The rich and famous have such problems ...

The rich and famous have such problems …

Feminism gives ground for very serious complaints. However, the social location of those whose voices get amplified by the media ensures that they mostly take the form of yuppie kvetching: there can’t be anything wrong with feminism that more and better feminism wouldn’t cure, so that things become what they should be for me. Here are a couple of bits from Australia, the first by a TV talking head who was startled that even yuppie kvetching attracts feminist fury because it suggests there are problems with actually-existing feminism, and the other an account of a visit to Australia by Naomi Wolf. The author of the latter piece finds fault with Miss Kvetch on the ground that what’s needed is not better feminism for the privileged but better social services for abused children and other victims of the new moral order. Naturally, she doesn’t put it that way.
Posted by Jim Kalb at May 02, 2003 04:01 PM | Send

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The article which originally unleashed the feminist fury on Virginia Haussegger might also interest some readers: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/22/1026898972150.html

It was certainly interesting to note how little sympathy there was for Haussegger from older feminists. I don’t think a single one stopped to empathise with a woman who was grieving over her childlessness. She was simply accused of being an ingrate and told roughly to get over it. The political cause, it seems, matters more that the care of individual souls.

In a TV interview last year Hausseger tentatively made a fundamental criticisms of feminism: that there might be a problem in making individual autonomy the measure of all things. However in her recent article she seems to have become more timid: she simply complains (incorrectly) that men have all the autonomy and insinuates that the answer is to push feminism further into workplace reform.

PS. My website http://www.ozconservative.com has now found its permanent address and can be safely bookmarked. I intend to update it about twice a week.

Posted by: Mark Richardson on May 2, 2003 8:19 PM

Thanks for posting the original article. The general tone of the one I linked suggested she was more of a human being than Naomi Wolf, and I’m glad to see that confirmed. I can hardly be upset with her for trying to make things nice with everyone.

Also, congratulations on your site. Even at 3,000,000,000 pages, it’ll be a real addition to what’s available on the web.

Posted by: Jim Kalb on May 2, 2003 9:26 PM