting women's lives.

My piece, featured as "Today's Story," is called Obama v. Clinton Puts Stretch Marks on Sisterhood.

As a Gen Xer, I feel sandwiched between two powerful generational juggernauts. I am still not sure whether our ultimate generational fate is to play referee between the Boomers and their Gen Y children, or choose sides ourselves.

In my commentary I argue that it's time to extend a welcoming hand rather than a slap in the face to younger leaders, even if we don't always agree on every issue across generational lines. In the Obama-Clinton debate, I feel the choice to support Obama has been unfairly dismissed and disrespected by Boomer feminists.

I hope you'll read the commentary and let me know what you think. Women's eNews doesn't have reader comments on the piece, so feel free to share your thoughts here.

The reason why Obama is the change we've been waiting for

Do you ever have one of those moments where the world doesn't change in an instant, but rather you change your perspective 180 degrees and see things from a totally new angle? I had one of those radical moments today, coming after weeks studying the Obama-Clinton matchup. I've been supporting Obama since John Edwards dropped out of the race, and my enthusiasm for Obama has kept growing. Today I could see why Obama is literally "the change we have been waiting for," and why Clinton's campaign is failing to catch fire with young people.

Obama is creating a movement toward participatory government, one that will require much more of its citizens. It's crazy that this has not already happened. We waged war against a major oil-producing country, and yet we have not been asked to conserve in any meaningful way. In the face of environmental crisis, war, and poverty, our main civic duties have been to keep spending like greedy little consumers, and not ask too many questions.

That's been about Bush. Obama or Clinton would mark a significant change from Bush, and don't disagree that much on policy issues. So what is the difference between them? Boomer women see Hillary as the change they have been working toward for years. 1970's Feminists get angry with younger women who support Obama, and question whether we have ignored the lessons of Feminism. Don't we get it that our hard-fought rights are still under fire? How could we turn our back on the opportunity to elect a female President? Are we gender traitors, ungrateful, ignorant, or suffering from false consciousness?

I vote for None of the Above. As of today, for the first time I feel like Feminism is no longer the movement we need to drive social change. This is hard for me to even write. Although I majored in neuroscience rather than women's studies, I have always proudly called myself a Feminist. I still believe in the core values and and principles of Feminism, but here's the switch in perspective: I pulled my friend Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner's book The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy off the shelf this morning. Kristin writes about young women being active in their communities, informed about issues, and yet turning out to vote at very low levels. Only about one third of women ages 18 to 24 voted in 2000, compared to 65% of women over age 44. I have read her book before, and in the past, I have always interpreted that to mean that there was something wrong with young women, and we should try to find new ways to bring them in to the Feminist movement. But now I am have come to believe that the Second Wave, 1070's Feminist movement was an effort rooted in a particular place and time in American history, and that it is the movement that needs to change, and politics that needs to change, to resonate with young people.

Hillary Clinton is the logical culmination of Boomer Feminists' march toward success. I can understand why they are frustrated that just as they think their/her moment has come, the younger generations are not getting on board. But growing up in the aftermath of the battles of the 1970's is very different than being on the front lines. We do take some of our rights for granted. Is this a success or failure of Feminism? I call it a success, though I realize the absolute danger of complacency.

There are many tough challenges ahead, but I don't think we need a new "wave" of Feminism to tackle them. I would like to see women and men working toward gender justice, and people of all races working toward racial justice. This is what I see in Obama's campaign. Of course Clinton cares about these issues, but Boomer Feminists have alienated us by insisting that we draw political lines based on gender.

Clinton is qualified to be President, but in my opinion she is not the best choice because of the Dynasty issue (20 years of Bushes and Clintons, do we really want it to be 24 or 28?). Politics as usual is fueled by loyalty above all and we have created loyalty gridlock by handing the Presidency back and forth between these two families for twenty years. In addition, there is residual resentment toward Bill and his shenanigans, even among Democrats, and every time he shows up in the campaign it's a 1990's flashback. Clinton surrogates struck dischord every time they acted like she was entitled to win. A co-chair of Clinton's campaign in Michigan said, "Superdelegates are not second-class delegates," says Joel Ferguson, who will be a superdelegate if Michigan is seated. "The real second-class delegates are the delegates that are picked in red-state caucuses that are never going to vote Democratic." Way to give up on and practically disenfranchise those of us in the so-called "Red" states. (Guess the Clinton campaign didn't learn from Howard Dean's successful 50-state strategy in 2006.) I know that Obama will be competing for North Carolina in the general election, should he become the nominee.


