Article: Tangled up in the old boy network
- by Andrew Ford — © John Fairfax Holdings
- Source: Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 1990, p. 40
- Only 10% of this article's text is displayed below for reference purposes.
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We are told that we live in post-feminist times. Those who bring us this news can rarely conceal the note of relief in their voices. But what does"post-feminist" actually imply?
Presumably one of two things: either feminism failed, or it succeeded and we therefore no longer require it.
Jocelynne Scutt, in her book Growing Up Feminist, painted an optimistic picture of young women for whom the basic tenets of feminism provided a code by which to live in 1980s Australia - a world changed for the better by their activist mothers, but with the capacity for still more change.
My own experience, as a university lecturer, has been rather different. For what seems like the majority of my female students, feminism is either something which happened in a previous generation, achievements they take for granted, or else it is passe - faintly ridiculous - like socialism and hippies.
What is especially bothering about such attitudes is that these students are musicians. At school, music is still thought of as a girls' ...
