Consider this quote from Jessica Silk of Safe Slope:
“There have been reports that the women attacked were all wearing skirts,” she said. “Unfortunately this might be a common link between the women that were attacked but the message shouldn’t be that you shouldn’t wear a skirt. The message should be that, ‘Here are ways that you can protect yourself.'”
This makes absolutely no sense, because it may protect women to refrain from wearing skirts! In fact, that seems like a reasonable assumption given the information available. If you lead with the message that women have every right to wear short skirts, you’re dodging the issue. Of course they have the right, but that doesn’t mean it’s a sensible choice. All of us have the right to make imprudent choices, but that doesn’t mean we should.
BLAST: What do you think of today’s feminist movement? Have the goals of feminism changed over the years?
MARCOTTE: It’s a shame that feminism is as necessary as it ever was. You’d think that we would have beat that sexism beast by now. All kidding aside, I do think feminist goals change in response to both our setbacks and victories. Right now, feminists are refighting the contraception war, which we thought we’d put to bed decades ago. On the positive side, we’ve made good ground against domestic violence and rape, and so we can concentrate more on fighting less invasive forms of violence against women, such as street harassment.
WALSH: I grew up as a beneficiary of the Second Wave, and have always supported gender equity. I recall the split among feminists on the porn question, and the faction that went heavily into promoting raunch culture in the form of girrrrlllll power. That faction won the intra-feminist battle. Today’s sex-positive feminists are probably the most vocal group of feminists in the U.S. They have a strong stake in promiscuity, or “sluthood” as they like to call it. I have heard feminists say that the only solution to the double standard is if all women are promiscuous, leaving men no choice in the matter.
I also believe that women have made gains at the expense of men. The effects are very clear. Women comprise 57 percent of college students in this country. That means that nearly a third of women now in college will not have the opportunity to marry a man with a college education. In an era where the marriage rate is steadily declining, and marriage is occurring later, a worsening of male prospects is going to exacerbate things considerably.
If feminists want what is best for women, they would do well to address what men are experiencing. A society in which males do not thrive cannot survive for long.
BLAST: Do you believe women have achieved equality with men in 2011?
MARCOTTE: No, and that’s not a matter of “belief”, but an objective, measurable fact.
WALSH: I do believe that the goals of the Second Wave have been met, yes. In fact, many young women have achieved what can only be described as superiority. The college education enrollment I mentioned above, greater numbers of women than men in grad school, women in their 20s outearning men in the same age bracket….I think that young women are in great shape.
Our young men are not in such great shape. Our schools reward female behaviors and punish male behaviors. Christina Hoff Sommers’ The War Against Boys describes this in detail, and I definitely saw it in my own experience raising a son and a daughter. They were treated very differently in school. The self-esteem movement of the 90s, which gave every child a “participant” trophy also had negative effects. Suppressing healthy competition hurts males and rewards more nurturing behaviors. It has also increased narcissism in young people.
BLAST: What are your thoughts on casual sex and today’s ever-growing hookup culture?
MARCOTTE: The more that moralists object to women having casual sex, the more they encourage rapists to target women who do so, knowing they’re more likely to get away with targeting “slutty” women. The number one biggest thing that would work to stop rapists is to stop holding women to a double standard, where they’re somehow bad if they have sex for pleasure. It would mean juries would stop worrying about if she’s a slut, and return to worrying if he’s a rapist.
I’m also skeptical that there’s an “ever-growing” hook-up culture. People were screwing around when I was in college. I think a lot of people have a lot of sex partners in their youth, grow up some, get married, and then “forget” what they did when younger so they can start tsking at young people acting like they did. The problem here is grown adults leering at and judging young people for being young.
WALSH: I am troubled by a number of things. People are having fewer relationships, which means they’re getting less practice developing relationship skills. I hear from so many men and women who are communicating at cross purposes. The sexes have become much more separate in the last 40 years. The thing that has surprised me most about blogging is the conversation happening in the Comments. Debates rage for days sometimes. Men are trying to explain male psychology and sexuality to women, and vice versa. It is not unusual for people to be amazed by something they’re learning from the opposite sex.
I don’t think that hookup culture is going away any time soon. In fact, my sense is that it will probably intensify before it wanes. Until those who are dissatisfied step up and speak out, there will be very little support for relationship sex, delaying sex, or monogamous sex. In my own writing, I’m working at the margins, trying to help individuals navigate this very complicated sexual marketplace.
Still, there are real signs of progress. All of the research being done on hookup culture helps shed light on how few are thriving in it. Individual writers are writing memoirs about their wild and crazy 20s, when they made “poor choices” in their dating lives. Kate Bolick’s current piece in the Atlantic addresses the role of feminism in her own behavior in relationships, and also highlights its effects on men. She is openly critical of the hookup script.
The conversation will continue, and will only get stronger. Perhaps in time like-minded people will find a way to meet up across the casual sex divide on campus. For now, though, the SMP is highly dysfunctional, and it’s not producing enough of the relationships that ultimately build a productive society.
BLAST: What do you think are the biggest challenges facing men and women in today’s dating/relationship world?
MARCOTTE: Sexism. The more we act like gender roles instead of people, the harder it is for us to truly relate to each other in a meaningful way.
WALSH: The Sexual Revolution dramatically changed the way men and women date and form relationships. The Women’s Movement and the Pill served to lift all restraints on female sexuality. It was strongly argued that the sexual double standard oppressed women, which was true. If extreme promiscuity rendered women “unfit” for marriage in the eyes of males, they had to be very selective in their choice of sexual partners if they wished to marry.
Feminism set out on a course to eradicate the sexual double standard, and women began to have a lot more no-strings sex. When colleges abandoned in loco parentis in the 90s, kids began having even more casual sex, which ultimately produced today’s hookup culture. What’s very clear, however, is that the sexual double standard has not disappeared as expected. Men continue to have strong opinions about promiscuity as a proxy for future infidelity in relationships. The “reeducation” experiment is a failure.
In addition, women are strongly influenced by social proof. They tend to be attracted to men that lots of other women find attractive as well. It’s been said that male sexuality is described by one man’s being attracted to four different women, while female sexuality shows four women all being attracted to the same man. In an era of expectations for casual sex among men, the power among a few lucky men quickly consolidates. I’ve estimated that 20 percent of the men on college campuses get 80 percent of the sex, mostly via the 20 percent of college women that engage regularly in no-strings sex.
What all this means is that the vast majority of men and women are dissatisfied with their sex and relationship experiences. The hookup script dominates, but doesn’t work for most people. Any sense of dating in the traditional sense is dead. Most college women never go on a single date in four years.