At no point since its meteoric rise in the latter 1960s has radical feminism been so overlooked by so many in our nation. The prominence of the ideology of the "new" American woman has been on a downward spiral for well over a decade, and moderate pollsters and even liberal political pundits have charted the descent of the movement for some time now. The signs of the Fall of Feminism are everywhere: abortion rates continue to fall in the U.S. and around the world; pro-life Americans now outnumber pro-choicers; and the education and revenue gap between women and men is teetering on doing a complete U-turn as young women continue to build onto their dominance of the university classroom. There is most certainly a direct correlation between life being good for young women and fetuses on the one hand, and increasingly marginalized feminists on the other. Or maybe feminism was such a success in America that a peaceful retirement is simply owed to all those bra burners? You be the judge.All that to say that it initially shocked me when I saw Gloria Steinem on television the other day. Thoughts that initially went through my head included: "Seriously? Was Walter Mondale not available?" and "Didn't she die a while ago?" But she was actually talking about the lasting social effects of The Pill. Of course, all of us are familiar with The Pill. On Sunday feminists everywhere will unite in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the FDA's acceptance of the landmark prophylactic. Now, perhaps there is some irony that this will occur on Mother's Day, but maybe I'm reading too much into the whole thing. Anywho, this is a serious milestone with less-than-serious fanfare, and it shows us just how far removed we are from the moral questions which dominated the national conscience in the latter half of the 20th century.
Radical feminism, Gloria Steinem, and family planning medical innovations are just so old hat. Young adults today have moved to more timely topics: things like Justin Bieber's geographical ineptitude and whether or not Greece will lead the world for the first time in millennia (this time for all the wrong reasons). While young women today might certainly--though momentarily--appreciate the milestone, the actual ethical questions which should still dominate the national conscience when discussing this thing is about as relevant to my generation as the Bay of Pigs.
One thing is peculiarly certain: those who should be celebrating this milestone the most make for some strange bedfellows (I beg your pardon!). This group includes most Americans, but specifically responsible young adults who aren't financially ready for children, upwardly-mobile women who also happen to enjoy the club scene, and, we can't forget this group, dead-beat men who probably couldn't care for a child even if they gave every ounce of their physical and intellectual strength to the job. Come to think of it, perhaps this last group has the most to celebrate on Sunday.
Against this group of celebrants, of course, stands the Roman Catholic Church. Like Elijah on Mt. Carmel, the Catholics are outnumbered and ridiculed. But the church's moral voices provide us with a distant, lonely cry in the wilderness which should force us as a nation to at least occasionally consider our ethical boundaries. While I am personally inclined to distinguish between all that is potentially right about preventative contraceptives and all that is definitely wrong about post-conception drugs and procedures, the honest ethical questions posed by these fellow believers has challenged my thinking and pushed me quite a bit. While we my disagree, I'm sympathetic towards Elijah on this one; I'm at least going to hear him out. Too bad most of my generation won't.
