I Can't Get No Satisfaction

Once upon a time, half a century ago, American women washed dishes, packed lunches and, being good housewives, downed a pill or two to get through the day. Slowly, a panic overtook the gentler sex: Is this it? The dam broke open: Books were written, meetings were called, marches were marched. Rights--abortion, maternity leave, Title IX, sexual discrimination policies--were won. Brandishing said rights, women stormed the workplace, the halls of Congress, even the armed forces. And while inappropriate squeezes, delayed promotions and a few firings betrayed their second-class status, they persisted. They had arrived. Thirty years later, a generation of new women--young women--entered the workforce expecting to be treated as equals, despite--or was it because of?--the fact that they shaved their underarms. But they still only made 81 cents on the dollar of their male co-workers. They still had to do an awful load of dishes at night. And when there were babies to be had, well, they were the ones staying home and nodding off to Teletubbies. They were disappointed, and confused. Was this that glorious future that been promised them?

And then Laura Kipnis opened her laptop, and lo, it was good. Now the author of Against Love: A Polemic, a smart and brackish book that brought this hitherto unknown feminist scholar and video artist to the attention of The New Yorker and half the blogosphere, has struck again. Her new book, The Female Thing, examines the very question our tale leaves hanging: What happened to gender equality? Why has the movement that once seemed a matter of destiny kind of, well, broken down?

Kipnis turns a mirror on women, observing that if they wanted to smash the patriarchy, they probably could, given their sheer number--so could it be that maybe they don't want to? Perhaps, she ventures, women ought to stop blaming men and get reacquainted with the "collaborator within," the one who cleans feverishly, obsesses over her supposed flaws and maybe isn't so sure she wants to be liberated--whatever that means--after all.

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