First of all let me assure you that there is nothing wrong with American women. There is something very wrong, though, why American feminism "group-think", notably "victim feminism" (Oh, come on, is there *really* any other kind of influential feminism nowadays?). Which strikes me as very, very odd. Blame it on my European identity, cultural and otherwise, but the increasingly virulent rethoric of victim feminism makes absolutely no sense to me. It takes women who are born into one of the richest societies in the civilised world and clothes them in the garments of a Third World-esque "oppression". The irony is, of course, that most of these women have not met with much oppression during their lives and that they have a world of opportunities open to them in a way undreamt to their ancestors, both male and female.
Not that I intend to deny that the odd male chauvinist still exists, but to claim that the way to eliminate anti-woman attitudes is by encouraging anti-male attitudes is unacceptable in my book. And for anyone with more than a nodding acquaintace with moral and ethics, it is not only unacceptable, it is positively totalitarian. Another thing that I find intriguing (and I say intriguing to avoid the over-emotional conotations of "downright angry") is this mindless connection of victimhood with power. I look at the real victims: at the Third World children who die of hunger in countries brimming with natural riches, at refugees that wait and wait for a peace that will never come, and wonder where does all this "patriarchal oppression" rethoric comes from. I have a little game to pose to those women who are bent on blaming men for their every personal shortcomings. I have a little game to pose to those men whose feelings of self-loathing are so intense that they have to rationalise them into that tiresome "I am oppressive by nature, deserving of contempt, blah, blah, blah" mantra: how about growing up into a full human being for a while? How about starting to assume full responsibility for your actions once in a while? Oh, I can sympathise with these trends. I can sympathise completely. It is easier to say "We live in a society that oppresses women" than to say "If I do not develop my full potential it is my fault". It is easier to say "I'm not being promoted because I am a woman" than to say "I'm not being promoted because I'm not qualified enough". It's easier to say "I'm not violent, I'm a victim" than to assume responsibilty for your bad actions and accept the just punishment. But ultimately, this is counter-producive. It is only a form of neo-paternalism.
And what is so good about Young's book is that she sees this. She is able to see through all that screechy rethoric and poke at the deep truths beneath it. She knows that although there are certainly individual men and women who are victims of one thing or the other, neither women nor men are "victims" or "oppressed" or anything else. Real feminism was always about equality, about fairness for *all*, women and men, whites and non-whites, etc. It was never about moral superiority or claiming a privileged victim status. It was about realising how traditional sex-roles hurt both women and men, by imposing rigid behaviour rules and forcing them to follow expectations no one could keep. Where have those ideas gone? We live in a world of professional worriers. A bizarre world where people would rather distort the truth than to sigh in relief with the fact that, say, spouse battering rather than being a epidemic, constitutes unnaceptable and devious behaviour.
It takes bravery to write such a book in contemporary America, although I think there would be much less fuss here in Europe. Only a woman could have gotten away with it, although Ms. Young still has to contend with the screechy no-brainers of (mostly) "gender feminists" whose hate-mail is protected by the very right to free speech they seek to abolish, simply for suggesting that men and women should work together to achieve common goals and that we should stop thinking about "women" and "men" and start thinking about "human beings".
Of course that such ideas, given the present thwarted state of gender politics, come across as revolutionary. To me though, a woman fed on a diet of real equality and critical thinking, to whom humanity consists in assuming your faults along with your virtues and accepting the consequences of your deeds, Ms. Young's ideas come across as solid, commonsensical sanity.
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