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.
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This assessment of my interview with Ms. Seligson is flat out fallacious on so many counts.
1) I did not have an orthodox upbringing at all. That was a leap you made because you need something to blame.
2) I never said anything that could in any way be extrapolated to mean that people who have been historically oppressed should just “make lemonade out of lemons.” Ms. Seligson chose to highlight a statement I make in the book to incite controversy and make me look very different from who I really am.
3) To say that women are objectified in the media and are not flippant about sex is such a colossally ignorant statement it doesn’t warrant a response.
Saying that women are objectified in the media is a “colossally ignorant statement?” Really? REALLY?
REALLY.
REALLLYYYY?
1) At least if you had grown up Orthodox people could somewhat sympathize with your source of ignorance on the subject at hand. How did you manage to write an entire book and not be able to cite even one case study or statistic about how you came to your conclusions in an interview being read by your alma matter? Guess that’s what happens when you completely write-off the subject matter, i.e. feminism, as you stated in the interview before you’ve even found evidence to support your thesis.
2)The book is addressing women and the feminist movement, is it not? Women have been historically oppressed, have they not? Who then, if not historically-oppressed women, were you implying should make”lemonade out of lemons”?
3)Do you own a television, read newspapers, or have you ever been outside long enough to see even a billboard ad? Sexual objectification of women is everywhere. Ignoring the facts of the society you’re in makes you the one blasting ignorant statements.
What an unfortunate and short sighted review. There is a whole new, educated generation of women that share Venekers views and take great offense by inidivduals that try to discredit our beliefs without and proper facts or foundation.
Seems to me that the author of the article is the “ignorant” one. She doesn’t seem to have any facts in her argument which leaves it baseless. It is more like a rant than an actual informative piece.
Old woman Schlafly can use the internet? Impressive!
Comparing women of today with African-Americans of one century and half ago, is simply insulting. Insulting for women, for men, and for African-Americans of course.
So comparing two historically oppressed groups – I mean, WELL-DOCUMENTED and similar oppression – is insulting, but Venker comparing gay men and domestic abusers is.. what? Acceptable? Let’s get our priorities straight here.
The Civil Rights Movement was in the 1950s and 60s… more like half a century ago, not 150 years ago. And the Equal Rights Act asserted by feminists to provide undeniable legal equality of the sexes was ATTEMPTED (but not passed) in the same time period! If you do however, want to go back 150 years, you may learn that both African Americans AND women of all races were considered property, legally! All social minority struggles are incredibly similar in both the nature of the oppression and the reform society must undergo in order to reach a point where that oppression is realized and ceases.
Well…this should be interesting. As one of those eveil males, who has been deamonized, falsely accused and otherwise used as a means of self endulgent extortion, I can only say , the feminatzies of the last 40 years have made a destructive mess of the family in America.
To my and the surprise of many unsuspecting fathers, the Family LAw systems, a creation of the feminatzies, routinely accepts any created and false allegation of “opression”, “abuse” or disagreement as the means to deni a father an equal parenting relationship with his own children. This parent alienation process, routinely allow the custodial liar to be paid to lie and falsely accuse over and over…getting tax free child support to mostly support her feminist lifestyle.
My two sons are a sad reflextion of this horrific process, after a vicious legal battle and a parade of false allegations, never once a criminal issue proceeded, yet allegation after allegation, forced the total loss of interaction form My sons and their father …..They were solely raised , by the “opressed single mother”, so well they they both now sport felony records, one still remains on probation for trafficing and they hate the mother that did this to them. FInally , now after 15 years, the painful stories of them being left and forced to raise one another, while their father was pushed out of their lieves and mother persued her freedom, they having nothing to say to her, as she still lives in her fantazt world of freedom, never mind the constant stream of anti anxiety and depression medications that are a daily necessitym( or functional additction). The feminatizies won ….hurray!
Job well done!