"Strident" and proud

What does an effective feminism for the future look like to you?

I think that feminism needs to be more grass-roots, and this is true at the electoral level also -- look at South Dakota. I think that there has been a real retreat from the day-to-day presentation of feminist issues. Think of all the women who won't identify themselves as feminists. Why is that? One reason for that is the word "feminist," but it's also a lot of the concepts around feminism. The basic idea of women being self-directed creatures as opposed to being there to help some man through life and stay with the children and do the cooking -- that idea has been delegitimized; you just don't hear it that often if you live in much of the country.

You have to ask, Why do people make the choices they make? Let's take women being more likely to take their husband's name. Think to yourself, What are the costs of not taking your husband's name? Look what happened to Hillary Clinton in Arkansas! And so I just think that women -- feminists -- need to have the conversation with people who don't agree with us, people who live in places that aren't so cosmopolitan. You need to make the connection between your own personal life and the larger story of what's happening in the country and what we can do to help ourselves. I'm sure someone like Wonkette feels quite feminist and liberated in her own life -- she just doesn't see how what happens to abortion rights in South Dakota has anything to do with her.

Ana Marie Cox's review of your new collection in the New York Times Book Review riled a lot of people by using the words "strident" and "tacky" to describe feminism. What was your reaction to the piece?

You know, to tell you the truth, I didn't study the review closely -- because I'd like to maintain my cheerful disposition! But I think a review that begins "strident feminism" is pretty much declaring that we are in the land of backlash cliché. If you read my book you'll see that I support sexual freedom, I support freedom of speech, I'm not a family-values person at all, and I am not the sort of Dworkinite fuddy-duddy of Cox's imagination. I think the resentment that some younger women feel -- and I don't know how old Wonkette is, or how old she presents herself -- toward older feminists is very interesting. I don't quite understand it except as kind of a kill-the-mother thing. What is this "girls just want to have fun" feminism? It's a very shallow approach to life. And I can't think of another social movement where "strident" is a bad word.

Exactly. Since when is feminism supposed to be all sweetness and light and politeness?

Well, do black people, do Latinos, do workers go around saying, "Oh no! Our leaders are so strident! Someone just wrote a strident book defending my rights!" Even if they themselves are more moderate, they're happy! So I think it's sort of an odd combination.

I was upset by the review because -- as you know -- I spend a lot of time talking about how people don't give young women enough credit on feminism and women's issues. And then some seemingly smart young woman runs out and calls feminism tacky. It makes us all look like idiots.

We discussed this on Feministing when I referred to "young featherheads" who think their abortion rights are secure and aren't planning to vote. And [the thread] was all about how wrong I was to think that young women weren't all that political -- and I hope I was wrong! But then someone said, no that's right -- they are featherheads. And she talked about the women at her school. There are a lot of women who are feminist and who call themselves feminist, but then there are a lot who really don't want that identity. My daughter just finished her freshman year at Wesleyan -- quite a liberal school -- and told me that in her sociology class, the professor said, "Raise your hand if you're a feminist," and my daughter was one of two kids that raised their hands!

When I was in college, a professor asked the same question and the reaction was the same. I remember being so depressed about it. Do you think that feminism has something to offer all young women?

I think that feminism is a social justice movement; that's the way I see it. And potentially every woman and every man should be interested in women being able to take equal part in every aspect of our society. [Right now] there's a funny combination of women advancing in certain areas and their progress being blocked in others. For example, women are advancing educationally; women are expecting to work. Marriage is happening later. So you have a longer time of living on your own and sexual experimentation. There's this general sense of sexual freedom and sexual expressiveness that permeates so much of the media and the society, and yet you still find that women are quite stymied in other areas.

Most of the young women we're talking about grew up under [Ronald] Reagan, in very conservative times. Whereas second-wave feminism really came out of the left. It came out of a moment in the '60s when there were a lot of radical politics around. And that's a very different social and political moment than now. There's this huge backlash going on involving women's bodies and appearance, and the immense pressure to be beautiful and thin and complaisant and alluring. That's what Linda Hirshman and others call "choice feminism" comes out of. Which is just saying, "I'm a free agent. I'm making my own choices, so we don't have to talk about them. In fact, it's insulting if you want to talk about them. Don't judge me."

Next page: How many women in medical school think, "My presence in this seat is a victory for the women's movement"?