It would be a huge milestone to have a women fill the role of President, but Hillary is ultimately an insider, not the change candidate. Obama is poised to reach the benchmark of a million people contributing to his campaign, many small donors who chip in $10 or $25. At the same time, a pro-Hillary 527 group is trying to raise $10 million--$100,000 each from 100 donors. Which campaign, and resulting Presidency, would be "owned" by the people?

These thoughts are a work in progress, and I am sure my Feminist elders would not be pleased by my change of heart. My bottom line is that it is not us who needs to change to conform to a movement, but it is the movement--Feminism, Humanism, Participatory Democracy, Grassroots Wildfire--that needs to change to draw us in.

I am working to support Obama, MomsRising.org, Lillian's List of North Carolina, and Women for Women International, among other causes. If my worldview doesn't make sense to older Feminists, maybe they should try looking at things from a new perspective.

Sociologist response to "Wombs for Rent"

Sociologist Barbara Katz Rothman wrote me back with her perspective on my Wombs for Rent post that I wrote in response to Judith Warner's piece, Outsourced Wombs. (Warner's NY Times thread now has more than 150 comments.)

In my previous post, I had summarized what I had learned from Katz Rothman at a Breastfeeding and Feminism symposium last September. Here are her provocative thoughts written specifically in response to the Indian surrogacy situation:

"In the [NY Times] responses, I am struck by someone saying that it's 'just' her womb, not important like if it was an egg. It's amazing how totally the genetic imagery has taken over.

"Women's wombs don't walk around separately; we are not walking wombs. To be pregnant is a whole-body experience, as intimate a connection as one human being can have with another. Those who connected this to prostitution are right, it is an intimate physical relationship, but unlike the brief contact of a sexual encounter, this goes on for months and months. And the relationship is not with the paying customer, but with the created baby. At birth, babies recognize their mother's voices, are living in the rhythms of her day -- newborns, for example, tend to wake up at what was the pregnant women's busiest times of the day. This is not a 'surrogate' relationship, but an actual lived one.

"Yes, some women can apparently now become fathers: place their seed in a woman's body and have a baby 'delivered' to them. And they can do that in a loving relationship, as a lesbian couple might do or as sisters, cousins, dear friends might if they share egg and pregnancy. Or they can do that as slave owners did when they implanted their seed into their property to increase their slave holdings. Or they can do that in this new, outsourced way, in which they do not own the woman's body but rent it, with -- as Marx pointed out -- no ongoing relationship, no tie but money.

"And yes, in this brave new world, empowerment for women in poverty can mean selling these services, can mean prostitution, can mean selling organs. It truly can be better to do these things than not. As it could truly be better for a woman in Auschwitz to give sexual services to a guard in exchange for another bit of gruel. The problem lies not with the woman making the 'choice,' but with the situation. We women of the wealthy world profit from the exploitation of poor women, men and children with almost every shirt we put on our backs, almost every bite of food we take. We exploit people in poverty and never have to think about it. And now we can profit in our motherhood -- but unlike the shirt and the food, this time the product is going to grow up and demand an explanation."

Final thoughts from Mojo Mom: Katz Rothman's mention of slavery is a challenging idea for those who want to view the surrogacy arrangement in the realm of "individual choice." But I had thought about the slavery connection as well. Modern slavery is no longer about explicitly "owning" a person. It's about exploiting workers without having to be accountable: controlling people through threats, intimidation, violence, absolute economic dependency, trafficking, or other coercion. For more on this I recommend Kevin Bales' book, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy.

We need to be vigilant about upholding the principles of reproductive justice. Just look at historic and modern abuses: coercive practices throughout the world, compulsory sterilization, historical adoption abuses and corruption in our own country.

Even contraception and medically-accurate sex education are under fire in the United States. Who would have thought we'd lose so much ground on those basic issues? And of course if Roe v. Wade is overturned, many states already have abortion bans drafted and ready to encact.

