sex and women's rights

two terms not to be confused with one another

I’m a little late on writing about the Sex and the City Movie. Part of me enjoyed the TV show because it was funny and part of me secretly envied the wardrobes of those four women, but whatever other part of me that remained resented the show for the way that it represented the supposedly ideal life of a female:

At least, you could argue, Miranda has a job, as a lawyer. But the film pays it zero attention, and the other women expect her to drop it and fly to Mexico without demur. (And she does.) Worse still is the sneering cut as the scene shifts from Carrie, carefree and childless in the New York Public Library, to the face of Miranda’s young son, smeared with spaghetti sauce. In short, to anyone facing the quandaries of being a working mother, the movie sends a vicious memo: Don’t be a mother. And don’t work. Is this really where we have ended up—with this superannuated fantasy posing as a slice of modern life? On TV, “Sex and the City” was never as insulting as “Desperate Housewives,” which strikes me as catastrophically retrograde, but, almost sixty years after “All About Eve,” which also featured four major female roles, there is a deep sadness in the sight of Carrie and friends defining themselves not as Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, and Thelma Ritter did—by their talents, their hats, and the swordplay of their wits—but purely by their ability to snare and keep a man. Believe me, ladies, we’re not worth it. It’s true that Samantha finally disposes of one paramour, but only with a view to landing another, and her parting shot is a beauty: “I love you, but I love me more.” I have a terrible feeling that “Sex and the City” expects us not to disapprove of that line, or even to laugh at it, but to exclaim in unison, “You go, girl.” I walked into the theatre hoping for a nice evening and came out as a hard-line Marxist, my head a whirl of closets, delusions, and blunt-clawed cattiness. All the film lacks is a subtitle: “The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe.”

~ From the New Yorker

If this is the epitome of role models for my generation of females, then I am quite saddened. Sex and the City is occasionally lauded for promoting sexual liberation and freedom for women. These days, it seems that female liberation is only about sexual liberation and reproductive rights.*

And if Sex and the City represents this, then this female liberation seems rather intent on turning all us women into selfish, men-obsessed, materialist girls, comfortably living out an extended childhood.

Has female liberation also lost sight of the actual critical issues of our society? To cite from the article from my previous post:

… elsewhere, thousands of honor killings and millions of female circumcisions transpire yearly. In Saudi Arabia, feminism is not second-guessing the remarks of a college president, but simply wanting to drive a car; on the West Bank, it is not being murdered when dating someone your father and brothers don’t like; in the Sudan, it is avoiding genital mutilation; in Iran, it is escaping stoning when accused of adultery…





* If you use the words “rights” and “freedom” to defend any issue, you will certainly sound justified in your reasoning.