The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism

Abstract: Through an in-depth analysis of bestselling “how-to-succeed” books along with popular television shows and well-trafficked “mommy” blogs, The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism demonstrates how the notion of a happy work-family balance has not only been incorporated into the popular imagination as a progressive feminist ideal but also lies at the heart of a new variant of feminism. Embraced by high-powered women, from Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg to Ivanka Trump, this variant of feminism abandons key terms, such as equal rights and liberation, advocating, instead, for a life of balance and happiness. 

What we are ultimately witnessing, Catherine Rottenberg argues, is the emergence of a neoliberal feminism that abandons the struggle to undo the unjust gendered distribution of labor and that helps to ensure that all responsibility for reproduction and care work falls squarely on the shoulders of individual women. Moreover, this increasingly dominant form of feminism simultaneously splits women into two distinct groups: worthy capital-enhancing women and the “unworthy” disposable female “other” who performs much of the domestic and care work. This split, not surprisingly, transpires along racial, class, and citizen-immigrant lines. The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism thus underscores the ways in which neoliberal feminism forsakes the vast majority of women, while it facilitates new and intensified forms of racialized and class-stratified gender exploitation. Given our frightening neoliberal reality, the monumental challenge, then, is how we can successfully reorient and reclaim feminism as a social justice movement. (Rottenberg, 2018)

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- Rottenberg, C. A. (2018). The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism; link
- photograph by Garry Winogrand (Beverly Hills, 1979) via

Quoting Bob Hoskins

"I've played so many historical characters because most horrible dictators are short, fat, middle-aged men."
Bob Hoskins

"I'm a feminist, yes! Very strongly."
Bob Hoskins

"I'd say I am partial to women."
Bob Hoskins

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image via

Fugitive Feminism. By Akwugo Emejulu.

"Fugitive feminism is a doorway through which I imagine Black women leading the way into the non-human, or perhaps, a beyond-human, future. Fugitive feminism is both the promise and the act of self-rebirthing, into a different reality, where we no longer are circumscribed by the assumptions of humanity that have shaped our liberations struggles by turning our backs on the very thing for which we have struggled for generations - inclusion in womanhood and humanity."
Emejulu (2022:31)

::: Related posting: Fleeing Humanity

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- Emejulu, A. (2022). Fugitive Feminism. Silver Press.
- photograph via

Marie-Claire Chevalier, Gisèle Halimi, and the Legalisation of Abortion in France

In 1971, Marie-Claire Chevalier (1955-2022) was still in high school. That year, aged 16, she was raped by a schoolmate, became pregnant and had an - illegal - abortion. Since a law from 1920 prohibited the interruption of pregnancy, she was arrested, along with her mother, the woman who had performed the abortion and two friends who were charged as accomplices.  

Marie-Claire Chevalier was prosecuted and imprisoned, her rapist was released (he had been arrested for auto theft and released for denouncing his victim for having had an abortion) (via and via).

French doctors willing to perform the illegal operation commonly charge $900 or more; a trip to London or Geneva for a legal abortion would cost at least $600. Two friends sent Mme. Chevalier to an office secretary who moonlighted as an "angel maker," as the French call an abortionist. Although the secretary charged only $300, she did the job so badly that Marie-Claire hemorrhaged and was taken to a hospital. 
The hospital said nothing to the authorities, but Marie-Claire's 19-year-old seducer (sic)—whose own mother described him as "not very attractive." and really interested only in motorcycles—said all too much. Arrested on a theft charge, he started talking about Marie-Claire. The authorities indicted her, her mother, the two friends and the angel maker. All France settled back to cluck over the trial. (via)

Chevalier was represented by Gisèle Halimi (1927-2020) in "a sensational 1972 trial", the "Bobigny trial" (named for the Paris suburb where it took place). Halimi was - with Simone de Beauvoir - one of the founders of "Choisir", a group campaigning for the decriminalisation of abortion which finally happened in 1975. In an open statement, Halimi declared that she herself had had an abortion: "Sometimes it is necessary to break the law to move forward and bring about a change in society." (via and via). More women openly stated having had an abortion to support the case, such as e.g. Delphine Seyrig

Outside the courtroom, there were demnostrations; Paul Milliez became "an unsung hero" of the Bobigny trial (via):

Dr. Paul Milliez, dean of a Paris teaching hospital, a Catholic and father of six, testified that he would have performed Marie-Claire's abortion and that he had done so in a few other cases. Though he had immunity from criminal prosecution as a witness, he was quickly summoned for rebuke by Minister of Health Jean Foyer. When Milliez pointed out that wealthy women can easily get abortions, Foyer told him that "this was no reason why the vices of the rich should be made equally possible for the poor." (via)

Chevalier, her mother and the other women on trial were acquitted in the case that became a landmark one and that certainly paved he way to the legalisation of abortion in France (via and via).

A trial that would not have the sole purpose of defending the defendants (the young girl, her mother and three “accomplices” abortion), but would aim to shake society as a whole, provoke debate, shake consciences, break the taboo on abortion and denounce the legislation in force. A trial that would force the public authorities to face up to a phenomenon that affected nearly a million French women each year and claimed many victims. A trial that would point to the hypocrisy of a system in which the richest got by without any problem, at the cost of trips abroad or stays in private clinics, while the poorest, subject to the “angel makers”, risked their lives and faced the torments of justice. In short, a political trial was needed. (via)

Chevalier won the case but was traumatised by the rape and the abortion that had almost killed her. After the trial, she changed her name and sought to live her life out of the public eye (via and via).

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photographs (first one. Gisele Halim and Delphine Seyrig, 1972)  via and via and via and via 

Scale of Anti-Feminist Opinion in Europe. From Sweden to Italy. Not the Anticipated Results.

