This may be the best analysis of "fun feminism" I have yet read. This is REALLY good!
Enlightened sexism sells the line that it is precisely through women’s calculated deployment of their faces, bodies, attire, and sexuality that they gain and enjoy true power— power that is fun, that men will not resent, and indeed will embrace. True power here has nothing to do with economic independence or professional achievement: it has to do with getting men to lust after you and other women to envy you. Enlightened sexism is especially targeted to girls and young women and emphasizes that now that they “have it all,” they should focus the bulk of their time and energy on being hot, pleasing men, competing with other women, and shopping.
Enlightened sexism is a manufacturing process that is constantly produced by the media. Its components—anxiety about female achievement; renewed and amplified objectification of young women’s bodies and faces; dual exploitation and punishment of female sexuality; dividing of women against each other by age, race and class; and rampant branding and consumerism—began to swirl around in the early 1990s, consolidating as the dark star it has become in the early 21st century....
This essay was adapted from Susan J. Douglas’ new book, Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done (Times Books, March).
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On the other hand, there's no question (in my mind, anyway) that many of the strictures of western religion and culture have come about because of male fear of female sexuality. In principle, I don't have a problem with women getting back some of their own, but it's an incredibly complex psychological and psychosexual issue.
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