On Rape, Consent, and Women’s Sexual Liberation

Last week I attended a panel on sexual assault sponsored by Louisiana Tech’s chapter of AAUW. In light of recent discussions on feminism and women’s liberation in my History 467 class, I found myself wondering what rape statistics might look like before and after the sexual revolution or each wave of feminism.

I expected to find an increase in sexual assault during/after women’s liberation and the sexual revolution. I am struggling to find these statistics. I should have expected this. So few rapes are reported now we can only get a vague idea of estimates. I found no records from the early 20th century. The charts and statistics I found only dated as far back as the mid-1960s, which was not very helpful since I needed information before and after the 60s in particular. (If you happen to find any such information, please let me know!)

So I considered another problem. Consent was an issue discussed. The people speaking on the panel were imperative about being extremely clear in agreeing or refusing to have sex with someone.  “Yes means yes” should not be an unfamiliar phrase on college campuses. The “Yes Means Yes” campaign has been promoting awareness of sexual assault and consent issues and advocating for legislature to be written to define sexual consent. The campaign has been growing and last year California was the first state to enact a “yes means yes” law.

But what are we really being taught about consent? Media of all types seem to be counteracting the message of “Yes Means Yes.” The one most obvious cases to me is in the first trailer to the film Pitch Perfect 2. In this trailer our favorite comic character, Fat Amy, verbally refuses to have sex with Bumper but winks at him after saying “no.” Her wink confuses Bumper and he is not sure if she really means no since her wink would seem to imply “yes.” This scene is at the 2:10 mark.

Klan Ideology in the Conservative Party

MacLean’s descriptions of Klan ideology could easily be read as descriptions of modern conservative ideology

Though Nancy MacLean does not suggest the potential rise of a fourth Ku Klux Klan in her book Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, the “right conditions” or symptoms of social change that she describes as bringing about the rise of the second Klan are also found with some variations in the twenty-first century indicating the potentiality of a fourth Klan. MacLean provides extensive explanation for the resurgence and prevalence of the Klan in the early twentieth-century, which are also applicable to twenty-first century society. According to MacLean, the Klan’s return in the 1920s was the result of a rapidly emerging new social order and its prevalence the result of masses of white, middle-class Protestants fearing changes in society. The “right conditions” for the second Klan’s emergence are a combination of economic trouble or changes, “the rise of divorce, feminism, black radicalism, white racial liberalism, and the postwar strike wave,” most of which are similar to the current conditions (MacLean 33).

MacLean explains early in the book that communism was one of the greatest fears after World War I among Americans who would later join to become the second Ku Klux Klan. Likely a lingering sentiment of the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, politically conservative Americans in the twenty-first century still fear communism and socialism, which can be seen in their propaganda claiming Obamacare is socialized medicine. Conservatives are more irrational and radical than their political counterparts in their fear-based actions and beliefs during wartime or terrorist events. Just as the 1920s Klan “sought to deny political rights to those whom they perceived as threats to [American capitalist power],” conservatives, who are most often Christian, seek to prevent Islam from becoming a well-established religion in the United States because they perceive Muslims as a threat after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The second Klan and twenty-first century conservatives both believe that they have a “right [or] obligation to patrol the moral standards” of society (MacLean 112). The Klan feared the growing resources for African-Americans as well as the lawlessness of their children and children not their own. Conservatives’ protests against equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is the twenty-first century example of the belief in their right to control the morality of society. According to MacLean, the Klan believed that a “hierarchical family was the basis and guarantor of ordered society” and anyone opposed to the traditional family is an enemy of Klan society (MacLean 118). Conservative protest against LGBT equality is the modern equivalent of the Klan attempting to control societal morality. Conservative reactions to LGBT activism often dehumanize members of the LGBT community, a tactic used by the Klan to “loosen inhibitions against aggression” (MacLean 117).

Propaganda from a Conservative webpage on 24 April 2015 shows conservatives aversion to immigrants

MacLean’s vivid and exhaustive descriptions of Klan ideology and contradictions are reminiscent of modern right-wing ideology and its contradictions. Xenophobia is still a common characteristic of politically conservative people, though primarily now a fear of homosexuals, immigrant Hispanics, and Muslims rather than Jews and African Americans like the second Klan. Ironically, conservatives have accused Islam as being “as racist as the Ku Klux Klan” and thus “incompatible with American values” while themselves dehumanizing gays and determining Hispanics to be unworthy of American citizenship.

