Thursday, December 08, 2005

Role-Switching "was a huge mistake": 60s Feminists wonder whether gender-equality has gone too far

…in a new [Danish] book, 12 prominent and influential women — artists, intellectuals and politicians — from the golden age of feminism in the '60s and '70s wonder whether gender-equality has gone too far.
Ivar Ekman has an article on Swedish feminism and equality while Louise S Nissen describes a similar antifeminist backlash in Denmark.
Some of the women regret their earlier militant insistence that men should be soft and sensitive and want back the prefeminist "real man." …
Of course, there is hardly anything new in this: I remember a classic SCTV sketch about a feminist TV program on which the host interviewed another radical feminist about their successes, and as the question-answer session goes on, the two women start getting more and more emotional as they describe the liberating effects of not having a man in their lives, not having strong muscular arms to sleep in, no children to run around in the house, and at the end their hankies are out as the sobbing host asks her sobbing guest to take her hand and raise them over their heads and proclaim "We are free! Free from men!"

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