At first glance it seems an unlikely sight. Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, a feminist polemic describing how women are hurt by the perpetual unfulfillable quest for physical perfection, is smiling winsomely in an ad for . . . panty hose. You know, those nylon and spandex torture devices that make a 90-degree day seem like a 100-degree one, that push in the gut and mask unsightly veins. Liberated women who have conservative jobs can’t wait to rush home and tear them off. Wolf has been named the “No Nonsense American Woman” for the month of July, chosen, the ad copy explains, because she “challenges us to embrace a more open-minded feminism–one that respects a woman’s heart and individuality while it promotes her power!”
Although most Americans now associate feminists with the excesses of Andrea Dworkin, a vague rhetoric of female empowerment has infiltrated even the most seemingly apolitical places in our popular culture–daytime talk shows, romance novels, self-help books for women. It’s a rhetoric that owes as much to Helen Gurley Brown as Robin Morgan, as much to Horatio Alger as Susan B. Anthony. Advertisers, quick to sense profit in the appropriation of anything with a potential big market, have increasingly directed their attention to a new generation of revved-up power females. Nike encourages women to “just do it”; a recent ad for Diet Coke portrays an office of young women ogling a shirtless construction worker, making him the focus of a postfeminist female gaze as objectifying as the legendary male gaze.
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In celebrating individual advancement, Wolf and Mosbacher are reacting against the fuzzy notion that there’s a natural and innate connection among all women. Their impulse is good: the utopian vision of women as a global class with fundamental commonalities is simplistic, predicated on the false assumption that all women are united by the experience of sexist subjugation.
A churlish critic might suggest that the effects of the genderquake have been more symbolic than real. (You may recall that Thomas made it to the Supreme Court.) But advertisers, who know the power of symbolism, are far ahead of feminist theorists on this point. “The great leaders are those who know how to . . . use symbols that resonate unconsciously as well as literally,” Wolf explains. “In this view, a DKNY ad that shows the swearing in of a woman president can have as much power to advance women’s historical progress on the psychic level as can the passage of the ERA on the political level.” Just as advertisers have learned from Anita Hill, feminists need to learn a lesson or two from them. “Feminism lacks positive imagery,” Wolf complains, “even something as basic as a widely understood, positive logo.”
Even the mystical Williamson offers some practical man-catching advice: women need to get their “spiritual chops down” so they can attract the right kind of man. In a chapter entitled “Embracing the Goddess,” she offers what is essentially a postfeminist new-age dating guide: “Daughters of God don’t brake for jerks.” Once a woman transforms herself from a mere “princess” into a “goddess,” Williamson writes, she’s ready to fall in love with a masculine man; and this process, she informs us, presumably with a straight face, will change the world. For all her talk of empowerment and for all her theological flights of fancy, Williamson’s message is an old one: A “woman’s worth” is inseparable from her relationship with her Significant Other. That’s not a message of liberation; that’s what Betty Friedan rightly denounced 30 years ago as the feminine mystique.
But why let mere ideology spoil this new message of success? There’s no need to worry about sexual harassment, abortion waiting periods, and inequitable hiring practices. Just freshen your lipstick, smooth the wrinkles on your chic power suit, pick up a stylish bra holster for your pink handgun, and you’re on your way to new horizons. Just do it.