The way MacLean phrases her descriptions of Klan ideology could easily be read as descriptions of modern conservative ideology. The similarities are so obvious that it seems MacLean’s purpose for writing the book is associating modern conservative ideology with the Klan. MacLean is not alone in making the association between conservatives and the Klan. The New Haven Register has likened Fox News Channel, the typical choice news channel among conservatives and republicans, to the Klan. Other reporters have called out Louisiana politicians and the general Republican population for adopting the Klannish attitudes and principles of previous State Representative David Duke. Because of the shameful stigma surrounding the Klan, such accusations are quickly refuted.

Though very small Klaverns continue to exist today, their attempts to adapt their ideologies to attract other right-wing extremist groups have not been very successful due to the stigma. For the same stigma-related reason, conservatives are more likely to join non-Klan affiliated right-wing extremists. The Klan’s stigma is currently the only thing hindering a fourth Klan from emerging as a powerful political or terrorist force in the twenty-first century.

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***Due to the nature of this assignment, significant information regarding the Klan/Conservative Party similarities and relations has been left out. The following links are for further reading if you are interested in other information I researched: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/ku-klux-klan,

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/19981-obama-tax-policy-shows-bias-against-stay-at-home-moms,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/anti-gay-groups/,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/hurricane-sandy-gays-same-sex-marriage-obama-romney_n_2038781.html,

https://thatdevilhistory.wordpress.com/tag/ku-klux-klan/

Generation Gap, Apathy, and Life in the 1970s

The biggest problem in understanding American experience in the 1970s is that there is no real overarching theme, according to some scholars. Anticlimactic is the best way to describe the decade. Irving Howe explains that memories of the Seventies “crumble in one’s hand, nothing keeps its shape,” which he claims ultimately proves, “the decade itself lacks a distinctive historical flavor.”[1] When analyzing film and literature from and about the 1970s, it appears small themes of the decade ultimately create an overarching theme, particularly the relationship between identity crises or lacking sense of purpose in average Americans and the widening generation gap feeding such crises.

The strenuous relationship between parents and grown children in John Updike’s novel Rabbit is Rich and Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate makes it appear the generation gap between parents and young adult or teenaged children is more prominent in the late 1960s-late 1970s than in previous decades. When The Graduate was released, film critics praised it for actively pointing out the generation gap in the late 1960s. Mike Nichols, director of the film, did not believe that the film is about the generation gap, however the unintentional theme points to the inescapability of the political and social upheaval of the 1970s.[2] It seems the gap was made more prominent by the political and social unrest, the same environment in which Nichols and Updike were writing.

The expansion of the generation gap came from middle-aged men of the Seventies struggling to grasp and understand the new ways of life of their children and America’s youth and vice versa. Teens and young adults in the 1970s struggled to understand their parents, whose values were formed in a more conservative America during the 1930s-50s. Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate and Nelson Angstrom in Rabbit is Rich are the teen and young adult representatives for the strenuous relationship and misunderstanding between parents and children in the 70s. The Graduate focuses more on the grown child’s situation and perspective with Benjamin struggling to quickly decide, at his parents’ wishes, what to do with his life. Rabbit is Rich focuses primarily on the average, middle class white man whose financial situation did not deteriorate in the oil and economic crises of the 1970s. Middle-aged angst was the common man’s problem, like Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, with issues such as dealing with a college dropout son, containing envy of a friend’s young wife, a dwindling sex drive, and realizing death is imminent.[3] Rabbit’s expression of his frustrations varies from angry to apathetic about these issues in his life. The particular issues causing their angst were caused by the extreme societal, political, and economic changes in American society occurring primarily in the 1960s. The Civil Rights, women’s, and gay movements in the 1960s seem to have produced both terror and impotence among average, middle class white men like Rabbit and perhaps even Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate that ultimately causes identity crisis and their apathy. The social movements that began in the 1960s challenged the social and political power of the middle class white man, which was the source of their collective identity.

