Just your average Samantha Jones

When I first began reading this article I felt a wave of frustration for those that blame the feminist movement for women’s issues nowadays. The article discusses how women were enslaved by their own liberation. I felt that this photo demonstrated one of the key concepts discussed in the beginning of this article, for it is saying that one cannot have the best of both worlds without facing some emotional instability. The insecurities women face are cause by problems dealing with men, fertility, and their biological clock. Although these articles are all extremely prevalent in modern society, the article continues to discuss how this is not an affect of feminism, but instead a hallucination of issues created by the media.

An example that struck me when reading this article is Liz Lemon from 30 Rock. A highly successful single woman living in New York faces issues when it comes to getting married and having children. Although her position of power is one to be respected, she puts her career over her social life, therefore ‘lowering her emotional state’. Likewise, on TV shows like Sex and the City, the issues women face when juggling careers with their love life, and how they are related. Samantha Jones, one of the main characters, is an extremely powerful publicist, one who is unaffected by what men think, or how fast her biological clock is ticking. Even though she may be the ideal portrayal of a feminist, her achievements have demonstrated how a woman can still be powerful without facing all the other issues discussed in this article.

The essay continues to discuss how it is in fact not the feminist wave that has caused these emotional issues with women, but in fact the failure of being able to achieve complete inequality. Faludi describes the issues dealing with job discrimination, sexual harassment in the workplace, and violence dealing with women on the streets. These issues are much more prevalent when discussing the inequality of women as opposed to the modern woman feeling depressed because of marital issues etc.

In my opinion, I think that people have put the blame on this feminist movement for their issues because they need someone to blame. Although women have gained so much power, we are the type of creatures that always have to find something wrong- it’s the only way we can survive. Men being the far less emotional species don’t understand a woman’s need to create problems for herself, for it is in fact seems necessary to create these problems to maintain the balance of the universe. This act of ‘stopping women before they reach the finish line’ is definitely based on societal discriminations, but may also be due to man’s power hungry nature, or women’s insecurities and influence under the media.


I also felt that this essay provided several connections to The Handmaid's Tale, of which this photo also illustrates. Jorina and I have shared discussions and similar thoughts on the relation of 'Blame it on Feminism' to this novel, and I feel her blog (as well as the preceding discussion) helped formulate my own ideas. Her blog (http://jorina-hlenglish.blogspot.com/2010/11/i-dont-need-man.html#comments) works off of the idea that women are seen as vessels in The Handmaid's Tale. This relates to the concept of a woman's constant worry over her biological clock, except for the fact that it is exaggerated to matters of survival. Jorina brought up an interesting idea, that women mask their more prevalent issues with petty problems. This idea was also presented in Julie's IOP presentation where she discusses how men are consistent in their ability to control women, due to the fact that women are still in constant battle with each other over the attention of men. Maybe if women chose to forget these petty problems, and instead chose to go against the men and the media, we may actually win this feminist war.