Douglas, Rich

In Susan Douglas’s “Fantasies of Power”, she begins by talking about her young daughter and the sleepover her daughter is having with a few of her friends. She describes their affinity for the Spice Girls, a famous singing group in the 1990’s. Douglas explains how the Spice Girls seem to be the feminists of the 1990’s. They wrote a song about how guys need to treat women with respect or they can, “take a hike”. Even though the Spice Girls wear scandalous clothing and are not afraid to express their sexuality openly, they are sending feminist messages.

Douglas continues by talking about how successful women have become in the public eye. She includes the fact that women have run for Vice President and President of the United States of America, the Secretary of State in the U.S. is a woman, women have infiltrated reality television (in survivor they compete directly alongside the men), they make up many television personalities, and have even gained popularity and power in the world of sports. Nevertheless, women still make only 80% of what men make 5 years after college and only 69% of what men make after that. According to these percentages women have not made as many steps toward equality as they think they have. However, this is simply economic progress and political progress. Women have been empowered, but they have been given power in the media. Media and society assure women are strong, successful, sexually in control, fearless, and held in awe.

Susan Douglas also references the difference between the women in the media that her generation watch and the women in the media now. The women in the television show, “Law and Order” are representative of women on television in the 1990’s. Now, women are portrayed on MTV shows about getting into sororities. The values that are emphasized in these young women are looks and passive personalities as apposed to the women in “Law and Order” who are bossy and strong. This new regime of television is partially a function of Enlightened Sexism.

Enlightened Sexism is a response to the perceived threat of a new gender regime. This response can be purposeful or not. The idea of enlightened sexism is that sexism does not exist anymore because of how far women have come so now it is okay, even amusing, to bring back sexist stereotypes for women. Women have taken control of their own power. They do not necessarily have individual economic success or political pull, but they have fun, look good, and have men lust over them. Because of this many girls spend a great deal of time on their appearance. This conformance toward anti-feminism, Douglass explains, is a result of women choosing anti-feminism over feminism because it is cooler and more acceptable. Enlightened sexism has led to the same things that feminists were not happy with in the 60’s and 70’s but now they are done with a wink and not at the expense of women’s feelings.

This introductory chapter was very interesting and informative. While Douglass helped define some important vocabulary and portrayed a wide range of information, she did a nice job of referencing things that her readers would be accustomed to. For instance, her Spice Girls, Law and Order, MTV, etc, references were all great ways to connect her reader to the information and really allowed me to grasp the information. This seems like a great introduction to much more relevant and interesting information to come.

Adrienne Rich’s “Claiming and Education” is much less detailed and involved than the Douglass reading yet it talks about a different yet equally important facet of Women’s Studies. She talks about women in education. She talks about both female teachers and female students. She talks about how women are brought up thinking, often times, that responsibilities to others comes before responsibility to ones self. Rich says that this is not necessarily how women should live their lives. She says that women should ‘respect and use your own brains and instincts, don’t treat your body like a commodity, have people respect your mind, do things that will challenge you, don’t sell yourself short, resist societal norms, and don’t marry early to avoid difficult decisions’. Rich sends the message that women’s minds are extremely valuable and necessary in any civilization. Rich then explains how many qualified professors are not thrilled about working at all girl schools. She rebuts by saying that there is, “no more intellectually fertile place in the academic world today than a women’s college”.

Women in education are a less public and less visual aspect of Women’s Studies than women in the mass media. Because of this, I am not as familiar with this subject. Nevertheless, Adrienne Rich gives a good overview and generalization of women in the school system and also speaks extensively about the way women should act in general.