I am passionate about the principles of reproductive justice and I encourage you to learn about this framework. It's the lens I use to look at the world, and when I do, I am worried that women's basic rights to self-determination are under fire here at home and around the globe.

When you see a cliff, put on the brakes

Most of the time my life is one big juggling act, always managing somehow to keep many balls in the air. As an author, my life is all about networking, outreach. My tree puts out new branches large and small.

But there are times that this just doesn't work anymore. I hate pruning back, and I have resisted it, but right now I have to face the fact that this is what I need to do. Both of my parents have had health challenges over the past couple of years. They are divorced, both live nearby, and I am their only child. Last week my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went in for a routine mammogram and the next thing we knew the whole process of testing and diagnosing was underway, like a whirlwind. We went from follow-up screening to biopsy to meeting with the surgeon in the course of three days. We are grateful to have access to such speedy medical care, but it's a shock to the system even in the best of circumstances. There is so much to internalize and process, from medical information to emotional turmoil. I wandered around for a week, feeling like someone had hit me on the head with a two by four. You know those cartoon characters who have googly eyes and planets and stars floating over their heads? That was me.

I started to come out of it a couple of days ago. My Mom's prognosis is likely to be pretty good, but she does need surgery, scheduled for next week. So I am reorganizing my priorities. A couple of days ago I had a major epiphany, which is that it is actually easier to keep it together than it is to fall apart. I have too many people who are depending on me, and falling apart takes a lot of energy and explaining. So my strategy is to pare back to the absolute essentials, get them done, and let everything else go for now.

My three priorities are: 1. Family, 2. Writing, and 3. Friends, fun and self-care. Everything else has to go on the back burner.

It's going to be an interesting discipline to stick to these, because I am usually very open to doing things for other people, and I am going to have to turn down some kind and worthy requests. I am mentally checking out of my office until mid-January. I do plan to keep writing here and on (parent.thesis) but I can't predict exactly how regularly I'll be able to blog.

One more thought to rattling around my head right now: As Mojo Mom I have struggled so hard to reconcile feminist ideals with my reality and the outlook for mothers at large. I see huge structural issues with motherhood, and I know it's not all about individual choice. But at the same time, I feel like we need something beyond feminism to help us as mothers cope with our reality. I've worked hard to build up my work identity as a writer, and now I have to lay it down. I don't know HOW I would fill a 9 to 5 job right now, and yet that's exactly what the majority of women in my situation need to do.

The feminist wave that began in the 1970's gave us the right to compete on the male playing field but we have so much unfinished business to address. Adopting the male model isn't working for me, and by the way, the Third Wave of feminism is speaking to me even less than the Second. I need a Caregiving Society to help me out. We have a quadruple-decker sandwich going on in my family--my parents each have a parent living. I need a society that allows me to work and take care of my family, and one that won't put the burden of caregiving only on the daughters and wives. Is it feminism, or something else, that will make this possible?

I am glad I've been involved with MomsRising because it is the one movement that offers me hope right now.

Mojo Mom Podcast: Talking feminism with Deborah Siegel

I am starting to feel that being a member of Generation X is like being Jan Brady. I had always assumed that when our generation grew up we'd take the stage and be in charge. Now it looks to me like our biggest task for the years ahead may be to mediate between our cool older sister Marcia (the Boomers) and our upstart little sister Cindy (Gen Y)--and we'll never get the respect we think we deserve from either of them.

Luckily, we can count smart women like Deborah Siegel as one of our own. Deborah's new book Sisterhood Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild is one of the most readable histories of the modern women's movement that I have come across. These days our cultural arguments are not so much about fact as they are about narrative. What does the story of the second and third waves of feminism really mean? Where do we go from here? Whether you are a Marcia, Jan, or Cindy, Deborah does us all a great service by creating a narrative of the women's movement that explains the origins of rifts within the movement and between generations.

Deborah is my guest this week on The Mojo Mom Podcast. We talk about looking beyond mother-daughter drama to find ways that women of all ages can appreciate each other, in order to learn lessons of the past and work together in the future.

