29 August 2007

Feminism declared dead, again

Link in title to an article in the Times declaring feminism dead, again. This comes after comments by Fay Weldon that young women today aren't interested in feminism, and, strangely, from Germaine Greer's new book on Shakespeare's wife. Mr Linklater describes Germaine's portrait of Anne Hathaway as showing:

...a woman of such shining domestic virtue that she would not have been out of place in a novel by Louisa May Alcott, and whose devotion to her husband might well have qualified her as a 16th-century Stepford wife. Where, exactly, does that leave feminism?

Well, what exactly is the problem here? It's always been an important idea within feminism that one of the reasons men have historically been able to dominate is because they have the support and back-up of a wife who can take care of all the boring stuff and household affairs. But what I really don't understand is why our choice of a feminist role model boils down to a two horse race between Princess Diana and Anne Hathaway. Anyone want to explain that one to me?

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