Upon checking their Boston University email on the morning of International Women’s Day on Tuesday, anyone checking out BU Today would have come across the headline, “BU Alum Assails Feminism as Dead-End Road.” The article is centered on an interview with conservative BU alum Suzanne Venker, author of “The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know – and Men Can’t Say,” and her alarming opinion on women who boldly assert their rights in the workplace and at home.
Venker makes a number of ignorant assertions – she believes that feminism has been beneficial for struggling working women but detrimental for women at home, that “the abuse problem is smaller than it’s made out to be,” and that some things “don’t need to change” – but her most disturbing statement concerned her conclusion that feminism is one of the factors responsible for legitimizing casual and explicit sex. In her mind, a feminist is a woman who is solely concerned with disregarding the “homemaker” stereotype and expresses freedom through repugnant means. Instead of throwing society into chaos, she argues, women should “make lemonade out of lemons.”
First of all, Venker’s idea that women are responsible for sexualizing popular culture and thrusting the Western world into divorce and fornication is merely indicative of her orthodox upbringing, not of any actual insight she possesses. Placing the blame solely on women for the “sexualization” of the media smacks of ignorance. Women don’t engage in “frisky” behavior flippantly. This image is pushed by all media industries: advertising, cosmetic surgery, prostitution and pornography, the latter of which is viewed regularly by more than 40 million Americans and often places women in a submissive position. In more ways than they themselves can imagine, women are objectified. That doesn’t come as a result of their desire for liberation.
Secondly, it’s frightening to think that “making lemonade out of lemons” should be adapted as a slogan by every faction of people that has been historically oppressed. If African-Americans had been told during the civil rights movement to make the best of their situation and forget about achieving equality, there would still be a significant disparity between whites and blacks in terms of rights. Despite what Venker might believe, liberal ethics don’t derive from the need to make progress simply for the sake of progress. They derive from a need to uplift people out of an unequal existence.
It came as a surprise that BU Today would choose to publish this exceptionally obtuse interview on International Women’s Day, a day that is supposed to celebrate the success of women, not distract from it. While the staff’s intent could have been to bring attention to an antifeminist theorist in order to show progress that has yet to be made, it effectively came off as in poor taste. Stirring up controversy has limited long-term value.