The Observer, November 16, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 11
Column on feminism was misinformed
To the Editor:
I have a number of issues with Caleb Posner's most recent article on the "perversion" of the feminist and civil rights movements by radicals. The first and most important issue is that of misinformation. During his discussion of the "insanity" of the feminist movement post-suffrage, Posner notes four major points of contention with the movement. First, Posner says that The Feminine Mystique "condemned homemaking as a waste of a life." I do not know if Posner has read the book, and I know that I have not, but from what I have seen and heard about it, it condemned the idea that women can only be satisfied by being a mother and a housewife, which is rather different from saying that homemaking is a waste of a life. Second, Posner states that Title IX "forces schools to make financially and logistically unsound changes to their athletic programs to placate the whims of the fringe." I am not sure exactly how allowing women equal access to athletics (among other things) is placating "the whims of the fringe." Posner also takes issue with attempts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment "even though the 14th Amendment already ensured female equality with respect to legal and citizenship rights." There are two main issues with this: first, there is no language in the constitution that protects all the rights of citizenship regardless of sex, and without such language it is possible for the word "persons" as used in the 14th Amendment to be taken to mean only men. Second, if the 14th Amendment ensures equality between the sexes in regard to legal and citizenship rights, why did women not get the right to vote until 52 years later? Posner's final issue, the one he considers to be the "most sickening," is the push for a ban on pornography that some feminists advocated in the late 1970s and 1980s. To say that feminists had or have a unified position, or even a prevailing opinion, on pornography is absurd. Pornography is a heavily debated issue in feminism; this is why some people call themselves anti-pornography feminists or pro-sex feminists. The debate and divisions in opinion are also part of why third-wave feminism emerged. Posner also seems to brush the issues with pornography off as silly, which is ridiculous. Beyond factual issues, Posner also seems to think that feminism lost its purpose once women gained the right to vote. So, once they could vote women should have just been happy to stay in the kitchen? All of the other achievements and goals of feminism are totally unimportant? I think not. Feminism may not be as focused as the suffrage movement was, but I assure you its purpose is still alive and well.
In response to his comments on the civil rights movement: if he's opposed to reparations for past wrongs, and if we're too [politically correct] to allow people to speak out against liberal rhetoric, how does it make sense for him to have organized a protest against an event held by a campus organization to raise money for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund?
KC Slack
Undergraduate student