Italy, rather associated with macho politics than with feminist values, might be a country with changing attitudes. According to a survey carried out in eight European countries in 2020 and released in 2021, Italians are the least likely to blame feminism for men feeling marginalised and demonised. In Sweden, a country that is often seen as "a bastion of progressive gender-equality politics", 41%, i.e., more people than anywhere else, agree with the following statetement: "It is feminism's fault that some men feel at the margins of society and demonised." 

The trend in Sweden might be explained as a backlash to successful feminist movements of the past. In other words, victories of Swedish feminist could have activated opposite atttitudes. Anti-feminist views are more or less also expressed in other countries: 30% in Poland, 28% in the UK, 26% in France, 22% in Hungary, 19% in Germany, 15% in the Netherlands, and, finally, only 13% in Italy (via).

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photograph by Erich Lessing (Cesenatico, 1960), Magnum Photos via

Fleeing Humanity. By Akwugo Emejulu.

"When did you first learn that you were a non-human? For me, it was a slow realisation. To begin with, I formly rejected the idea. When a white boy in third grade called me a n*gger and I ran to my white teacher in tears, she, unmoved, simply shrugged her shoulders and told me to ignore it. And that was that. (...)" Emejulu (2022:11)

"Granny, as we called her, had incredible stories. Her stories were my first introduction to Blackness, and, by extension, aspirational humanness." (ibid.:15) "My grandmother did not want to be white, even though (...) she had the ability to disappear into whiteness. It never occurred to her to be white - she wanted to be human. But, of course, I now understand that it is impossible to separate the two." (ibid.:17)

"The understanding of my non-humanity crept up on me and now I cannot let it go. I want to pick it up, turn it over in the light. Study it. Understand it. And embrace it. I can't say exactly how I came to this realisation. I felt my exclusion from the supposedly universal category of the 'human' most keenly in my alienated relationship to the social sciences: much of it didn't apply to me or Black women more generally because it was the work of white scholars describing their implicitly white world. Also, in my exhausting encounters in feminist activist and academic circles, I had to constantly remind my white 'sisters' that Black women were, in fact, women (...). (ibid.:19f)

"To believe I am non-human does not mean I believe in my own inferiority. Rather, it means I believe that the human is a construction of whiteness and any discussion about Black inferiority is a product of the futile struggle to be recognised as human." (ibid.:23)

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- Emejulu, A.  (2022). Fugitive Feminism. Silver Press.
- photographs of Diana Ross by Harry Langdon via and via 

Quoting Matilda Joslyn Gage

"The women of today are the thoughts of their mothers and grandmothers, embodied and made alive. They are active, capable, determined and bound to win. They have one-thousand generations back of them… Millions of women dead and gone are speaking through us today."

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1880)

photograph by Reg Innell (1970, Women's liberation demonstration at Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto) via

The Fortunate American Woman And Some More Phyllis Schlafly Quotes

Phyllis Schlafly, née Phyllis Stewart, was a US-American political activist opposing the women's movement and the Equal Rights Amendment, who was convinced that ...

"American women are so fortunate. When I got married, all I wanted in the world was a dryer so I didn't have to hang up my diapers. And now women have paper diapers and all sorts of conveniences in the home. And it is the man and the technology that has made the home such a pleasant place for women to be."
Phyllis Schlafly

"Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate."
Phyllis Schlafly

"What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother."
Phyllis Schlafly

"Feminism is doomed to failure because it is based on an attempt to repeal and restructure human nature."
Phyllis Schlafly

"I think the main goal of the feminist movement was the status degradation of the full-time homemaker. They really wanted to get all women out of the homes and into the workforce. And again and again, they taught that the only fulfilling lifestyle was to be in the workforce reporting to a boss instead of being in the home reporting to a husband."
Phyllis Schlafly

"A lot of people don't understand what feminism is. They think it is about advance and success for women, but it's not that at all. It is about power for the female left. And they have this, I think, ridiculous idea that American women are oppressed by the patriarchy and we need laws and government to solve our problems for us."
Phyllis Schlafly

"Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions."

Phyllis Schlafly

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photograph via

Phyllis Schlafly's Campaign Against the Equal Rights Amendment

Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) - one husband, six children, sixteen grandchildren - founded the STOP (Stop Taking Our Privileges) ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) campaign after Congress passed the amendment in 1972 aiming to protect so-called family values and women since the ERA would deprive them of the special privileges. 

When you make the laws apply equally to men and women, you end up taking away many of the rights that women now have.

Phyllis Schlafly

Schlafly's campaign fought until the final ERA deadline in 1982 and Schlafly continued expressing her stance throughout her life opposing the "radical feminist movement" that was reversing gender roles, forcing women to abandon their traditional roles, encouraging same-sex marriages, unisex bathrooms, women in combat, and taxpayer-funded abortions, threatening families, and the dignity of women's role of homemakers, forcing them to join the paid workforce, eliminating Social Security benefits for widows and homemakers, abolish child support and alimony laws (via and via).

From a pamphlet:

“ERA will invalidate all state laws which require a husband to support his wife. ERA will impose on women the equal (50%) financial obligation to support their spouses (under criminal penalties, just like husbands). ERA will impose on mothers the equal (50%) financial obligation for the financial support of their infant and minor children. ERA will deprive senior women, who have spent many years in the home as wife and mother, of their present right to be supported by their husbands and to be provided with a home.”“ERA will make women subject to the draft on an equal basis with men in all our future wars. ERA will make women and mothers subject to military combat and warship duty.”“ERA will deprive women in industry of their legal protections against being involuntarily assigned to heavy-lifting, strenuous, and dangerous men’s jobs, and compulsory overtime.”“ERA is a fraud. It pretends to improve the status of women but actually is a big takeaway of the rights women now possess.”

