The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan [9]
In 1994–95, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., I led a seminar for policy makers, looking beyond sexual politics, beyond identity politics, beyond gender—toward a new paradigm of women, men, and community. In 1996, we focused on “Reframing Family Values,” in the context of new economic realities. I have never bought the seeming polarization between feminism and families. A demagogic reprise of the old feminine mystique, the recent reactionary “family values” campaign is basically an attack on abortion, divorce, and, above all, the rights and autonomy of women. But there are real values having to do with families, with mothering and fathering and bonds between the generations, with all our needs to get and to give love and nurture that are women’s public and private concerns today and the crux of the political gender gap in 1996. The question is, when will men turn on the culture of greed and say, “Is this all?”
The old separatism—women vs. men—is no longer relevant, is in fact being transcended. Just as the Playboy Clubs were shut down some years after the women’s movement—it no longer seemed sexy, evidently, for women to pretend they were “bunnies”—in 1997 Esquire magazine is in trouble. And the publisher of Ms. and Working Mother put them up for sale: all that was revolutionary twenty years ago, he said, but now it’s part of society. The trend-setting New Yorker is now edited by a woman, and devoted its signature anniversary issue in 1996 to women. In the 1996 campaign, both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Elizabeth Dole displayed but also tried to hide the power that comes from successful careers of their own. Both focused their power on traditional women’s issues—the Red Cross, children—but with all the new political sophistication and organizational machinery that women now command for those issues. No longer was it possible to hide the new image of marriage between equals coming from the White House—despite the backing and filing when a new strong First Lady’s voice is heard openly in the highest political councils. A clear sense exists on both sides of the political aisle of a partnership between women and men way beyond the feminine mystique.
At the same time, the historic new gender gap between women and men in the presidential election race portends an inexorable shifting of the national political agenda toward concerns that used to be dismissed as “women’s issues.” So, as a result of women’s growing political power, the old feminine mystique is now being transformed into unprecedented new political reality and priority for both parties.
It was the Wall Street Journal that first reported this with front-page headlines (January 11, 1996): “In Historic Numbers, Men and Women Split Over Presidential Race.” The Journal reported:
If current trends continue, the split between men and women would be wider in the 1996 presidential election than in any in recent history. This could, in fact, be the first modern election in which men and women collectively come down on different sides of a presidential race.
“The 1996 race is currently characterized by a gender gap of historic proportions,” says Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who helps conduct The Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls….
Indeed, in a Journal/NBC poll early last month, the president and Sen. Dole were in a virtual dead heat among the American men. But among women, the president led Sen. Dole by 54% to 36%.
The Journal also noted that:
The president’s strength among women voters, which has increased amid fierce debate over the budget, is the principal reason he has bounced back in most recent polls. “In essence,” says Mr. Hart, “the president’s current strength comes entirely from women, who are leaning so strongly toward the Democrats today that even homemakers, a traditional GOP base group, are supporting President Clinton.”…
Asked to name the main issues facing the nation, men are nearly twice as likely as women to