Cougar Feminism vs Grizzly Feminism — part one

The differences are very clear.  What feminists wanted in my generation of women was empowerment for women.  That was in America, but the Feminist movement during the seventies spread all around the world.  You could call it a movement like Cougars, in a sense.

In the 1970’s women in the feminist movement ranged from 10 to 20 years older than the young teenagers we were.  They had issues with the way males objectified women, or treated women.  For the most part, feminists have thought of other women as “sisters” — there were no so-called “feminist” males at that time — just as there were no “genderqueer” people.

Feminism appears to have evolved, so, the only part I can speak for is what happened in my generation of white heterosexual females.

My mother was the generation you see in Mad Men.  She was reading Germaine Greer and she had gone through two divorces.  She was an “executive” in the fashion business.  She had always worked, and she loved to.  She was not a stay at home woman at all.  In fact, she rarely cooked anything.  We had live in help.  My life is the polar opposite of some little small town type, given geography.

What my mother wanted for me, was freedom.  A freedom that she did not have.

Just like in Mad Men, my mother had many relationships with men.  In the 1970’s.

I saw how men acted, with her.  Her friends were all the same, and the 1970’s ushered in an era where women were free in ways that culture had not allowed them that freedom before.  My mother told me about how my grandmother had wanted an arranged marriage for her.  In Pasadena.  To a lawyer from a “good family.”

In our social class, women were expected to do that.  Marry well.

But my mother ran away.  She went to San Francisco in the late 1950’s to work in the fashion industry.  The movie “Mona Lisa Smile” really explained my mother’s era to me.  In a sense she would have been like the character Julia Roberts played?  Except she wasn’t a teacher.  Here is a still from that movie.

Often my mother would tell me about how much her own mother sacrificed of her life, and how she admired her grandmother who was a suffragette.  My mother did not want her mother’s life at all.

As I was growing up, marriage was never my first concern.  Like other feminists, men came second.  Truly.  I had my own aspirations.

I fell in love, but, I have been in love several times in my life.  I was in love twice before I met my husband.  Really in love.  What happened to me in those first two relationships is what I will be writing about in terms of feminism.

My generation of feminist women has been controlled by the patriarchy.  But?  We made many strides by going to work and to school.  All of the things my mother said about my great grandmother made a huge impression on me as a young girl.  My best friend (at age thirteen) had a very different “homemaker” style mother.   Jobs for women then were either in fashion, where they could make huge strides, or being secretaries of some sort.  A woman could also be a nurse, stewardess, or a teacher.  My mother was a boss.

She wanted me to go into fashion, so that I could become a “buyer.”  Buyers got to travel the world at that time.  That career seemed good to me as a young girl, it really did.  My first job was in a department store.  Robinson’s, during Christmas — in the toy department.  My mother got me that job.  She ran the entire top floor women’s department at that time.  Here is a blogger on fashion at that time.

Here is a cover from Seventeen magazine.  My mother was Vogue, and I was Seventeen.  These magazines were our stylistic bibles.  Danskins.  Just looking at them makes me smile.  I wore them every day.

The movie “Jeremy” was something that my generation of feminists saw.  The actress was very popular and she represents what my generation was like.  In this scene you can see the feminist attitude toward sexuality.

I think I very much related to her character because I was a modern dancer as well, at that time.

We also saw this film, at that time:

My mother had many gay male friends, and I went to high school with gay males, as well.  There wasn’t any problem with that, either.  I don’t think women were “out” though, in the 70’s.  Not as much as males were?

My generation is very tolerant of people’s sexuality.

As a heterosexual feminist writer, the books I am writing for teenage girls were not available in my generation.

Just like my mother, and her grandmother, most feminist thought is about empowering girls and women.  By writing lived experience I can address the things girls in my generation went through, with males.

My mother always used the expression, “barefoot, pregnant and under the table.”

She was referring to the non-feminist stance of the Republican grizzly feminist attitude.

What my mother meant by that comment is that usually, the patriarchy likes its women that way.

A COUGAR FEMINIST is the opposite.  We are for empowerment of the next generation of girls who are heterosexual.  As women, their lives will be no different than ours were.  A feminist is concerned with her little sisters, that is what it means to me.  Patriarchy is still a dictator, and this is obvious in America at this time.  I can only write you real experiences as lived, by women, under patriarchy.

Yesterday, I watched a video over at Digby’s place in the web.  Here you go.  What is wrong with this picture?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

The kinds of issues raised in that ad are feminist issues.  You are watching patriarchy in that ad.

Any true feminist will be revolted by stances like this.  If you are a feminist you need to scrutinize political candidates for their positions.  That is very imperative right now.  Know who you are voting for.  Any politican male or female who says that rape and incest are okay?

Isn’t okay.

The grizzly women take that position.

The cougar women do not.

Here is an article you might want to read on feminism.