Despite what the right wing says, these fictional females dont represent the castrating succubae unleashed by feminism. Rather, they represent the rage and betrayal born from a very bad deal that post-feminists struck with Maxim-like men.
In the mid 90s, it suddenly became very fashionable for feminists to loudly proclaim their love of sex. The term "do-me feminism" was coined by Esquire, Maxims predecessor, to describe figures like Katie Roiphe, Susie Bright, and other strong, aggressive chicks who went out of their way to knock down the straw woman of old-school feminist prudery. An explosion of randy female sex columnists followed, people like Details Anka Radakovich and the New York Presss Amy Sohn. They made it clear that they wanted to come, not commit.
Thus one of the key archetypes of the 90s was born the power slut in designer heels: savvy, horny as hell, and on the prowl. "Where does it say that women cant act like men?" asked Foxs iconic Ally McBeal. Candace Bushnell, whose "Sex and the City" column was the basis of the hit show, put it this way: "If youre a successful single woman in this city, you have two choices: you can beat your head against the wall trying to find a relationship, or you can say screw it and just go out and have sex like a man."
But shouldnt the point of a feminist sexual revolution have been to make it okay to make it fabulous to have sex like women, whatever that might mean? What Bushnell was talking about wasnt freedom, it was capitulation agreeing to mens terms in order to preempt disappointment. Women werent challenging the old idea of seduction as a contest between predator and prey; they were just demanding to play the other role.
Thus, in many stories, sex became a weird dance between two hostile parties warily circling each other like characters in a millennial Dangerous Liaisons. Consider this scene from Jennifer Egans brilliant new novel Look at Me (Doubleday, 2001), in which the narrator, Charlotte, brings a casual pick-up home. "I was not like most women," she assures us. "For me, the sexual act had nothing to do with love, or rarely.... I didnt worry much about my own performance; as I saw it, any man who succeeded at picking me up with so little effort, with no strings attached and without having to pay for it, should consider himself to be having an extremely good day." So far, shes the epitome of libidinous cool, but the sensualist faade falls apart in the next few paragraphs. "Paul seemed pretty starved himself, and the whole thing was over quickly," Egan writes. "And it was only as he rose from the bed, his body illuminated by the colored lights of the city, that I caught the glint of calculation behind his eyes, a cold, blank set to his face. His shadow self, and not a nice one."
Theres no sense of triumph at the end of this scene (as there might have been if it had been written from Pauls perspective), just a sour sort of emptiness and percolating hate. Look at Me also contains a scene that, if the gender roles were reversed, would be a pretty unambiguous case of rape, and another that recalls Cameron Diazs suicidal/homicidal dash in Vanilla Sky.
In Look at Me, Charlottes emotionless sexual voracity quickly exposes itself as a defense mechanism. A similar neediness often lurks beneath post-feminist do-me bravado. Women declare their desire for boy toys, but they seem to long for old-fashioned chivalry. In her 1997 Esquire article "The Independent Woman (and Other Lies)," Katie Roiphe admits to pining for a man who would take care of her. In Amy Sohns first novel Run Catch Kiss (Simon & Schuster, 1999), which seems like a fictionalized memoir, the sex-columnist narrator invents her skanky exploits while secretly hoping to land a mensch. In Kate & Leopold, this seasons only romantic comedy, Manhattanite Meg Ryan is won over by the anachronistic courtesy of a time-traveling Victorian duke. In pop culture, women dream of gentlemen while insisting they dont want anything more than what the most callous womanizer offers.
The drama being played out in movies, videos, music, and books is rooted in this cognitive dissonance and the inchoate anger that results from it. Thus, on MTV, female singers declare their sexual libertinism and then turn around and beat men to a pulp for being unfaithful. Janet Jackson celebrates nasty boys in one song and punishes them in another. Pink is a self-actualized diva in songs like "Most Girls," singing, "I never cared too much for love/It was all a bunch of mush that I just did not want/Paid was the issue of the day/If a girlfriends got some game/Couldnt be more fly, gettin paid was everything." But songs like "You Make Me Sick" and "There You Go" are loud, enflamed tracks about avenging unfaithfulness. One song on her 2000 album Cant Take Me Home is aptly titled "Split Personality."
In The Business of Strangers, Julia Stiles plays a caricature post-feminist, replete with tattoos and a porn habit. She uses her sexual allure to dominate and humiliate the businessmen around her much to the initial delight of middle-aged corporate striver Stockard Channing. But in the end Stiless character is no heroine, nor is she righting any specific wrongs. Her anger is rooted in the ability of men in general to hurt women. "Like every man, he knows he has the potential to do what he shouldnt do," she says at one point. The particular man she chooses to torment is just a symbol of his sex.
As Susan Faludi points out in her book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (HarperPerennial, 1999), men who abuse women usually do so out of a sense of powerlessness rather than a feeling of striding dominance. The same can be said of women who lash out blindly at men. Characters like Buffy and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragons Jen Yu are empowering because they assume the superhero mantle for themselves. Thats a very different thing from adopting the prerogative of the abuser.
Its not that women dont have a lot to be livid about. The fact that the image of women attacking men doesnt have the same impact as men terrorizing women testifies to a continued power imbalance. But most of this Lorena Bobbittish behavior doesnt have much to do with achieving equal rights. Rather, its about frustration in a brutal sexual marketplace.
And its not good for anyone. After all, who seems like the stronger woman Pink on her kamikaze bike, steely Janet Jackson knocking a man on the floor in a parking garage, or the round, soulful, self-assured Angie Stone singing "Brotha," her ode to good black men? Stone projects an easy, glowing confidence, transcending the victim/victor mode to achieve a kind of understated sensual solidarity. Fury may be a potent weapon in ripping old structures apart, but to build anything new and satisfying, theres got to be love.
This piece was originally published on AlterNet.org
