Bitter Ashes: Is Feminism Dead?

Well, another day, another writer sounding the death knell of feminism, right? It seems like the only times feminism gets discussed at length in mainstream news is to list the reasons it's failed. This time Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Bitch and Prozac Nation, has an ax to grind with her piece in the LA Times, "Bitter ashes of burned brassieres." "Am I the only one," she asks, "who feels that last week's news events prove that the women's movement has failed?"

She describes: "First, the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket alienates everybody who the first woman with a real chance to be president hasn't alienated already. Then we find out that there are prostitutes who are paid $5,500 an hour, and the consolation prize for earning a Harvard law degree is that you get to stand by your husband's side when he resigns from public office in disgrace. Even worse, because Silda Wall Spitzer is accomplished and beautiful, the whole scene serves as a grim reminder that even amazing women become sexually disposable after a certain age."

Not that that you can disagree with her on most of the details. Current events can be a pretty dismal landscape to look at from a feminist viewpoint. And the other examples she points out - lack of women in business, technology, and television - are just as true. But does that all add up to feminism = dead? Really?

More likely, the problem is one of too-high expectations. After all, can you undo hundreds of years of history in one, two, three waves of radical movement? We may have slipped into complacency after the victories of the first couple of waves, and lost a little bit of ground. But the existence of 'Girls Gone Wild' doesn't automatically cancel out all the great work modern activists, leaders and writers (and bloggers, of course) are doing to advance women's causes every day. It's just not as flashy or newsworthy anymore. We're not burning bras in displays of symbolism - we're doing the hard, dirty, and often unnoticeable, tasks of changing minds, one at a time.

As for those who are focusing on the failures? Well, to borrow the words of the new Daily Show regular segment: you're not helping.

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