The failure of feminism in America, and how to fix it.

In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan argued that American women suffered from a malaise she called "the problem that had no name." Her critique of domestic ennui helped launch the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s, leading to many of the advances women now take for granted. But not everything has changed. So we asked women to answer this question: If you had to pinpoint today's problem that had no name, what would it be? Read the other responses here.

What do we mean when we talk about feminism? Is it the 1970s “second-wave feminism” of equal rights, or the 1990s “third-wave feminism” of gender anarchy? The “red-state feminism” of anti-abortion, pro-church, and standing by your man, or the “blue-state feminism” of education, choice, and community volunteerism? The “Sex-and-the-City” feminism of girlfriends, white wine, and shopping, or the “Horatio Alger feminism” of working your way to the top? The term “feminism” is only a century old, and long before Helen Gurley Brown’s ambitious, made-over “mouseburger” working-girl of the 1960s or Sarah Palin’s gun-toting, mooseburger-making mama of 2008, its definition was conflicted and controversial.

But however we define it, American feminism seems to be in trouble. With each passing decade, second-wave feminists have became gloomier about the collapse of sisterly solidarity and more pessimistic about the apparent gap between professional and working women, not to mention stay-at-home moms. Some old-timers blame the media for this situation, and think that another revolution might come if we tried harder.

I disagree. In the U.S., at least, feminist beliefs are unlikely to produce another women’s movement. A mass movement requires a clear goal, like the vote, one significant enough to unite people across the dividing lines of race, class, age, and nationality, and galvanize them to take time away from their own problems to work collectively. The goal must be concrete and attainable, even if its ideological underpinnings are complex or contradictory. A movement also needs charismatic leaders who can channel the desire for change into productive coalitions. But the problems facing American women today are neither readily addressed through legal action, nor sufficiently unifying to override individual priorities, affiliations, and loyalties.

Furthermore, the tactics and messages of feminist and equal-opportunity organizations are wrong for the times; strategies and rhetoric that were appropriate in the 1970s need to be re-examined. Contemporary feminism needs to rethink its socialist roots, and accept women’s real power and leadership, especially in fields traditionally regarded with ideological distaste including politics, the financial sector, big business, and even the military. Instead of insisting that all problems are political and need to be met by legal change and government support, women can become more entrepreneurial, and devise practical solutions to key problems.

A century ago, feminists called for fundamental changes in what Henrietta Rodman, a leader of the radical Greenwich Village Feminist Alliance, called the “four primitive home industries”—child care, cooking, housework, and laundry. In 1915, Rodman proposed a new kind of urban housing for professional women, and an architect even drew up plans for a model apartment building in Washington Square that would utilize the latest technology and include space for a communal kitchen and day nursery. Professional cooks and teachers, hired by the families in the building, would take over the tasks of food preparation and child care. But the building was never constructed.

Today, while technology and the service industries have professionalized cooking, laundry, and housework, child care remains a huge problem for women trying to combine family and paid work. Female ingenuity and dedication to children’s needs could provide some models of good child care in the private sector, while continuing to encourage communal programs. Back in the ‘70s, my tiny chapter of NOW in Princeton launched a day care program along with the university that is still going. I’m not nostalgic for consciousness-raising, but I miss the hands-on energy of feminist commitment. It’s time to stop talking about feminism and start doing it.

Tags: child care, feminism, Helen Gurley Brown, horatio alger, sex and the city

Elaine Showalter is a Professor Emerita, Princeton University, and the author of A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx

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