Stop by Deborah's blog, Girl With Pen, to learn more about the intergenerational panel discussion that she is taking on tour to college campuses this fall. On DeborahSiegel.net you can find out about additional upcoming book readings and events.

Mojo Mom's A-Ha Moment: Cracking the Privilege Code

After all the years of researching and writing Mojo Mom, reading the Mothers Movement Online, working with MomsRising.org and reading the Mothers & More POWER loop, I believe that sitting on the Today Show couch with Leslie Bennetts and Lisa Belkin and reading Pamela Stone's new book, Opting Out? have pushed me over an important tipping point of understanding.

I have cracked the feminist code and I understand why the Baby Boomers are mad at us younger women who have opted out. The text is about money and career, the subtext is about power and privilege. Boomer feminists worked to give us a place in a man's world, the world of power and privilege. That world is built on a foundation of a lower class, low-paid support system that is assumed to exist but rendered invisible. This could be the unpaid work of wives or the low-paid wages of service workers.

In the 1970's, women were given begrudging access to this kingdom, as long as they "played like a man."

Fast-forward to our generation. The invisible work, the second shift is still there and "playing like a man" just isn't working for many of us. We are able to eke out egalitarian relationships before we have children, but gender roles haven't changed that much. Men still don't expect to divide that work 50/50. When babies arrive, this invisible workload shoots through the roof. The truth is that someone has to do it, and we don't have a social infrastructure that lifts this burden off women's shoulders. So in the most privileged couples, the "opt-out" dynamic becomes very apparent when a high-power woman leaves her place in the man's world to go home.

Boomer femininsts are mad that women would leave behind the position of power, privilege and money that they worked so hard to earn on our behalf. One woman leaving the corporate ladder signifies gender failure when one man leaving the corporate ladder is just a guy making a choice.

Privileged men are generally glad to see women move home because this allows the men to have more time and energy to focus on their careers, thereby exercising their male privilege. Egalitarian marriages become more "traditional" to some degree when women stay home.

Women who leave the workforce are frustrated to see that they lose their previous status and become socially invisible and devalued in their role as a mother. Work at home is necessary and important but it is not admired, valued, and privileged. Sometimes this work it is only noticed when it is NOT done perfectly, which is expecially frustrating. We mothers see the value of the invisible work we are doing. We certainly see how much of life is made up of that work. Our eyes are opened to this big picture and we can't comprehend why others don't understand it.

So I finally understand why opt-out women are truly radical: we expect to be able to leave the world of privilege, take the blinders off our eyes and see the whole picture of life, expect others to do so, and return to the world of privilege on our own terms. Although we say in our democracy that "all men are created equal," the last thing the world of privilege wants is to be asked to see the big picture that includes caregiving, poverty, and discrimination. This is why I want more mothers in public life. Nancy Pelosi may play the political game with the best of them but I love knowing that she knows understands what it means to be a caregiver.

The younger generation of mothers hopes that we are reclaiming power in a new way by creating a career spiral to replace the old career ladder. Our plans challenge the whole system. With Mojo Mom I aspire to be more than just a writer telling individual women how to cope within an unfair system. This is why the short-lived Total 180! magazine and the book Happy Housewives drive me crazy--they are at best gallows humor that helps women adapt to the current system of privilege without challenging it.

For the first time I feel like our generation is attempting something truly radical. In Mojo Mom I consciously traced a path from self care to women's leadership and that trajectory continues to soar. We have to keep working to get caregiving counted in our society. As Pamela Stone says in Opting Out? mothers are the canary in the coal mine for an often inhumane workplace. We are cracking under the double-bind pressures of being an ideal worker and and ideal mother and we are finally demanding that something has to give. I want to be a good mother and a good worker. I want to work on my own terms and have paid opportunities to contribute even though I've taken time away from work. I am determined to make this happen even if I have to create my own path, in a manner that I hope paves the way for other women to do the same.

There is a tsunami of caregiving need coming our way. We are the ones who will have to shepherd the older generations through 20, 30, 40 years of retirement and elder care. Many of us will spend more years worrying about our parents than we will caring for our children, and as I have written before, that is not a matter of choice. If parenting cracks us, will elder care crush us? There is only so long we can get away without making the invisible work visible and dividing it fairly. We'd best get started now.