Interestingly, ...

Schlafly’s opposition to the ERA was unique for its aggressive disdain for feminism and its political savvy. But it revealed an older tension that gripped women’s organizing since the late 19th century. Before and after the passage of the 19th Amendment, many feminists wondered if legally mandated equality actually served poor and working-class women since these measures could potentially undo hard-fought protections that acknowledged women’s disadvantaged position in the workplace and the home. (Wiesner & Mellon, 2020)

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photograph of Phyllis Schlafly (copyright Underwood Archives, UIG, Everett Collection; Warren K. Leffler) via 

After Black Power, Women’s Liberation. By Gloria Steinem (1969)

Once upon a time—say, ten or even five years ago—a Liberated Woman was somebody who had sex before marriage and a job afterward. Once upon the same time, a Liberated Zone was any foreign place lucky enough to have an American army in it. Both ideas seem antiquated now, and for pretty much the same reason: Liberation isn’t exposure to the American values of Mom-and-apple-pie anymore (not even if Mom is allowed to work in an office and vote once in a while); it’s the escape from them.

For instance: 

(...)

A coven of 13 members of WITCH (The Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, celebrating witches and g*psies as the first women resistance fighters) demonstrates against that bastion of white male supremacy: Wall Street. The next day, the market falls five points.

More witches and some black-veiled brides invade the Bridal Fair at Madison Square Garden. They carry signs (“Confront the Whore-makers,” “Here Comes the Bribe”), sing, shout, release white mice in the audience of would-be brides, and generally scare the living daylights out of exhibitors who are trying to market the conventional delights of bridal gowns, kitchen appliances, package-deal honeymoon trips and heart-shaped swimming pools.

At the end of the Columbia strike, the student-run Liberation School offers a course on women as an oppressed class. Discussions include the parallel myths about women and N*groes (that both have smaller brains than white men, childlike natures, natural “goodness,” limited rationality, supportive roles to white men, etc.); the paternalistic family system as prototype for capitalistic society (see Marx and Engels); the conclusion that society can’t be restructured until the relationship between the sexes is restructured. Men are kept out of the class, but it is bigger and lasts longer than any other at the school.

(...)

What do women want? The above events are in no way connected to the Bloomingdale-centered, ask-not-what I-can-do-for-myself-ask-what-my-husband-can-do-for-me ladies of Manhattan, who are said by sociologists to be “liberated.” Nor do the house-bound matriarchs of Queens and the Bronx get much satisfaction out of reading about feminist escapades. On the contrary, the whole thing alienates them by being a) radical and b) young.

The women behind it, and influenced by it, usually turn out to be white, serious, well-educated girls; the same sort who have labored hard in what is loosely known as the Movement, from the Southern sit-ins of nine years ago to the current attacks on the military-industrial-educational complex. They have been jailed, beaten and Maced side-by-side with their social-activist male counterparts. (It’s wonderful to see how quickly police from Selma to Chicago get over a reluctance to hit women.) They have marched on Senate committees, Pentagon hawks, their own college presidents and the Chase Manhattan Bank. But once back in the bosom of SDS , they found themselves typing and making coffee.

“When it comes to decision-making or being taken seriously in meetings,” said one revolutionary theorist from Berkeley, “we might as well join the Young Republicans.”

(...)

Finally, women began to “rap” (talk, analyze, in radical-ese) about their essential second-classness, forming women’s caucuses inside the Movement in much the same way Black Power groups had done. And once together they made a lot of discoveries: that they shared more problems with women of different classes, for instance, than they did with men of their own; that they liked and respected each other (if women don’t want to work with women, as N*groes used to reject other N*groes, it’s usually because they believe the myth of their own inferiority), and that, as black militants kept explaining to white liberals, “You don’t get radicalized fighting other people’s battles.”

(...)

The older, middle-class women come first, the ones who tried hard to play subordinate roles in the suburbs according to the post-war-baby-boom-women’s magazine idyll but found Something Missing. Betty Friedan, who explained their plight clearly and compassionately in The Feminine Mystique, named that Something: rewarding work. But when these women went out to find jobs, they found a lot of home-truths instead.

For instance, there is hardly a hierarchy in the country—business, union, government, educational, religious, whatever—that doesn’t discriminate against women above the secretarial level. Women with some college education earn less than men who get as far as the eighth grade. The median income of white women employed full time is less than that of white men and Negro men. The gap between women’s pay and men’s pay gets greater every year, even though the number of women in the labor force increases (they are now a third of all workers). Forty-three states have “protection legislation” limiting the hours and place a woman can work; legislation that is, as Governor Rockefeller admitted last year, “more often protective of men.” The subtler, psychological punishments for stepping out of woman’s traditional “service” role are considerable. (Being called “unfeminine,” “a bad mother” or “a castrating woman,” to name a traditional few.) And, to top it all off, the problem of servants or child care often proves insurmountable after others are solved.

In short, women’s opportunities expanded greatly for about 15 years after they won the vote in 1920 (just as N*groes had more freedom during Reconstruction, before Jim Crow laws took over where slavery had left off), but they have been getting more limited ever since.

The middle-class, educated and disillusioned group gets larger with each college graduation. National Organization for Women (NOW)—founded in 1966 by Betty Friedan, among others, “to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men” — is a very effective voice of this group, concentrating on such reforms as getting irrelevant sex-designations out of Help Wanted ads and implementing Equal Employment Opportunity laws.

If the WLM can feel solidarity with the hated middle class, and vice versa, then an alliance with the second mass movement—poor women of all colors—should be no problem. They are already organized around welfare problems, free daycare centers, for mothers who must work, and food prices. For them, equal pay, unequal training and sex discrimination for jobs (not to mention the woman-punishing rules of welfare) exact a daily price: Of all the families living below the poverty level, 40 per cent are headed by women.

