A few years ago, the National Organization for Women published an essay by author Jennifer Coburn attacking the Independent Women’s Forum. The article, Don’t cry for feminism: It’s still alive, dismissed feminist critiques such as “Christina Hoff-Sommers [who] say they are more in touch with the needs of today’s woman than feminists,” citing NOW’s much-inflated claim that it has 250,000 members. Coburn suggested that “Anti-feminist women should also return any credit cards, checks, property deeds, savings accounts, money market accounts, mutual funds and investments in their name. They can have them all back, mind you — just as soon as they get their husbands’ written permission.”
But a recent poll by Gallup contradicts this message — feminism is, in fact, dead. While NOW continues to rail about the “anti-feminist” administration of George W. Bush, only 25 percent of women in the Gallup poll said that they are feminists. This applied equally to older and younger women, with only 26 percent of younger women identifying themselves as feminists compared with 24 percent for women over 50.
But these women who say they aren’t feminists are hardly conservative traditionalists either. Over two-thirds said disagreed with the statement that men and women have equal job opportunities in the United States. Thirty-seven percent said they are dissatisfied with society’s treatment of women. So why the disdain for the feminism label?
I’d guess that it is because the term “feminism” in the United States today largely means the sort of ideology that groups like NOW push. In fact, this seems to be the way that NOW wants it as they consistently any woman who has a slight different ideological approach to women’s freedom — such as Christina Hoff Sommers — is quickly labeled an anti-feminist, faux feminist, or some similarly derogatory term.
The problem with this approach is that it is self-destructive. The result of NOW and other groups’ ideological rigidity and exclusionary views has not been to create a powerful women’s movement, but rather to fracture and divide individuals and groups who would otherwise form a united front to defend women’s rights.
This is part of the reason why NOW and other feminist groups are losing substantial ground to anti-abortion groups. While NOW is busy deciding who is and is not ideologically correct enough to count as a feminist (and unleashing blistering attacks against those who don’t get to join the club), anti-abortion groups are making important headway by building coalitions that are effectively chipping away at abortion in the United States.
Apparently NOW is happier to be the self-appointed vanguard of a failing movement rather than just one voice in a more robust, effective movement.
Sources:
Women See Room for Improvement in Job Equity. Lydia Saad, Gallup Poll News Service, June 29, 2001.
Don’t cry for feminism: It’s still alive. Jennifer Coburn, National Organization for Women web site, August 24, 1997.