Why Ladies Don't Use the F-Word

Revolutions are supposed to devour their young; in the case of feminism, it has been the other way around.

I just noticed that in my last post about being thankful for shattered glass ceilings I didn't mention feminism at all. It turns out that I was acting very typically of my generation by being thankful for women's equality without thanking the movement that spawned it.

Then today I read the above line in an article about the divisive nature of feminism in the November 16 issue of The New Yorker. Ariel Levy writes: "...why has feminism, which managed to win so many battles — the notion of a woman with a career has become perfectly unexceptionable — remained anathema to millions of women who are the beneficiaries of success?"

It's true; I don't often hear women my age call themselves "feminists," though they believe in the equality of the sexes. It has become somewhat of a toxic term. Some of the labels attached to the word seem unwarranted (bra-burning and baby-killing). Other criticisms might be warranted. Like any movement, it veered in directions people were not comfortable with. As Levy explains, "a politics of liberation was largely supplanted by a politics of liberation."

And so, here in 2010 a working woman writes about women's equality and doesn't even say the f-word. I wasn't avoiding it deliberately, but it's interesting and slightly embarrassing to me that I did it naturally.