A lot of middle-class and radical-intellectual women are already working with the poor on common problems, but viewing them as social. If the “consciousness-raising” programs of the WLM work, they’ll see them as rallying points for women qua women. And that might forge the final revolutionary link. Rumblings are already being heard inside the Democratic party in New York. It’s the women who staff and win elections, and they may finally balk at working for only men—not very qualified men at that—in the mayoral primary.

There is plenty of opposition to this kind of thinking, from women as well as men. Having one’s traditional role questioned is not a very comfortable experience; perhaps especially for women, who have been able to remain children, and to benefit from work they did not and could not do. Marriage wouldn’t go straight down the drain, as traditionalists keep predicting. Women’s liberation might just hurry up some sort of companionate marriage that seems to be developing anyway.

But there is bound to be a time of, as social anthropologist Lionel Tiger puts it, “increased personal acrimony,” even if the revolution fails and women go right back to darning socks. (Masculinity doesn’t depend on the subservience of others, but it will take us a while to find that out.) It might be helpful to men—and good for women’s liberation—if they just keep repeating key phrases like, “No more guilt, No more alimony, Fewer boring women, Fewer bitchy women, No more tyrants with all human ambition confined to the home, No more ‘Jewish mothers’ transferring ambition to children, No more women trying to be masculine because it’s a Man’s World …” (and maybe one more round of “No more alimony”) until the acrimony has stopped. 

Because the idea is, in the long run, that women’s liberation will be men’s liberation, too.

Gloria Steinem

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photo via

"I wanted to look ambiguous."

"I was perceiving myself as good as a man or equal to a man and as powerful and I wanted to look ambiguous because I thought that was a very interesting statement to make through the media. And it certainly did cause quite a few ripples and interest and shock waves."

Annie Lennox

"Why are we not valuing the word 'feminism' when there is so much work to be done in terms of empowerment and emancipation of women everywhere?"

Annie Lennox

"Feminism is a word that I identify with. The term has become synonymous with vitriolic man-hating but it needs to come back to a place where both men and women can embrace it. It is particularly important for women in developing countries."

Annie Lennox

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photograph via

Save the date

The Vienna University of Economics and Business is organising "THE WU Gender and Diversity Conference 2022 Diversity, Diversity Management and Intersectionality in a Global Context - Dynamics and Realignments" where I will be presenting my paper: 

Woman or old? On the intersection of age and gender and the gaze of youth in Western feminism. 

24- 25 March, conference programme: link

Abstract: The concept of intersectionality is intertwined with the critique of white feminism’s tendency to treat women as one homogeneous group turning a blind eye to the impact of other identity factors and the complexity of discrimination. Gender on its own is regarded as an insufficient explanation of the discrimination women experience. While questioning the monolithic understanding of the feminine has become more common in debates, discourses are rather about heteronormative, cisgender, white ideas. Age is not part of the public discussion, academia shows little interest. 

This paper examines the intersection of age and gender. Both are primitive categories and rapidly evaluated, but they differ in weight. An old woman is more old than woman, it seems, which has implications. It makes her invisible as a woman – for the general public and for Western feminists – and less protected. When older women die from homicide, for instance, the cases are not treated as femicide but gender neutral elder abuse which is not followed by a strong emotional response, calls for action or hashtags. Western feminism mainly focuses on aspects like childcare, abortion, gender pay gap, objectification. Eldercare in the family is not identified as a feminist issue even though it disproportionally affects women, neither are lower pensions although women constitute a massive part of the elderly poor, just to mention two examples. While there is awareness concerning the male gaze, the gaze of youth is ignored. Finally, cultural aspects are discussed to better understand how deeply ingrained ageism is. 

Using an intersectional lens is a chance to make Western feminism more inclusive. A concept of the whole life is needed to make sure all women benefit from feminist advances, no matter what age. (Moazedi, 2022)

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- Moazedi, M. L. (2022). Woman or old? On the intersection of age and gender and the gaze of youth in Western feminism. THE WU Gender and Diversity Conference 2022 Diversity, Diversity Management and Intersectionality in a Global Context - Dynamics and Realignments, 24th to 25th of March, 2022.
- photograph by Garry Winogrand via

Feminism Ignoring Ageism

 "... we discussed the ageism that permeates our knowledge, our culture, and our daily lives. That this ageism appears among scholars should surprise no one. However, some might assume that those of a more critical bent, particularly feminist scholars, would be more aware of age-based oppression. 

Nevertheless, feminists are not necessarily any more attuned to ageism than are other scholars. Despite their attention to power relations, their work, for the most part, also ignores age relations. On those relatively rare occasions when they do mention age, they either avoid old age or fail to theorize age relations as a unique inequality. Indeed, age-based oppression is treated as a given, mentioned in a way that is meant to indicate some lovel of shared understanding that "we all know what that is" - a black box to be taken for granted rather than opened and understood. Such theories of inequality imply but never declare who benefits from the oppression faced by the old." (Calasanti & Slevin, 2001:187).

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- Calasanti, T. M. & Slevin, K. F. (2001). Gender, Social Inequalities, and Aging. Walnut Creek et al.: Altamira Press
- photograph by Diane Arbus via

Feminism, too, is ageist.

Very little attention is given to older and old women and ageing by society including feminist scholars. Increases in numbers of people aged over 65 do not change this very fact. Feminists continue focusing on girls, young adult and middle-aged women. Old people are absent in feminists‘ research questions and theoretical approaches. They are invisible.



