New Victorians, The: A Young Woman's Challenge to the Old Feminist Order - Softcover

Denfeld, Rene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446672394 ISBN 13: 9780446672399

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 1996

Synopsis

Journalist Rene Denfeld explains why her generation has become alienated from the women's movement, maintaining that the actions of the movement's current leadership have actually encouraged a return to the kind of sexual repression and political powerlessness challenged by feminists in the 1970s. Here she offers a practial battle plan which includes confronting the issues of child care and birth control, working for equal government representation, and treating sexual assault as a serious crime.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Why do so many young women who believe strongly in equal rights refuse to call themselves feminists? Does feminism's counterproductive obsession with date rape, pornography, and goddess religions alienate young women - and lead the movement toward a dangerous alliance with the religious right? Is the agenda of today's women's movement uncomfortably similar to a Victorian crusade for repression? Rene Denfeld, a young woman born a year after the foundation of the National Organization for Women, says feminist leaders are out of touch. In the movement's latest obsessions, Denfeld finds a complete reversal of the movement's progress made since the 1970s. This decade's hypersensitive feminist - fearful, disillusioned, and adamantly anti-male - bears a strong resemblance to the dainty, sheltered, chaste Victorian lady of a century ago. And this is why, Denfeld says, young women are abandoning the feminist movement. Rene Denfeld cuts to the roots of the Anti-Phallic campaign, male bashing, and sexual politics; victim Mythology. Why date rape has become an excuse to blame men, and excuses women from responsibility regarding their sexual choices; the Anti-Pornography Crusade. How anti-pornography activists teach that sex is something decent feminists should not discuss; and goddess worship, or why new feminist visions of religion are a throwback to the Victorian view that women are by nature morally superior to men - and how this keeps women weak. Offering realistic alternatives to ideologically rigid and sometimes ridiculous doctrine, The New Victorians is a rallying cry for young women to take back feminism - and be proud of it.

About the Author

Rene Denfeld is an author, journalist, and death penalty investigator. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Oregonian, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, and is the author of four nonfiction books. The Enchanted received the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger in France.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446672394
• ISBN 13: 9780446672399
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352