Is “me too” really a sign that women have finally gathered what it takes to avenge themselves on those bad, bad, bad men who always want one thing only? Or is it just a rather underhand reaction to feminism’s utter failure to change the way the world works? For an answer, consider the following.

1. Physique

Contrary to the hopes of feminists such as Anne Fausto-Sterling (Myths of Gender, 1992) and Collette Dowling (The Frailty Myth, 2000), women have not closed the physical gap between them and men. At best attempts to close it, such as have made by several armed forces around the world, merely provided another proof of what all normal people have always known, namely that doing so is impossible. At worst the outcome was injuries, including such as turned women into cripples or else left them unable to have children. Either way, women continue to depend on men for protection. Had it not been for men who, for reasons of their own, are ready to protect women against other men, the entire feminist movement would have been not merely impossible but inconceivable.

The myth that working women can simply ignore their periods and work as men do is no closer to the truth now than it was when feminists first invented it. Countless women have gone on record saying that they had taken leave from work during the days in question; thanks to feminism, though, many of them were unable to tell their bosses about the real cause of their trouble. Nor have some radical feminist fantasies about virgin births and dispensing with men as sperm-donors been realized.

2. Career

Partly, but not only, as a result of these factors, the division of labor, meaning men’s work versus women’s work, has remained practically as gendered as it was a century ago. For example, even in an “egalitarian” country such as Sweden almost all commercial pilots, divers, miners, and foresters are men. And almost all flight attendants—a term specifically invented to obfuscate the facts—cashiers, secretaries, minders of little children and—are women.

Partly because they tend to do work that is physically light, clean and safe, partly because of the problems associated with motherhood, women still do not get paid as much as men are. By some calculations, assuming present trends continue, the point where that will happen is still decades and perhaps even centuries away. Often the more senior and remunerative the position men and women occupy, the more true this is. Since women tend to spend fewer years in the working force, the same applies to pensions.

Another way of putting this is that, today as ever, the higher one climbs the slippery pole of power and fame the fewer women one meets. Just some six percent of heads of state are female. As Margaret Mead used to say, the world is run by men and strong women (among whom, no doubt, she counted herself). Furthermore, not one female head of state got to where she is by running for office on a feminist platform. Not Angela Merkel. Not Theresa May. Much less the late Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher, all of whom spent a lifetime to avoid having the epithet “feminist” applied to them. Hillary Clinton, the female candidate for the US presidency perceived as being the most pro-feminist of all, was trounced by a man to who is not only a declared male chauvinist but a sexual harasser and predator as well.

Mission impossible: Finding even one important movie in which a woman over 50 plays the main role. Apparently neither men nor women are interested in watching one such.

The age-old situation whereby the entry of too many women into any occupation, institution, and organization causes the social prestige, and consequently the economic rewards, that go with that occupation, institution and organization to decline still persists. And vice versa, of course.

3. Relationships

The age-old situation whereby most household work is done by women, either such who do it for themselves and their families or such who rely on relatives or hire others in their places, remains unchanged.

Today as ever, the more successful a man the more attractive he becomes to women; however, except for female models, actresses, and the like, the opposite does not apply. Why? Because, as Gloria Steinem once pointed out, indeed, often the more successful a woman the more like a man she becomes.

Hypergamy, the age-old tradition whereby most women hope to gain an advantage by trying to marry men who are older than themselves and belong to a higher class, persists. That is why, contrary to the hopes of Germaine Greer in The Female Eunuch (1970), and long before her Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) women have not stopped desperately trying to make themselves more attractive to men. As by adapting themselves to fashion, wearing makeup, buying and wearing jewelry and accessories, undergoing cosmetic surgery, going on a diet, trying to learn how to have orgasms or pretending to have them, and much more. Women, in other words, often are not only seen as sex objects but see themselves as such. Which in turn is one reason why the fight against pornography, put on by such feminists as the late Andrea Dworkin, has led nowhere.

Women go on imitating men in many things, including dress. However, the opposite rarely occurs. Whereas a great many women wear pants, practically nowhere do men wear skirts (when they do, as in Scotland, they are called kilts). Women take on (filch?) men’s names until they, the names, become first gender-neutral and then female only; but the opposite does not apply. These processes prove that penis envy, meaning the desire of women to be and do anything men are and do, is at least as strong among present-day women, feminists specifically included, as it was when one of Freud’s female students, Henriette Lampl de Groot, came up with the idea.

For good or ill, the famous “double standard” still persists. Accused of promiscuity, Catherine the Great of Russia once said that she had fewer lovers in a lifetime than man of her male colleagues did in a year. To this day, a man who has many female sexual partners is often admired and envied; a woman who does the same is put down as a slut—not just by men but by many women too.

Feminism and Its Discontents*

Feminism remains overwhelmingly a middle class ideology. After more than five decades, it still has not been able to make considerable inroads among upper- and lower class women. The former do not need it and are reluctant to share their privileges with their less fortunate “sisters.” The latter don’t have the time for it.

Since 1975 or so the gap in life expectancy between men and women, which had been growing for decades, has been closing again. This in spite of the fact that, in practically all countries, perinatal death has continued to decline. The reason? Because so many women, misled by feminists, have begun to work outside the home, thus subjecting themselves to the same stresses as those affecting men.

Survey after survey in various countries has found that women are no happier today than they were forty years ago; also, that relative to men their happiness has been on the decline.

Women have not ceased complaining; isn’t the whole of feminism one long complaint? Freud’s question, “was will das Weib,” what does the woman want, remains as relevant as it was when he asked it almost ninety years ago.

For many people, including some women, feminism has become a swearword.

Conclusion

Feminism has failed. So much so, indeed, that very few people can even remember that, back in the 1970s, there were such things as environmental feminism, left-wing socialist feminism, utopian feminism (which advocated female-only communities) and so many other kinds as to boggle the mind.

To repeat my question, could it be that “me too,” as one of the few survivors, far from being a sign that things are getting better, is a desperate rearguard reaction to the fact that feminism has been a flop?

• Compliments to Marie Jo Buhle.

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