Feminist or Dead

In recent years it has dawned upon me that, for the first time in a century or so, to be older is to be more radical. An increasing number of the really young are complacent, ignorant and conservative. A bunch of stiffs. It’s a ridiculous situation. A couple of news articles and a conversation confirmed it to me today:

Music Buyers 'are growing older' - BBC 03/08/05

About how the over 30s are the ones who buy the most music now. In 1999 the under 30s still bought most of it, but six years later things have changed. In the 1999 sample I would have been 25. I am now in the over 30 demographic. It’s clear we are the last lot that care about music. I know the ipod generation probably just don’t acquire their music that way… but I also suspect they don’t care as much about music as we did.

Gender Unbenders - The Age 03/08/05

About how the younger Liberals (UK readers read: Australian Tory equivalent) are against the affirmative action brought in by that craggy old bigot Menzies 60 years ago – yes, compared to these trailblazing young neo-cons the old monarchist was a shade too pink.

But today’s clincher was my chauvinist of a father – who for years condemned me as a ‘moonboot-wearing, university commie’ – singing the praises of the refreshingly plain, nerdy film buff Megan Spencer of The Movie Show.





Megan strikes a blow for smart, plain people.




Unprovoked, Dad announced that the thing he liked about her was that for a change she was not particularly pretty, but seemed genuine and had a damn good brain. I was so proud of the old buzzard! He then went on to admit that he was thoroughly sick of dolly birds on the television. This from my 79 year old father – who started life watching the Berkeley Beauties and graduated to Carry On and Benny Hill. Hardly the type to begrudge a pretty face on the television. He always left that to me.

We are living in dark times. Old radicals attend what we know are useless marches against tyrannies at home (the new Workplace Relations legislation) and abroad (ongoing conflicts we never asked for and unchecked globalisation). Glossy plasticated nobodies with nothing to say assault our personal space from all sides – leering out of New Weekly; prancing like monkeys (though no monkey ever seemed this desperate to please) on pop idol; blankly mouthing the latest ‘news’ about the War on Terror – decorative funnels spouting views that are never their own.

And look at the mainstream pop world. Prettier and prettier, duller and duller. If you want to know why I don’t believe the under 25s really love their music – take a look at their musical contemporaries*. Miss Britney “I trust our president” Spears is preggers at 23, and the only thing she’s worried about losing is her figure. At 23 she’s stopped rocking – if you could ever describe what she did as that… and who else is there? The hopelessly moronic barbie doll Jessica Simpson? A handful of British blondes that might as well be working the cabaret circuit, plying as they do their trade in tinny cover versions – and leaving after half an album to pop out some brats? A few manicured, micro-dermabrased ex-Spice Girls? These girls represent a new, young, conservative generation of women, who recoil from the word “feminism” like vampires from garlic. Girl Power? Pfffft.

Instead try the inspiringly old, childless Debbie Harry, who is still gigging like a teenager, and her feisty compadre Chrissie Hynde…. and remember that these women, far from retiring with hubby and brat, hadn’t even commenced their ascents to stardom at the age of 23. Along with the at-one-time-terminally-single Madonna, they hit their straps in their 30s (though Mads was admittedly in her musical prime at around 26). Married women Frida and Agnetha, hardly the image of nubile availability at the best of times, shot videos featuring close-ups of their crooked, smoke-stained teeth and post-pregnancy figures. They just got up there and did it. Sure these women were all pretty hot but they were largely uncompromised by smarmy male intervention. OK – Benny and Bjorn might have been smarmy and male, but you know what I mean… and the girls were hardly humping each others' legs and pole dancing - as they might well be if they were to shoot a video today. ...and, in spite of the encumbrances of life - kids, no kids, husband, no husband, youth, age - they all still managed to rock...or swing...or something.

In today's political, cultural and social dark age you are likely to see young women on Big Brother who think ‘humiliation’ is being filmed without makeup…or maybe (ohmigod) with a touch of armpit stubble. They seem oblivious to the sneering, callous remarks and sleazy gestures of the males in the house. They don’t know their worth or their rights (or anybody else's, judging by the recent evictee's comments about watching men kissing making her sick) because they think rights are, like, sooo for hard-faced, hairy old bags. The word feminist is as unwelcome as VPL in this brave new world, where expressing an opinion and backing it up - owning it - is anathema to any self-respecting It girl. These girls are so removed from what their mothers and older sisters fought for that they seem to be succumbing blindly, slavishly, rightlessly to the vision those sinister men at Endemol have of young womanhood. That is, plucked within an inch of its life with a thong permanently wedged in place – and unable to tell its male counterpart where to really stick it.

*Yes, yes, I know about Missy Elliott, Missy Higgins, and that chick out of Scissor Sisters. I wasn’t really making a point about music, so much as the general trend of conservatism in young women. Couldn’t resist a little swipe at it though.