The biggest barrier to women's advancement toward equality in the US has always been other, too often white, women. It has always been a minority of brave and determined women who have pushed the barriers further and further. If most women favored suffrage, it wouldn't have taken 72 years to get it and the ERA was killed by women opponents.
Good analysis Claire except for one claim. I don't think many left feminists of my 60s/70s generation thought all women were good at heart. It wasn't just the work on women in fascist Germany, or the KKK, etc. It was clear to us that sexism, like racism, always survives when groups of the oppressed agree to aid it along for whatever they can get, not just out of fear of violence. It isn't just Stockholm syndrome of some sort either. It is what they figure they can get out of it, and the individualism that is at the heart of some of it I think. My mother used to say some people just don't have a "people gene." I don't think it is genetic (she was a biologist) but of course learned behavior.
Thank you Claire for this astute piece comparing two chief figures of American rape culture, both enabled by some women. Very good! Mark Higbee, Ypsilanti, Michigan
I'm shocked to discover that Truth Social lacks "moderation."
The biggest barrier to women's advancement toward equality in the US has always been other, too often white, women. It has always been a minority of brave and determined women who have pushed the barriers further and further. If most women favored suffrage, it wouldn't have taken 72 years to get it and the ERA was killed by women opponents.
Good analysis Claire except for one claim. I don't think many left feminists of my 60s/70s generation thought all women were good at heart. It wasn't just the work on women in fascist Germany, or the KKK, etc. It was clear to us that sexism, like racism, always survives when groups of the oppressed agree to aid it along for whatever they can get, not just out of fear of violence. It isn't just Stockholm syndrome of some sort either. It is what they figure they can get out of it, and the individualism that is at the heart of some of it I think. My mother used to say some people just don't have a "people gene." I don't think it is genetic (she was a biologist) but of course learned behavior.
Thank you Claire for this astute piece comparing two chief figures of American rape culture, both enabled by some women. Very good! Mark Higbee, Ypsilanti, Michigan