There is, e.g., literature on bodies but hardly any discussion of old bodies. When discussing the "male gaze" in visual media, for instance, their critiques focus on "the male defined nature of both cosmetic surgery and the skin-care industry". There is absolutely no discussion of the "gaze of youth" which like any other gaze "freezes a person as an object defined by subordinate status", conveying messages that are internalised; there is no exploration of what women feel when they are cast aside rather than objectified. The ageing process makes women grow invisible as sexual beings … "not only in terms of the disappearance of the desirous male gaze, for instance, but also in terms of neglect by younger members of the women’s movement and lesbian communities".

An inadvertent but pernicious ageism burdens much of women’s studies scholarship and activism. It stems from failing to study old people on their own terms and from failing to theorize age relations—the system of inequality, based on age, which privileges the not-old at the expense of the old (Calasanti 2003). Some feminists mention age-based oppression but treat it as a given—an “et cetera” on a list of oppressions, as if to indicate that we already know what it is. As a result, feminist work suffers, and we engage in our own oppression. Using scholarship on the body and carework as illustrative, this article explores both the absence of attention to the old and age relations, and how feminist scholarship can be transformed by the presence of such attention.

Feminists have analyzed how terms related to girls and women, such as “sissy” and “girly,” are used to put men and boys down and reinforce women’s inferiority. Yet we have not considered the age relations that use these terms to keep old and young groups in their respective places. For instance, we have been mostly silent about the divisive effects of the so-called “age war” in which the media fuel animosity between generations (…).

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- Calasanti, T., Slevin, K. F. & King, N. (2006). Ageism and Feminism: From "Et Cetera" to Center. Feminist Formations, 18(1), 13-30; LINK
- photograph by Joel Meyerowitz

The C*nt Cheerleaders

"Students in the early feminist programs, such as the Cal-Art Feminist Art Program, were taught to say the word cunt until it lost its derogatory nature and female sexuality was revalued, and yet just a few years ago, at the "F-Word" symposium, an event organized to honor their legacy, its organizers were so tentative that they were unable to even spell out the word that defined the movement. (...) At the very end of the symposium, Faith Wilding got up and did the Fresno "cunt cheer". Give me a C... The audience's embarrassment, discomfort, but perhaps also awe could scarcely have been more palpable if she had peed on the floor!"
Schor (2009)



"To contemporary readers the use of the crude slang term cunt will generally be understood in a derogatory way, but this is not necessarily how Rowbotham understood it at the time. Like the reclamation of the negative term queer in the gay and lesbian community and the sitll controversial use of the term nigger by blacks, there was a (now decisively failed) feminist effort made to reclaim the word cunt in positive terms. A great U.S. example of this would be the "cunt cheerleaders," students from Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro's Feminist Art Program at Cal Arts, who would turn out at the local airport in cheerleading costumes that spelled out the word cunt to greet feminists visiting the program."
Wilson (2015)



- Schor, M. (2009). A Decade of Negative Thinking. Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life. Durham & London. Duke University Press.
- Wilson, S. (2015). Art Labor, Sex Politics. Feminist Effects in 1970s British Art and Performance   Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
- photographs via and via and via

Annabel's Dilemma (2017)

There's a little lake of tears
In the middle of the kitchen table
And she watches as another one
Drips from his nose into the deep
And he keeps talking and talking and talking
But talk is cheap and weak and watered down
Just another awkward sound she doesn't need to hear
He's just a shadow only half a man
And she can hardly muster even half a damn about this
Sorry situation
In the the back room, kids are watching Frozen
Fate's her only opponent



Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do girl?
Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do now?

There's only so many times
A grown woman can swallow this
Hollowness
Before her itchy trigger finger
Starts to wake her in the dead of night
So she goes walking and walking and walking
But these old streets don't change
There's no metamorphosis here
Were you really gonna wait until the coast was clear?
Were you really gonna wait?
She's just a shadow
Only half a human
Living a half-life inside the institution of what?
Does she only ever get what she's got?
With the voices in her head all screaming

Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do girl?
Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do now?

In the pre-dawn silence
Her hands are shaking too hard
To hold a secret cigarette
Strange kind of violence
When the blows never land
And the blood's never let

Annabel
You're one of the best
We'll always love you
Even if he don't
We'll always love you
Even when he won't

Annabel
You're one of the best
Only a winner on a losing streak
When you can't find strength
Doesn't mean your (sic) weak

These were always someone else's decisions
This was always someone else's life
These were always someone else's decisions
This was always someone else's life
These were always someone else's problems
This was always someone else's wife
It was always someone else's husband
It was always someone else's wife

lyrics via

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Just Jack Sunday Link Pack:

::: Get Your Shoes On: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Disco Friends (Ford Lane Version): WATCH/LISTEN
::: Hymn For Her: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Starz In Their Eyes: WATCH/LISTEN
::: No Time: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Inside: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Alchemist: WATCH/LISTEN

Born this day ... Hannah Höch

Hannah Höch (1889-1978), née Anna Therese Johanne Höch, was a German artist, a "rare female practicing prominently in the arts in the early part of the twentieth century - near unique as a female active in the Dada movement" (via) since Dada was a "men's club" (Hemus, 2008). In her artwork, she addressed women's status in modern society, a status she kept challenging (via). Today, a Google Doodle is dedicated to the woman art history forgot (via).



"Looking back on that great early 20th century upsurge which turned art upside down, it’s all men, men, men. Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism and all the other great world-changing isms were about testosterone-fuelled mega-egos buffeting each other in the creation of mind-bending imagery and belligerent manifestos. There were, of course, plenty of women around in Paris, Berlin and the other great centres, but they tend — even if they were artists themselves — to be seen as appendages to better-known men; as muses, models and tea-makers rather than as contributors to the greatest artistic revolution the world has even seen."
Mark Hudson



A famous work of hers is "Cut with the Kitchen Knife" using "kitchen knife" to "symbolise her cutting through male-dominated society" (via).