“Beginning with the shot of Benjamin viewed through his boyhood aquarium, we have the feeling of someone cut off, suffocating.” -Sam Kashner, “Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of the Graduate”

The identity crisis resulting from the challenge to the average man’s power is really men suddenly lacking sense of purpose, which appears to be one thing both generations have in common despite the gap. Both Braddock and Rabbit are caught in an interrupted transition stage in their respective stories that leaves them lacking purpose. Braddock is transitioning, or failing to transition, from college to the working world where he has no real goals or intentions to make goals, something his parents do not understand. Perhaps Braddock can’t figure out his role in society and chooses to drown his uncertainty with sex and swimming. Rabbit is transitioning into a middle-aged empty nester when Nelson, his son, moves back into the Angstrom home. Being interrupted in this transition creates an atmosphere of frustration as he tries to figure out his new purpose in his household and his life. It seems it because Rabbit is secure financially during the economic and oil crises of the 1970s that he finds life to be bland. Because he does not have to worry about his financial future like most people in his community, Rabbit is bored and becomes frustrated with his purposeless position and middle age angst. His lack of purpose makes life bland for Rabbit, which then produces existential crisis. Rabbit’s ramblings about how the individual blades of grass will have served no purpose when they die is his reflection of his own life.

The changes in women’s roles in the household and in society also particularly challenge Braddock and Rabbit. The sexual relationship between Braddock and Mrs. Robinson is essentially one of predator and prey with Mrs. Robinson being the new sexual predator, a result from the women’s and sexual movements in the 1960s caused by and expanding the generation gap. With women changing roles in the household and society, men’s power was even more threatened. Braddock’s difficulty in deciding his future could be caused by the sexual power of Mrs. Robinson threatening his masculine power. Melanie, Nelson’s platonic friend in Rabbit is Rich, mystifies Rabbit because she is a new type of American girl, with which Rabbit is unfamiliar. Women are a source of impotence and obsession for Rabbit. It seems his wife’s newfound power is a turn-off for Rabbit and thus causes his impotence. Rabbit still obsesses over women but is more concerned with mystery. Melanie’s general mystique and the girl he believes to be his illegitimate daughter become Rabbit’s obsessions likely as a result of his impotence and otherwise bland life.

Both The Graduate and Rabbit is Rich initially seem dry and purposeless, however their apparent lack of purpose reflects and represents the sentiments of Braddock, Rabbit, and all average, middle-class men and women in the 1970s. The authors of these literature pieces have not only written their characters to have the lackadaisical spirit of the 1970s but also have styled their writing with that same seemingly pointless spirit as if to force readers and viewers to experience the typical aimlessness of the decade. The Graduate, being released at the beginning of the complex decade, shows viewers the common middle-class sentiment in 1967-1979 as it was happening. Because it was written after the time period discussed, Rabbit is Rich more accurately describes an average man’s typical memory of the 1970s. Rabbit could be viewed as Updike’s incarnation of himself as a fictional character considering the framework of Rabbit’s life is centered around the same geographical location as Updike’s own home and that Updike’s fame flourished from his emphasis on the passions and concerns of average Americans. Most importantly, Updike continued to view those years as bleak and senseless when writing the novel though it was two years distanced from the difficulties of the decade.

Modern viewers can still recognize the significance of the generation gap and lacking sense of purpose in the 1970s. Rabbit’s character in particular, with his frustrations about his son and his own purpose in life, is reminiscent of Red Foreman from That 70’s Show. Though it is a sitcom television series and should not be readily perceived as truth, That 70’s Show does provide the 1998-2006 general society’s perception of life in the 1970s. Remarkably, That 70’s Show, The Graduate, and Rabbit is Rich do not differ greatly in their interpretations of life in the 1970s despite their extremely varied publication dates. Their continuity suggests that the decade was indeed characterized by an apathetic view toward life caused by the changing roles of women and the changing parent-child relationship deepening the generation gap.

[1] George Packer, “The Decade Nobody Knows,” The New York Times, (10 June 2001): https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/06/10/reviews/010610.10packert.html.

[2] Sam Kashner, “Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of The Graduate,” Vanity Fair News, (March 2008): http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/03/graduate200803.

[3] Sally Robinson, “Unyoung, Unpoor, Unblack: John Updike and the Construction of Middle America Masculinity,” Modern Fiction Studies vol. 44 no. 2 (1998): 351.

A Century Long “Sexual Revolution”

Beth Bailey’s article “Sexual Revolution(s)” featured in A History of Our Time makes an intriguing argument that the sexual revolution of the 1960s was not a revolution at all but rather an evolution of sexual understanding and practice over many decades. Bailey mentions that the sexualization of American culture “pick[ed] up speed in the 1920s, the 1940s, and the 1960s” as if sexualizing American culture had been a slow process beginning much earlier than the 1960s, particularly with using sex in the marketplace. “Sex sells” is still a phrase and practice used by marketing professionals today. It worked throughout the 20^th century just as it continues to work in the 21^st. According to Bailey, selling sex through marketing gradually wore down the traditional understanding of sex (so slowly that red flags were not raised among most Americans until the 1960s).

