A Critical Theory Of Public Life by Ben Agger

Author:Ben Agger [Agger, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781134080380
Google: Ed3eAQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-31T04:53:37+00:00

The Mainstreaming of Feminism

Whereas a Boy Scout Marxism resides in the theory chapter, a Girl Scout feminism is found in the chapter(s) on gender, family and sex roles. Whereas bad Marxism is Siberia and good Marxism merely ‘conflict theory’, bad feminism is a man- and child-hating lesbian separatism, while good feminism is the corporate feminism of Ms. magazine, the National Organization of Women, and sit-coms like Kate and Allie. Women are supposed to work ‘with men’ to sort out their mutual problems of lovelessness, alienation and who will do the dishes. Sociology is subtly homophobic; the liberal textbooks support gay rights but not the radical- and socialist-feminist politicization of personal life — sexuality, family, housework.

One textbook suggests that radical feminists are unruly at meetings; another assures us that only 5 per cent of the population are gay; another defends prostitution on functional grounds; another (written by two women!) argues that all Americans want to get married and have children; another suggests that male impotence (a social problem!) is caused by women’s liberation; yet another suggests that the ‘traditional’ woman’s role included benefits as well as costs. The text’s feminism is domesticated, familied, nonstrident. Difficulties between the sexes are conceptualized as just that: faulty negotiations between spouses. Men are victims, too. Predictably, the treatment of women in the major introductory books is restricted to the ‘women’ chapters on family, gender and sex roles. Some textbooks even assimilate feminism to the very conflict theory to which they have reduced Marxism.

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