"Höch was one of several women associated with Dada, besides artist Sophie Täuber and performer/poet Emmy Hennings, but she was not given a nickname or included in all of the Berlin group’s activities. The significance of her position in Dada, and in Germany, is highlighted: having worked in the industry, Höch often used images from fashion magazines, pasting male heads on to female bodies or vice versa. Her critique of traditional gender roles and how they upheld a conservative society is often subtle, especially when compared to post-war feminist art, but is most effective when making explicit the role of violence in maintaining them: The Father (1920) is particularly jarring, placing a composite of male authority heads onto a woman’s body in a white dress, her feet in stilettos, with a boxer punching the baby in her arms." 

The mid-1920s idea of  the "New Woman" - a product of women getting the vote - was one Höch very much engaged in. This idea was based on gender equality, nevertheless, many of the modern working women with bobbed hair remained in low-status work with unequal pay. Once married, women were not allowed to jobs able-bodied veterans could take.

"Within her circles, Höch was the New Woman, sharing both her style and her frustrations, and her background made her acutely aware of how this figure was a media creation and an advertising target. Portrait of Hannah Höch (1926) and another from 1929 show her looking like the New Woman, with her short hair and androgynous dress, but far from satisfied, let alone liberated." (via)

In the 1930s, Höch was labelled a "cultural Bolshevist" by the Nazis (via), her art branded as "degenerate" (via).

"Höch died in 1978, her place in 20th‑century art history almost, but not quite assured. Postwar histories of dadaism tended to patronise at best; she does not appear at all in Robert Motherwell's 1951 Dada Painters and Poets, and Hans Richter, in 1965, called her "a good girl" with a "slightly nun-like grace". But gradually she snuck into the canon – she was part of the major Dada, Surrealism and their Heritage exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1968 – and scholars and curators have since belatedly recognised that she was both a key dadaist and considerably more: a true pioneer of photomontage and a complex, funny critic of mainstream and art-world misogyny alike."
Brian Dillon

- Hemus, R. (2008). Why Have There Been No Great Women Dadaists? In Kokoli, A. M. (ed.) Feminism Reframed. Reflections on Art and Difference, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 41-60
- photographs via and via (1975, by Stefan Moses) and via (1974, by Dietmar Bührer) and via

Beatlemania, the Menace of Beatlism, Generations, Hysteria & Female Fanaticism

Beatlemania
/biːt(ə)lˈmeɪnɪə/
extreme enthusiasm for the Beatles pop group, as manifested in the frenzied behaviour of their fans in the 1960s.
(Google Dictionary)



"Are teenagers different today? Of course not. Those who flock round the Beatles, who scream themselves into hysteria, are the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures: their existence, in such large numbers, far from being a cause for ministerial congratulation, is a fearful indictment of our education system, which in 10 years of schooling can scarcely raise them to literacy."




"If the Beatles and their like were in fact what the youth of Britain wanted, one might well despair. I refuse to believe it – and so will any other intelligent person who casts his or her mind back far enough. What were we doing at 16? I remember reading the whole of Shakespeare and Marlowe, writing poems and plays and stories. At 16, I and my friends heard our first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; I can remember the excitement even today. We would not have wasted 30 seconds of our precious time on the Beatles and their ilk."

"Before I am denounced as a reactionary fuddy-duddy, let us pause an instant and see exactly what we mean by this “youth”. Both TV channels now run weekly programmes in which popular records are played to teenagers and judged. While the music is performed, the cameras linger savagely over the faces of the audience. What a bottomless chasm of vacuity they reveal! The huge faces, bloated with cheap confectionery and smeared with chain-store makeup, the open, sagging mouths and glazed eyes, the broken stiletto heels: here is a generation enslaved by a commercial machine. Behind this image of “youth”, there are, evidently, some shrewd older folk at work."
Paul Johnson, "The Menace of Beatlism", February 1964 (excerpts)




Teenagers "screaming themselves into hysteria" seemed to be an important aspect of Beatlemania. Shortly after their visit to New Zealand, Taylor carried out empirical research but found "no evidence from the Hysteria Scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory to support the popular opinion that the enthusiasts were hysterics (...). It was concluded that 'Beatlemania' is the passing reaction of predominantly young adolescent females to group pressures of such a kind that meet their special emotional needs." (Taylor, 1966). As the Beatles had a great many female fans, people were perhaps more likely to call them hysteric since hysteria was traditionally considered to be a female disease.





In 1841, fans of Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt showed "a level of fanaticism similar to the Beatles" (via). Soon the term "Lisztomania" was coined, characterised by "intense levels of hysteria" (via). Before the Beatles, there was Liszt, there was Elvis, there was Sinatra. The "mass hysteria" surrounding the Beatles, however, was unprecedented.

"Prior to the Beatles’ arrival on the music scene in 1963, young girls were typically quiet followers of the postwar culture, resigning themselves to domestic responsibilities and stricter parental control."

The Fab Four, when they started, had no "overtly masculine overtones", their style deviated from the traditional hyper-masculine image at the time. The "moderated type of masculinity" may have added to their allure among young female fans. It is also argued that their collective image contributed to their mass appeal amongst teenage girls. Unlike Presley and Sinatra - who were the lead singers in the centre accompanied by a band or an orchestra - the Beatles performed without hierarchical roles. Since women are said to rather create collaborative groups which they prefer to hierarchical structures, their collective image may also have been particularly appealing to female fans. In addition, the Beatles covered "girl group material", wrote songs about sensitivity, romance, collectiveness, transformed "female dependence into male vulnerability". A great many songs were directly addressed to their (female) fans. In "She Loves You", for instance, the man is encouraged to apologise to her, which was new at the time. Their portrayal of women was more positive; women were not idealised but fully-formed characters, the image of love was egalitarian. And, it was the 1960s, a decade marked by the Beatles and women's search for liberation.

