The Fatal Flaw Of Modern Feminism
I would commence here, actually:
Years ago, I lived in Minneapolis and Sheryl Sandberg was going to speak there at 美国明尼苏达大学双城分校 . It was maybe 1.5 years after Lean In. I was at a bar (surprise!) the night before her speech, and tons of women had traveled from all over Minnesota and Wisconsin to see her speak. A bunch of them had ended up at the same bar as me. We had a nice spirited discussion about Sandberg, whose work I thought was cool at the time. But even as I thought her work was cool, I was wondering why she basically imposed burnout on women — “be the best mom, but also dominate at work!” — as some marker of success. In terms of her own mothering, didn’t she have an army/phalanx of people that the affluent tend to have? It seemed like a cooked-books narrative, but I guess at the time people were desperate for anything that would lift up women in a business context.
In the intervening years (11 or so), I’ve had a bunch of different things happen to my decidely-male existence, including:
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I’ve thought more and more about the actual point of feminism in the modern moment. #MeToo was important and relevant, even if Amber Heard might have sunk the entire thing. #GirlBoss seemed cool, but then we learned a lot of those cultures were toxic. And all-in-all, it seemed like modern feminism was taking the successes of a few privileged white women and conflating that with supposed emancipation of all women . It felt very weird. On the back-end of that, it seemed like … I dunno, we started just reinventing gender?
COVID was significantly harder for women than for men, I’d argue. We love the conservative narrative of “Men don’t work anymore! They jerk off all day!” That’s a bit untrue. But women have actually been fleeing the workforce.
I just wonder if the narrative, talking points, language, and semantics around whatever is left of feminism are serving the cause properly, or if it’s actually somewhat reductive and regressive. If a few rich white women rise to the top of the “conventional success” charts, does that suddenly mean that all household labor, domestic labor, pregnancy labor, etc. is somehow “better” or “free?” It doesn’t seem so — but perhaps I’m naive.
Any takes on this?
Senior Engineering Manager @ Crunchyroll | Misfit, rebel, troublemaker
11 个月Childcare remains the nexus where sexism and classism intersect to keep the vast majority of women from achieving their full potential in their careers and parenthood. Is it progress that that single fathers are now increasingly caught in this trap? In any case, one might argue that economic inequality is the bigger problem because you can always buy childcare (or build a private nursery at work if you’re Marissa Mayer)
Program Director | Program & Project Manager | PMO
11 个月A lot of information that can be condensed to a simple statement: Women are still their own worst enemy. When women holding lofty positions of power, presumably occupying positions capable of dismantling the very elements that are preventing the avalanche of advancement so desperately needed, my observation is that women are still pulling the ladder up behind them, rather than building more ladders. No wonder corporate America is experiencing a female brain drain.