Last week Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a scorching critique of the uproar over pushing regular mammography back till 50-years-old, in light of the muted response to the Stupak amendment excluding abortion from both state and public health insurance programs.
“So welcome to the Women’s Movement 2.0,” she writes “pink-ribbon culture has replaced feminism”:
While we used to march in protest against sexist laws and practices, now we race or walk “for the cure.” And while we once sought full “consciousness” of all that oppresses us, now we’re content to achieve “awareness,” which has come to mean one thing — dutifully baring our breasts for the annual mammogram.
…
Once upon a time, grassroots women challenged the establishment by figuratively burning their bras. Now, in some masochistic perversion of feminism, they are raising their voices to yell, “Squeeze our tits!”
Well, I suppose we finally have a women’s movement that men will get behind. At least this commercial for Men For Women Now, sent in by Gwen H., which turned out not to be a men’s auxilliary to the National Organization for Women. It turns out it isn’t really about women’s rights or anything, it’s just about boobs:
I suppose this is exactly where pink ribbon feminism has been headed: men and women, finally together, in celebration of women’s objectification.