"The women’s movement didn’t just happen. It was an awareness that came over you—that you could be your own person. For many of us, that began with the Beatles. They told us we could do anything."  Marcy Lanza, quoted in Pelusi, 2014

"As Jonathan Gould notes, the Beatles were able to provide a “socially and emotionally secure environment for the expression of female assertiveness, aggression, sexuality, and solidarity” with their unique image and empowering lyrics. This musical environment allowed for the expansion of Beatlemania, a collective hysteria where girls wept, screamed, and fainted at the mere thought of seeing their idols in person. Such is the influence of the Beatles’ music that even today, the group remains one of the most popular and well-loved of all time. From the 1960s onwards, Beatlemania spread “Across the Universe,” forever leaving its mark as one of the most notable influences on the gender revolution that grew into the unrelenting musical and pop culture phenomenon, one that is still remembered and celebrated today." Cura, 2009

"Individually, teenagers are isolated and worried and scared all the time of whether or not they're doing the right things and wearing all the right clothes, but everybody liked The Beatles so everybody was equal, we were all in it together." Clerc

More Beatlemania:

::: A taste of Beatlemania in the 1960s: WATCH
::: Beatlemania, Liverpool & L.A. fans, 1982: WATCH, the sound of the first seconds: LISTEN
::: Beatles welcome home, London, 1964: WATCH
::: Beatles take over Holland, Amsterdam, 1964: WATCH
::: Beatles in Sydney, 1964: WATCH
::: Beatles in Hamburg, 1966 (in German): WATCH 
::: Beatles fans get interviewed, 1964: WATCH
::: More Beatles fans: WATCH





- Cura, K. (2009). She Loves You: The Beatles and Female Fanaticism. Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology, 2(1), Article 8. 104-113.
- Pelusi, A. J. (2014). Doctor Who and the Creation of a Non-Gendered Hero Archetype. Theses and Dissertations, Paper 272. Illinois State University.
- photographs via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via; copyrights by the respective owners

Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, by Olympe de Gouges (1791)

Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) was a French political activist, feminst and playwright. In "Les Droits de la Femme" she stated that the "Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen" was not applied to women. Her devotion to the cause of women's rights, the vote for women and women's education led to her being charged with treason. Olympe de Gouges was arrested, tried and executed by guillotine (via).



The Rights of Woman

Man, are you capable of being just? It is a woman who poses the question; you will not deprive her of that right at least. Tell me, what gives you sovereign empire to opress my sex? Your strength? Your talents? Observe the Creator in his wisdom; survey in all her grandeur that nature with whom you seem to want to be in harmony, and give me, if you dare, an exampl of this tyrannical empire. Go back to animals, consult the elements, study plants, finally glance at all the modifications of organic matter, and surrender to the evidence when I offer you the menas; search, probe, and distinguish, if you can, the sexes in the administration of nature. Everywhere you will find them mingled; everywhere they cooperate in harmonious tpgetherness in this immortal masterpiece.
Man alone has raised his exceptional circumstances to a principle. Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated--in a century of enlightenment and wisdom--into the crassest ignorance, he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of its intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolution and to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing more about it.

Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen

Preamble

Mothers, daughters, sisters [and] representatives of the nation demand to be constituted into a national assembly. Believing that ignorance, omission, or scorn for the rights of woman are the only causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments, [the women] have resolved to set forth a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman in order that this declaration, constantly exposed before all members of the society, will ceaselessly remind them of their rights and duties; in order that the authoritative acts f women and teh athoritative acts of men may be at any moment compared with and respectful of the purpose of all political institutions; and in order that citizens' demands, henceforth based on simple and incontestable principles, will always support the constitution, good morals, and the happiness of all.
Consequently, the sex that is as superior in beauty as it is in courage during the sufferings of maternity recognizes and declares in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Woman and of Female Citizens.

Article I
Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.

Article II
The purpose of any political association is the conservation of the natural and impresciptible rights of woman and man; these rights are liberty property, security, and especially resistance to oppression.

Article III
The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially with the nation, which is nothing but the union of woman and man; no body and no individual can exercise any authority which does not come expressly from it (the nation).

Article IV
Liberty and justice consist of restoring all that belongs to others; thus, the only limits on the exercise of the natural rights of woman are perpetual male tyranny; these limits are to be reformed by the laws of nature and reason.

Article V
Laws of nature and reason proscibe all acts harmful to society; everything which is not prohibited by these wise and divine laws cannot be prevented, and no one can be constrained to do what they do not command.

Article VI
The law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to its formation; it must be the same for all: male and female citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally admitted to all honors, positions, and public employment according to their capacity and without other distinctions besides those of their virtues and talents. Article VII No woman is an exception; she is accused, arrested, and detained in cases determined by law. Women, like men, obey this rigorous law.

Article VIII
The law must establish only those penalties that are strictly and obviously necessary...

Article IX
Once any woman is declared guilty, complete rigor is exercised by law.

Article X
No one is to be disquieted for his very basic opinions; woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum, provided that her demonstrations do not disturb the legally established public order.

Article XI
The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of woman, since that liberty assures recognition of children by their fathers. Any female citizen thus may say freely, I am the mother of a child which belongs to you, without being forced by a barbarous prejudice to hide the truth; (an exception may be made) to respond to the abuse of this liberty in cases determined by law.

Article XII
The gaurantee of the rights of woman and the female citizen implies a major benefit; this guarantee must be instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the particular benefit of those to whom it is entrusted.

Article XIII
For the support of the public force and the expenses of administration, the contributions of woman and man are equal; she shares all the duties and all the painful tasks; therefore, whe must have the same share in the distribution of positions, employment, offices, honors, and jobs.

