Levy goes on to describe how the movement originally got started. Women got their first taste of power and work experience outside of the house during the civil rights movement. However, even with this small gain, they were still treated as supporting figures. Thus, women began to assemble without men for ‘conscious-raising.’ These females wanted to destroy the patriarchal American society. They wanted big changes immediately. One such change occurred in 1973 with the ruling of Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion. This sent the feminists into an ecstatic frenzy. This was their first major win, a moment of ‘sororal magic’ (52).
Soon after this victory, a separation occurred between the women’s liberation movement. One side sought to progress and enhance women’s sexual fulfillment. Women such as Hite publicly asked questions about female orgasms and pleasure. Hugh Hefner played a part in this movement. He financed court cases to dispute laws that obstructed sexuality. He insisted that he ‘was a feminist before there was such a thing as feminism’ (56). However, Hefner was no such thing. As Playboy gained popularity, Hefner showed his true colors. He stressed that women should be mindless objects. His views on sexuality was only applied to men. He also believed that women should not be sexual and promiscuous. There was massive double-standards within his beliefs, decrying him as no feminist.
The Women’s movement thus began fighting pornography, believing that it demoralized women as well as corresponded to rape and male sexual dominance. With these beliefs, the movement split in half. The ‘sex-positive feminists’ felt that sexual freedom was the number one priority and this included the right to look at or act in pornography media. Feminism was starting to unravel from its tight cohesive beginning. Now there were many different sects of feminists all with different beliefs ranging from S/M lesbian feminists to feminists working with Republicans.
Levy next jumps to the modern day and CAKE. CAKE is a ‘hypersexual sorority’ (71). It promotes promiscuity and insane pornographic parties. CAKE believes in raunch feminism. It brings women together and creates an atmosphere of sexuality through skimpy clothes and attractiveness. They believe they are recreating and defining the present limits and borders of female sexuality. However, there are other ways to do such instead of simply playing into men’s fantasies and giving them exactly what they want. CAKE’s founders believe that putting girls on exhibit and having them flaunt their bodies will give women freedom but there are other ways to do that. Sexuality does not have to be explored and embodied in this manner.
Today, feminism is a word that is slowly losing its excitement and attractiveness. Furthermore, the term is no longer understood or defined in the same way as it used to be as exemplified by CAKE. Feminism has become “an almost opposite style, attitude and set of principles” (87).
In Echols article, we learn about why and how women were able to rebel in the first place. Echols first outlines the general context of the time period, describing the civil rights movement. For women, the civil rights movement gave them the chance to break away from their household role and hold jobs. They began to develop political expertise and other skills. However, the movement was very sexist as “women were effective but men were the stars” (28). Many white women also made their roles seem less official by sleeping with black men of the movement. This led to Stokely Carmichael’s famous quote “The position of women in SNCC is prone” (31).
Furthermore, there were problems between white and blacks in the movement due to where authority should lie. Eventually, the black community realized that they needed a fully black movement to gain power and realize their goals of racial consciousness and equality. Black power became an example for the women’s movement. Women realized that if they were to get anything accomplished, they would have to mobilize within their sex alone.
In 1967, women brought up the issue of sexual disparity at the National Convention of SDS. Men were astounded and enraged as the women compared themselves to a colonized race. Women continued to fight by drafting a resolution demanding convention votes and committee representation at the NCNP. Although the resolution was put on the agenda of the conference, it was almost altogether ignored. The chair of the board even said “we have more important issues to talk about here than women’s liberation” (49).
With this final blow, women decided that to come together as a group and actually make progress, they would have to define their own issues, methods and goals. They could not let men identify or outline any of their objectives. As black power had done, the women showed that it was legitimate to “organize around their oppression and to define the terms of their struggle” (49).
The last reading talked about Betty Friedan and her work and success as a feminist. Interestingly, Friedan began life as an uptown woman with a college degree and a family of five. In 1963, Friedan published the Feminine Mystique. The phrase ‘feminine mystique’ was used to describe the ‘movement’ against females to persuade them that contentment and bliss can only be attained through marriage and motherhood. The reason for this crusade was to primarily put the female worker, employed in time of war, back into the kitchen allowing jobs for soldiers and to make women buy new appliances to strengthen the economy. Friedan also believed that society did not allow women to grow or mature and become real human beings. Their growth was stunted by lack of opportunity and freedom. Women were constantly told that they should not have careers or an education. They should concentrate on their family life. As this ‘campaign’ continued, women started getting married younger and younger. The birthrate of the States was slowly increasing as women were having children at a younger age and thus could have more children overall. Women were taught to put themselves last. Men came first. They were to fit the image of the woman that a man wanted. All a woman was supposed to want was “to get married, have four children and live in a nice house in a nice suburb” (52). This was supposed to be the perfect feminine specimen. However, eventually, women begin to realize that there is an inherent problem in their lives. There is a sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness stemming from suppression of self. Although people realized there was a problem with these suburban women, many just simply passed it over saying that these women did not understand how lucky they were. They were so happy that they were unhappy. Friedan insists that this problem cannot be ignored. It is a real dilemma. Women are actually suffering. As one woman said “the problem is being the children’s mommy, or the minister’s wife and never being myself” (63). Friedan realizes that the “chains that bind a [woman]…are chains in her own mind and spirit…made up of mistaken ideas and misinterpreted facts, of incomplete truths and unreal choices” (66). These women want more than these lives that society has constructed for them. Their true fantasies do not lie within the ideal family unit.
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