Proof of sexual evolution: It is 2015…and society is still concerned about the sexual practices of the youth, particularly the “virtue” of young women

Bailey even claims it was the grandparents and parents of the sixties generation that “chipped away the system of sexual controls” or the socially acceptable sexual practices of unmarried youth. The so-called “sexual revolution” in the sixties could not be a revolution then if the previous generations were participating in the same sexual activities. The public rejection of fundamental or traditional sexual morality is the true controversial issue of the sexual evolution occurring in the 1960s.

Proof of sexual evolution over revolution: It is 2015, nearly a century from the first period of rapid sexualization of America according to Bailey, and society is still concerned about the sexual practices of the youth, particularly the “virtue” of young women. “Easy” or “loose” women are still judged as sluts, whores, and any other of the many terms for such women. In 2015 it isn’t that you should remain a virgin until marriage, unless you are in certain religious circles, but more that you shouldn’t have sex with every single person you are attracted to. There’s a lot of emphasis on your “number” lately. The 2011 film What’s Your Number? is not about getting someone’s phone number but about the number of sexual partners you have had. BuzzFeed also did a recent study of sorts (I mean it’s not like BuzzFeed is a reputable source of academic research) about this too. They asked several couples to share their “numbers” with their now-monogamous respective partners. A double standard can be seen with both of these films. Both films address and challenge the popular idea that it is more acceptable for men to have had 20+ sexual partners while a woman whose number is even close to 20 is considered to have loose morals (see What’s Your Number?).

It seems the current sexual movement has a goal of destroying of the whorish stigma of women with high “numbers.” Both videos imply this is the goal of the ongoing sexual movement and proves the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s is truly sexual evolution in society. BuzzFeed’s couples remark that they “don’t care about the number.” The insignificance of number is essentially the lesson learned in BuzzFeed’s study and in What’s Your Number? Watch BuzzFeed’s video for yourself.

The trailer for What’s Your Number?: 

Flames of Feminism in the Triangle Fire

The Triangle fire was the dramatic event the feminist and labor movements needed to bring about reform

Throughout his book Triangle: The Fire that Changed America, David Von Drehle uses personal stories from notable female activists as well as victims and survivors of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City to explain that multiple events worked collectively to bring about women’s suffrage and workers’ safety reform. As suggested by Von Drehle, the fire, workers’ strikes preceding it, and the involvement of young progressive politicians and women activists in the investigation and ensuing trial were together the catalyst for the “rethinking of the place of women in society” and “a new model for worker safety in American mills and workshops” (Von Drehle 267). Workers’ strikes and women’s protests gained participants quickly for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century labor and feminist movements respectively, however both movements were slow to be effective in bringing about social and political reform. The Triangle fire was the dramatic event the feminist and labor movements needed to bring about reform. Von Drehle uses Alva Belmont, an activist in one of his strike stories, to question the effectiveness of both social movements.

Suffrage propaganda / Alva Belmont reported in newspaper

If women stressed the goals of the feminist movement more than those of the labor movement both movements could have gained success more quickly

After giving up her house to pay the bail of several young women strikers who were arrested for their strike activities, Alva Belmont once claimed to a reporter, “There will be a different order of things when we have women judges on the bench. Let me assure you, too, that the time is not far away when we will have women judges” (Von Drehle 77) Perhaps if women stressed the goals of the feminist movement more than those of the labor movement both movements could have gained success more quickly. The feminist movement’s primary goal being women’s political representation through suffrage was more important to middle-class women than the working-class women who were dually concerned with labor rights. Still, as Von Drehle makes clear with his extensive use of personal accounts from women, women’s involvement in the labor movement was essential for its success since women made up a significant portion of the workforce in early twentieth century New York City. The presence of women’s labor unions, such as the WTUL and ILGWU, and women activists, such as Alva Belmont, in protests and strikes “brought gender visually into the communal response.” Both movements were ultimately successful because the two social movements had similar goals (ultimately the protection of women and all citizens whether it be political protection through representation in voting or physical protection in workplace safety). Women involved in the labor movement would acknowledge women’s particular vulnerability but specifically “stressed the need to protect all workers from the potentially hazardous environment of the shops.”
Though the initial aftermath of the Triangle fire focused more on labor issues rather than gender issues, women were still the central focus as they made up the majority of witnesses in the trial of factory owners Blanck and Harris. Women gained equally as much political recognition as labor activists as women’s labor and feminist organizations began flourishing and growing in numbers in the aftermath of the fire and trial.

