Aug 18, 2023·edited Aug 18, 2023Liked by Tana Ganeva
Indeed. The so-called "sexual revolution" was, if anything, too half-assed and incomplete as it were. And way too androcentric as well. The more things change, the more they stay the same, at least as far as sexism goes. Since the 1980s, America has been stuck in a perpetual limbo and purgatory in terms of sexual politics, glossed over with the euphemism of the "culture wars".
I know it was only a throwaway sentence, but I am married to a Stokeley Carmichael prone-joke truther, so it is my duty to pop up in the comments and tell you that the collective memory has gotten this wrong since the beginning. He was on the women's side in SNCC and when he made that joke, he was ventriloquizing men who were against the feminist caucus (as well as making fun of how much young people had sex on their minds). And it was funny, and everyone laughed, and then somehow it got twisted around so that it was him that was saying it, and it was some kind of turning point, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Women had positions of power in SNCC, and in 1964, long before the usual timeline, the movement to organize women separately had already gone through a strike in the spring, meetings in the summer, and a white paper in the Fall before this joke ever happened at an evening hang out.. Also while I'm here all this was led by black women.
Ok I have fulfilled my duty. Sorry about this overweight footnote!
And now, history seems to be taking yet another turn, though exactly which way it will go remains to be seen. Since 2022, if not earlier, there is increasing talk of a "sexual counterrevolution" that seems to be tapping into something deep in the collective unconscious, at least in the USA and the Anglosphere. And while it is largely along the predictable party lines, of course, it is by no means entirely so. It goes beyond the recent right-wing attempts to revoke women's hard-won reproductive rights as well as right-wing attempts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.
We have all seen this movie before in the 1980s to some degree. And how it ends this time depends on a lot of factors.
Indeed. The so-called "sexual revolution" was, if anything, too half-assed and incomplete as it were. And way too androcentric as well. The more things change, the more they stay the same, at least as far as sexism goes. Since the 1980s, America has been stuck in a perpetual limbo and purgatory in terms of sexual politics, glossed over with the euphemism of the "culture wars".
I know it was only a throwaway sentence, but I am married to a Stokeley Carmichael prone-joke truther, so it is my duty to pop up in the comments and tell you that the collective memory has gotten this wrong since the beginning. He was on the women's side in SNCC and when he made that joke, he was ventriloquizing men who were against the feminist caucus (as well as making fun of how much young people had sex on their minds). And it was funny, and everyone laughed, and then somehow it got twisted around so that it was him that was saying it, and it was some kind of turning point, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Women had positions of power in SNCC, and in 1964, long before the usual timeline, the movement to organize women separately had already gone through a strike in the spring, meetings in the summer, and a white paper in the Fall before this joke ever happened at an evening hang out.. Also while I'm here all this was led by black women.
Ok I have fulfilled my duty. Sorry about this overweight footnote!
Ugh!!!! Fuck! I got that totally wrong then. So wait, what was he doing? Satirizing men who actually thought that way?
Ugh it'd been nice if this country had real history education.
I'm not saying that this makes up for a childhood filled with Bill Cosby and Jackson 5 memories all shot to hell, but it helps. Thanks.
That was an excellent stream of consciousness love 🖤
Lol! Sorry if it made no sense!
That was absolutely sincere
thank you!!!
And now, history seems to be taking yet another turn, though exactly which way it will go remains to be seen. Since 2022, if not earlier, there is increasing talk of a "sexual counterrevolution" that seems to be tapping into something deep in the collective unconscious, at least in the USA and the Anglosphere. And while it is largely along the predictable party lines, of course, it is by no means entirely so. It goes beyond the recent right-wing attempts to revoke women's hard-won reproductive rights as well as right-wing attempts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.
We have all seen this movie before in the 1980s to some degree. And how it ends this time depends on a lot of factors.