Article XIV
Female and male citizens have the right to verify, either by themselves of through their representatives, the necessity of the public contribution. This can only apply to women if they are granted an equal share, not only of wealth, but also of public administration, and in the determination of the proportion, the base, the collection, and the duration of the tax.

Article XV
The collectivity of women, joined for tax purposes to the aggregate of men, has the right to demand an accounting of his administration from any public agent.

Article XVI
No society has a constitution without the guarantee of rights and the separation of powers; the constitution is null if the majority of individuals comprising the nation have not cooperated in drafting it.

Article XVII
Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separate; for each it is an inviolable and sacred right' no one can be deprived of it, since it is the true patrimony of natire, unless the legally determined public need obviously dictates it, and then only with a just and prior indemnity.

Postscript

Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe; discover your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and lies. The flame of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has multiplied his strength and needs recourse to yours to break his chains. Having become free, he has become unjust to his companion. Oh, women, women! When will you cease to be blind? What advantage have you received from the Revolution? A more pronounced scorn, a more marked disdain. In the centuries of corruption you ruled only over the weakness of men. The reclamation of your patrimony, based on the wise decrees of nature-what have you to dread from such a fine undertaking? The bon mot of the legislator of the marriage of Cana? Do you fear that our French legislators, correctors of that morality, long ensnared by political practices now out of date, will only say again to you: women, what is there in common between you and us? Everything, you will have to answer. If they persist in their weakness in putting this non sequitur in contradiction to their principles, courageously oppose the force of reason to the empty pretentions of superiority; unite yourselves beneath the standards of philosophy; deploy all the energy of your character, and you will soon see these haughty men, not groveling at your feet as servile adorers, but proud to share with you the treasures of the Supreme Being. Regardless of what barriers confront you, it is in your power to free yourselves; you have only to want to....
Marriage is the tomb of trust and love. The married woman can with impunity give bastards to her husband, and also give them the wealth which does not belong to them. The woman who is unmarried has only one feeble right; ancient and inhuman laws refuse to her for her children the right to the name and the wealth of their father; no new laws have been made in this matter. If it is considered a paradox and an impossibility on my part to try to give my sex an honorable and just consistency, I leave it to men to attain glory for dealing with this matter; but while we wait, the way can be prepared through national education, the restoration of morals, and conjugal conventions.

Form for a Social Contract Between Man and Woman

We, _____ and ______, moved by our own will, unite ourselves for the duration of our lives, and for the duration of our mutual inclinations, under the following conditions: We intend and wish to make our wealth communal, meanwhile reserving to ourselves the right to divide it in favor of our children and of those toward whom we might have a particular inclination, mutually recognizing that our property belongs directly to our children, from whatever bed they come, and that all of them without distinction have the right to bear the name of the fathers and mothers who have acknowledged them, and we are charged to subscribe to the law which punishes the renunciation of one's own blood. We likewise obligate ourselves, in case of separation, to divide our wealth and to set aside in advance the portion the law indicates for our children, and in the event of a perfect union, the one who dies will divest himself of half his property in his children's favor, and if one dies childless, the survivor will inherit by right, unless the dying person has disposed of half the common property in favor of one whom he judged deserving.

That is approximately the formula for the marriage act I propose for execution. Upon reading this strange document, I see rising up against me the hypocrites, the prudes, the clergy, and the whole infernal sequence. But how it [my proposal] offers to the wise the moral means of achieving the perfection of a happy government! . . .
Moreover, I would like a law which would assist widows and young girls deceived by the false promises of a man to whom they were attached; I would like, I say, this law to force an inconstant man to hold to his obligations or at least [to pay] an indemnity equal to his wealth. Again, I would like this law to be rigorous against women, at least those who have the effrontery to have reCourse to a law which they themselves had violated by their misconduct, if proof of that were given. At the same time, as I showed in Le Bonheur primitit de l'homme, in 1788, that prostitutes should be placed in designated quarters. It is not prostitutes who contribute the most to the depravity of morals, it is the women of' society. In regenerating the latter, the former are changed. This link of fraternal union will first bring disorder, but in consequence it will produce at the end a perfect harmony.
I offer a foolproof way to elevate the soul of women; it is to join them to all the activities of man; if man persists in finding this way impractical, let him share his fortune with woman, not at his caprice, but by the wisdom of laws. Prejudice falls, morals are purified, and nature regains all her rights. Add to this the marriage of priests and the strengthening of the king on his throne, and the French government cannot fail.

(via)

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photograph via
Description: "On Aug. 26, 1971, thousands of women demonstrated and leafleted in various places in Manhattan, including Wall Street and St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Women's Rights Day activities culminated in a parade of nearly 6,000 people, including this woman, down Fifth Avenue in support of equal rights (Credit: Newsday / Jim Peppler)"

Cumberbatch and Cumberbitches

About two years ago, Benedict Cumberbatch "sweetly confronted" his female fans over their chosen nickname "Cumberbitches" in Ellen DeGeneres's talkshow.

"It’s like trying to squeeze a confession out of me getting me to actually say that word, because I squirm a little bit about it. 
I definitely didn't [come up with it]. That's part of my problem with it. I just went: 'Ladies, this is wonderful. I'm very flattered, but has this not set feminism back a little bit? Empower yourselves if you're going to get silly about a guy with maybe a little bit more of a sort of, you know, a high-regard, self-regarding name!'"
Benedict Cumberbatch



Photograph: The t-shirt was designed by Elle and Whistles, the phrase "This is what a feminist looks like" was coined by The Fawcett Society (via).

And in case you are having a masochistic moment and wish to torture yourself - here is a link to Breitbart's reaction to this photograph: LINK

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photograph via