Friday, December 5, 2014

Fifty Years of Feminism

It’s a fair criticism.

Sometimes, some of us are too ready to dismiss second-wave feminism. We see the glass half-empty and don’t notice that there is still something to drink.

Many people think that I should be doing some serious amends on this score, so I will point out some of the positive benefits that feminism has brought to modern women.

Credit where credit is due. We owe the insight to someone named Sarah Vine. For the record, I have no idea who Sarah Vine is, but she wrote her cri de coeur for the Daily Mail. What further validation do you need?

In fact, we do not even have to read Vine’s article. In her case it’s all in the headline:

How did 50 years of feminism end in THIS?

For your edification, she is referring to THIS:


'I’m not a feminist zealot— but I’d happily burn a Victoria’s Secret bra' says Sarah Vine

Are you horrified yet?

Vine became apoplectic at the sight of a Victoria’s Secret fashion show in London. We note, if only in passing, that VS is not a novelty. It has been around since 1977. How did Vine miss it?

Considering how well it has been doing, one must assume that liberated women also shop there.

Now that Victoria’s Secret has made its way into Vine’s raised consciousness, she is horrified:

Victoria's Secret 'fashion show' suggests trashy costumes, strippers, nudity and lecherousness are the most natural things in the world


Some of the 3,000-strong audience had paid up to £10,000 to attend the show, which cost at least £10 million to produce

OMFG! I am not sure that I would say that the costume looks like the most natural thing in the world, but then, that's me.

Think that's bad. Take a gander at this angle:
Sarah is concerned that the younger generation will be taken in by the glamour and glitz of the Victoria's Secret world


I’m all for modesty. But isn’t Vine taking her crusade for a return to modesty a bit too far? Next thing you know she will be insisting that women cover themselves up… in burqas, perhaps.

Did I miss something, but wasn’t feminism supposed to be about sexual liberation, too?

A group that extolled The Hite Report and that was marching to The Vagina Monologues is not very well placed to rail about Victoria’s Secret.

Acting more like a zealot than a free-thinking woman, Vine continues, via the Daily Mail headline:

  • 'I’m not a zealot but I’d burn a Victoria’s Secret bra' says Sarah Vine 

  • She says the brand specialises in tiny, extremely uncomfortable underwear

It’s going to be the new feminist slogan: be liberated; go braless!

Or, was that the old slogan?

And yet, if women want spend the money they earned on VS undergarments, who am I to complain.

Vine, consumed by fury at the way women exercise their freedom to choose… what they wear:

  • 'This is a world where how you look is the only thing that matters'
Obviously, this is a leap into the theoretical void. It is silly to say that a world that gave us Margaret Thatcher, Julie Burchill and Taylor Swift only values women for how they look when they are prancing around in their unmentionables.
'The normally demure(ish) Swift came over all stripper-tastic in black lingerie in a desperate bid to outstrut the Angels, a look that really doesn’t suit her down-home style'



5 comments:

  1. Including those photos in your report helps me respect you journalistic integrity even more. Thanks for that disclosure. I feel well-informed.

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  2. Stuart, the thing the left consistently misses is the law of unintended consequences.

    The lib movement fought hard to liberate wimminz so that they could dress as they wanted, and be as sexy as they wanted (of course never stating that the sexiness was just for the top grade men, not the middle or lower grades). They have achieved their dream, just that as in all dreams, the plot never follows a coherent path. Wimminz are liberated to dress as they please, and now most women want to dress in a fashion that is pleasing to the male eye! Not what the great lobbies fought for eh?

    LMFAROTFP!!!!

    Not sure if you have perused this yet, but quite a detailed article (one of two) in Britians Breitbart.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/12/04/The-Sexodus-Part-1-The-Men-Giving-Up-On-Women-And-Checking-Out-Of-Society

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  3. The Victoria’s Secret fashion show emphasizes form over function. It is to conventional dress what hard pornography is to soft pornography.

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  4. Taylor is astounding, but she's also blooming Gorgeous - Slender Division.

    I like Florence Welch's music more. Her versatile voice rattles cups, her concepts & lyrics are dense and mystic, the melodies are wonderful.

    I can't decide if "Bedroom Hymns" is profane or pious. -- Rich Lara

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  5. I'm guessing she does not come close to looking as good as those models. I'm guessing further that she suffers a loss in self-esteem as a result.

    ReplyDelete