Re: The Future That Never Happened

When looking at Levy's chapter, it is extremely evident that the feminist movement was weakened by a lack of cohesiveness and varying approaches to creating gender equality. The main struggle was over the desire to bash female sexuality due to its perceived encouragement of male dominance or whether pro-sex feminists should completely explore and display female sexuality to shed a positive light on gender equality in the sexual realm. This innate struggle particularly stood out to me when reflecting on the second page of the chapter (p. 47). Levy describes Susan Brownmiller who describes she is not opposed to marriage but has yet to find a man with the same values, "marriage as an arrangement that usually corralled women back toward the subservient lives their mothers had lived, instead of forward into the glorious futures they imagined for their daughters." This led me to the comically simple yet important revelation that many feminist women are so concerned with promoting equal gender relations for the sake of their future daughters that they are isolating themselves from men and the opportunity to engage in marriage and have children in the first place. We discussed in class how many feminists are anti-men and reject them innately, and this ties in with such. I do not believe that women need to outwardly express their female sexuality as in the CAKE parties just to visit the other extreme, but certainly both groups should find a balance. Levy provides an example of this as Hugh Hefner is usually viewed negatively by feminists for supposedly exploiting women but he actually funded feminist movements such as the famous Roe v. Wade case. This served as an example where men were allowed involvement with feminist movements and contributed favorably. I disagree with both extremes of feminism from Levy's chapter because I believe women can find a balance between fighting for gender equality without denying their sexual nature. The women in my family work but also got married and perform the traditional role of women taking care of the family and yet are highly respected so I believe finding that balance is the best approach. This is not to say that feminists such as Brownmiller should abandon their strong stances for gender equality, just that they do not need to give up a personal life and a potential family to do so because if they do give up that opportunity, they will have no daughters to share that desired new world of equality with.