The Triangle Factory fire became a significant event in women’s history as women were the primary actors in the events surrounding the fire. Modern women have recognized the fire’s significance in women’s history and continue to be the primary sponsors of public remembrance of the event. Recent poetry published concerning the Triangle fire recognizes the importance the fire had on women’s history. The modern poets writing about the fire have very little in common with the ethnic women garment workers of New York who experienced the historic fire except that they are working women. Perhaps it is women’s experiences from second-wave feminism in the 1960s-80s and the current third-wave feminism that make them sympathetic toward the women affected by the Triangle fire and its preceding strikes. The collective memory of injustice and oppression of women workers surrounding the events of the Triangle fire is a testament to the strength of feminist identity.

Education as Entertainment

“That reminds me of a song!” is a frequently used phrase in my family. Sometimes the phrase becomes “that reminds me of a movie.” We enjoy relating everyday things and life events to pop culture. Since everyday life for me is school, school, and more school, I will often think of such little things as they relate to my studies.

For example: The early chapters of Von Drehle’s Triangle were significantly focused on feminism as it affected the labor movement. As middle-class women (primarily focused on women’s suffrage) became involved in the labor movement in Triangle, I kept thinking of Disney’s Mary Poppins with Mrs. Banks chanting “Votes for women!” and her song “Sister Suffragette”. I did go to YouTube and listen to the song.

However, another suffrage video that automatically played after it was far more amusing to me as it combines a little education and a little pop culture (even though it wasn’t a “that reminds me of a song!” moment). Maybe the video is really an example of entertainment prompting education and learning (I suggest this because I actually want to learn more about women’s suffrage after watching the video). But I think it shows that education can be entertaining (which may have been a tiny debate in my early 20th century America class this week). Anyway, I hope you find it equally as brilliant and hilarious as I find it.

Entertainment can be educational. Education can be entertaining.

Two Classes, One Subject / Early Thoughts

We are nearing the end of the first full week of the quarter. I’m currently reading David Von Drehle’s Triangle: The Fire that Changed America for History 465 (Early 20th century America). Apart from the prologue, there’s been no real mention of the infamous fire at the Triangle Waist Company in 1911 New York City until I had finished chapter four. It seems much more focused on the labor movement, but the first thing I really noticed in the book was the significant amount of feminist activities in the NYC at the time. So far, it appears to me that first-wave feminism fanned the flames of the labor movement in the early 20th century. I suppose it’s not necessarily a surprising fact, but I did find it interesting in comparison to the material read in History 467 (Vietnam, Watergate, and after…or just 1960s-80s). For Hist 467 I read two reviews/articles on Daniel Rodgers’ Age of Fracture and found feminism addressed in conjunction with another social movement, this time second-wave feminism and the Civil Rights movement. The book is not all about feminism. From my interpretation, Age of Fracture focuses on the current splintered nature of society and the blurriness of power, individuality, etc. that followed as a result of significant changes in politics and economics affecting society and vice versa from the 1960s or 70s to present day. But I considered the real focus of the book and attempted to apply some of the ideas.

The macroeconomics found earlier in the 20th century, being focused more on the welfare of the population, seem to have been a catalyst for the initial ideas spurning first-wave feminism (of which my basic interpretation is that women were not legally represented well enough to meet their needs as a significant portion of the population). The focal shift from macro to micro, or all of society to the individual (in both economics and politics) makes the difference between first-wave and second-wave feminism. Second-wave feminism addressed more personal issues concerning social equality, such as sexuality, reproductive rights, and treatment at the workplace. Like first-wave feminism encouraging the labor movement, second-wave feminism also appears to have encouraged or emboldened the Civil Rights movement as the two movements often had similar equality goals whether it be gender or racially based.

It may just be a coincidence that my assigned readings in both classes involved the feminism and I suspect it is unlikely to be a true theme in either class. However, with the correlation between the feminist movements and other major social movements, feminism easily appears to be a defining feature of the 20th century. But my question from these early readings: What makes feminism so powerful?