In the most recent issue of The Common Review, I am proud to be a “Bookend” — meaning that I was honored by this publication of the Great Books Foundation in being permitted to write their humorous end-of-magazine piece. I wrote about the idea of “Post-Post-Feminism” and whether that can exist. I’d be grateful if you’d take a look at the whole piece, but what I’d particularly like is response to the list I compiled comparing the various “waves” of feminists to one another, as follows:
Fears Being Called:
Classic Feminist: castrating, bitchy;
Post-Feminist: suburban, boring;
Post-Post-Feminist: by anyone not already in her address book
Performer Embodying The Phase:
CF: Meryl Streep;
PF: Hilary Swank;
PPF: Eddie Izzard
Prefers:
CF: Whole grain bread;
PF: Whole grain pasta;
PPF: Whole grain alcohol
Considers herself a little wild if she:
CF: Hennas her hair;
PF: gets pierced;
PPF: has hymenoplasty more than twice
Signature phrase:
CF: You Just Don’t Understand;
PF: Read My Lips;
PPF: Read My Blog
Life Trajectory:
CF: stays home, raises kids, goes to college;
PF goes to college, raises kids, stays home;
PPF: stays in college, goes home, kids about raises
Favorite, most fully realized breakdown stories:
CF: The Bell Jar;
PF: Girl Interrupted;
PPF: any information concerning the crazy astronaut lady who drove from Texas to Florida without stopping in order to confront her adulterous lover’s other mistress in a grocery store parking lot, all while wearing a wig. She was an ASTRONAUT, for heaven’s sake. What hope is there for the rest of us? I mean, seriously, she was what all little girls were meant to grow up to be in the quote-unquote postfeminist world except she STILL was absorbed and enthralled and driven bats by the idea of The Grand Romance, so that she threw everything away — everything, professional and personal — because she couldn’t get this tawdry affair with this already married other astronaut out of her head despite learning how to do stuff like LIVE IN OUTER SPACE. Not that I’m bitter.
Poster Girl Politicos:
CF: Bella Abzug;
PF: Hilary Clinton;
PPF: Sarah Palin
Politics:
CF: Marxist;
PF: Post-Marxist;
PPF: Post time at Belmont: 3 p.m.
Heartthrob:
CF: Kris Kristofferson;
PF: Hugh Grant;
PPF: The Joker (not poor Heath Ledger, but actually The Joker)
Bad Boy Back-up Auxiliary Heartthrob:
CF: Clint Eastwood;
PF: Robert Downey Jr.;
PPF: Eddie Izzard
Fav Female Vocalist:
CF: Janis Joplin;
PF: Mariah Carey;
PPF: Anybody doing Janis Joplin covers
Watched on T.V. while coming of age:
CF: Annette Funicello;
PF: Britney Spears;
PPF: Judge Judy
Women got together to:
CF: campaign for the passage of the ERA;
PF: help women around the globe have access to independence;
PPF: scrapbook
There’s lot’s more in The Common Review ….
(Photo by Flickr user nyki_m)
