{"id":5151,"date":"2012-04-05T06:42:21","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T11:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=5151"},"modified":"2012-04-05T06:42:21","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T11:42:21","slug":"mama-wpen-long-way-baby-or-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2012\/04\/05\/mama-wpen-long-way-baby-or-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"MAMA W\/PEN: Long Way Baby, or Maybe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"\"I’m SO late to the table on this one (as usual these days) but hey, I’m still a mama with a pen.\u00a0 And I couldn’t refrain from weighing in.<\/p>\n

Every few years, the question\u2014\u201cwho\u2019s the next Gloria Steinem?\u201d\u2014seems to recycle itself in the mainstream media.\u00a0 But it\u2019s media, and not the women’s movement, that abhors a vacuum.<\/p>\n

In “Gloria Steinem, a Woman Like No Other” <\/a>(New York Times, March 18), Sarah Hepola is at it again.\u00a0 The piece, while thoughtful in many regards, has a logic problem. Feminism is a living, breathing movement, always in evolution.\u00a0 To name a sole leader now is like trying to push a tree back into a seed.\u00a0 I’m pretty sure Gloria–a reluctant spokesperson herself, famously anointed by a media hungry for stars–would agree.<\/p>\n

Hepola is right to note a lack of a singular voice, or face, today.\u00a0 But there has never been unity in the women’s movement, and look what feminists have accomplished.\u00a0 To be sure,\u00a0 “two feminists, three opinions” might not be the most effective formula for a movement intended, among other things, to effect legislative change.\u00a0 Still, feminism has since become, for many, as much culture as cause.\u00a0 That signifies progress, you could say.<\/p>\n

Yet progress, more generally, seems to be what’s really at issue.\u00a0 Perhaps more compelling than the question of the movement’s public face is one more fundamental: Have we come a long way, baby, or just maybe?\u00a0 It\u2019s a question I find myself pondering daily.<\/p>\n

As the Times article rightly points out, the Komen kerfuffle <\/a>and Limbaugh\u2019s most recent slur <\/a>are simply the latest in a steady stream of events demonstrating the need for continued vigilance and response on the part of those who care about women\u2019s health and well being, not to mention advancement.\u00a0 For better or worse, the questions our feminist foremothers asked are ones younger women are asking still.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, we need more focus on the unfinished work of feminism–for there is so much left undone–and less on the question of the movement’s brightest star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m SO late to the table on this one (as usual these days) but hey, I’m still a mama with a pen.\u00a0 And I couldn’t refrain from weighing in. Every few years, the question\u2014\u201cwho\u2019s the next Gloria Steinem?\u201d\u2014seems to recycle itself in the mainstream media.\u00a0 But it\u2019s media, and not the women’s movement, that abhors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21107],"tags":[245,21402,21769],"class_list":["post-5151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mama-w-pen","tag-feminism","tag-gloria-steinem","tag-sarah-hepola"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}