Feminism and the RedEye

I’ve filled quite a bit of blogosphere space (7 entries to be exact) criticizing the RedEye for its seemingly total cluelessness when it comes to women’s issues. From “reclaiming” virginity to lingerie football to referring to women as girls, the RedEye had the ability to make me see red and spew anger is black and white pixels.

And, although I still think the RedEye is still relatively clueless with mountains of room for growth, I also understand that so am I. As human beings we have the amazing ability to be desperately imperfect as well as the magnificent capacity to grow. Publications, as a product of human beings, are the same.

But we can only grow if we admit our imperfection and try to grow, if we face our fears and change despite the discomfort change imposes.

I realized in February that I was so critical of the RedEye because I desperately wanted to be a part of it. I wanted 100,000 people to read my words and see my truth. I wanted my voice heard. I wanted to add my story to the mix.

So I wrote to the editor of the RedEye’s opinion column -not for the first time I may note, perhaps for the fifth time- and I made my case. And he was intrigued. We chatted, I pitched and a month after I first faced my fear of rejection by the RedEye, I had a column on Page Four.

It is not a column to change the world, or Chicago, or even a few of the haters. It is a column to write this is Niki Fritz and this is what I believe. My only wish for change is that this column encourages others to be themselves more wholly, to contribute to the RedEye, to write their representatives, to voice their opinions, to not step away when they fear they authentic self may not be socially tolerable.

If we can all be our true selves a little louder, a little bolder, and with a little less concern for the status quo, then perhaps we can change for the better. I mean if the RedEye can print a column about feminism anything is possible.

Feminism is Your Friend

By: Niki Fritz

“Earmuffs! There is a new F-word in town, and it is dirtier than Rick Santorum’s name, more loaded than Mitt Romney’s wallet and more vile than the inside of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth.

Yes, “feminist” has taken over as the year’s most foul word.”

Read more 

Why Feminism is good for marriage

Before her death, Betty Friedan openly called herself a “bad-tempered bitch.” She was known for being abrasive, pig-headed and, well, acting “like a man.” In her generation and occasionally in the nostalgic discourse of American traditionalists, she is also known as the bitch who ruined marriage through her all-telling book “The Feminine Mystique.”

After the release of “The Feminine Mystique” revealed the unhappy condition of the majority of middle to upper class educated house wives, the world began to change. Women began to voice their discontent in the home, in the bedroom and in their lack-luster singular role as mothers.  The second wave began and women began to demand equality in marriage; they often lost this fight, and divorce became the surrender cry around America.

 

But Betty never thought of herself as anti-marriage. In fact she once said, her tombstone should read: “She helped make women feel better about being women and therefore better able to freely and fully love men”

Hallelujah sister.

Almost four decades after the release of her wave-creating book, America is still grappling with the role of marriage and divorce and often still looking for a ghost of a scapegoat.  But a new book by Stephanie Coontz, re-examines the role of “The Feminine Mystique” and Betty Friedan in the changing role of marriage in American society and looks to some other factors to the failure of marriage.

According to Coontz, marriage does not fail because women demanded to be equal and men disagreed; instead marriage often fails because both men and women want equal marriages but society denies them equality. In a society where two breadwinners are the norm, the nuclear family is often left to debate who will be the nurturer as well. When concessions from society aren’t made (think flexible work hours, day cares in workplaces, maternity leave for fathers), the family often breaks from the inflexibility.

Betty was right; happier women make happier marriages. But without some changes in our current social roles and norms, men aren’t the happiest they can be. Today’s crisis isn’t about bored housewives; it is about the pigeon-holed role of the man in society. What marriages needs in a third-wave of feminism or the first wave of meninism. It is time for men to take off the suit, tie and 60-hour work week and be allowed to be the fathers, husbands and friends they deserve to be.