Gen X fail

Jun 23, 2013 14:50

Dear Gen X'ers,

I expected better of you.

In the past, it was easy to blame encultured sexism and racism on the Baby Boomers -- they are easy targets, and we had a lot of fun with that growing up. We had fun laughing at the aging Hippies too, who have now long since hung up their flowers and peace signs in favour of mortgages and families; their ( Read more... )

rant

Leave a comment

Comments 3

sholio June 23 2013, 17:58:48 UTC
Yeah, the older I get the more I recognize the fallacy that racism/sexism/etc is something we can blame on our parents' generation, or their parents'. No, it's something we do too. And I often sense the same feeling of disillusionment you're talking about here when I talk to people of my parents' generation who still believe in their hippie ideals (my parents, or my husband's aunts, for example). They grew up steeped in the racism/sexism/etc of the previous generation, thought they were building a better and fairer world, only to watch their peers eventually replicate the same mistakes around them.

On the other hand, the set points have moved. It's really startling to talk to older women and realize that maternity leave was something that didn't exist as recently as the 1970s, for example (here in the US, anyway). I came of age, myself, in a fully gender-integrated collegiate atmosphere and workforce; my professors and supervisors and other older adult role models generally included as many women as men. My mother was required to ( ... )

Reply

cupidsbow June 23 2013, 18:13:59 UTC
Yeah, I hear what you're saying and you're right. I think it's because you're right that we're getting this slimy backlash at the moment. I know there's a tendency to think the now is worse than it's ever been, but I don't think that's what this is. At this moment, right now, there's something toxic going on that has a different shape to what was happening even three years ago. This too will pass, change shape and become something else (hopefully soon). And maybe I'm wrong that it's partially linked to power-drunk Gen X'ers being asshats; it might just be the zeitgeist.

Hopefully it will pass soon. I'm sure there will be more crap, there always is, but this moment is rubbing me the wrong way in a way this stuff never has before.

I want to go to the movies, you know. But where's Katherine Hepburn or Bette Davis or Marilyn Monroe? Where's Gina Torres? Hell, where's Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan? Even Scarlett Johansen isn't on screen at the moment.

I might be reading the smugness from Hollywood into the situation.

Reply

transcendancing June 24 2013, 07:35:03 UTC
I also want to go to movies - and I want to know where the female stars are atm, why aren't they getting their own awesome movies?!

Also, while it's not worse than it's ever been, I think it's fair to say that the issues and problems are more insidious than they've ever been - and thus so much harder to actually make inroads for change, first you have to convince enough people that the problem even exists.

Still, however horrible the cloud of misogyny in the media atm, at least there's a lot of open discussion about it being so, and other related subjects - and that I hope will be part of what makes actual change that leaps forward possible, because it will be too absurd *not* to...

Reply


Leave a comment

Up