Word: feminist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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ASTRANGE PHENOMENON is occurring within American feminism these days: increasingly, feminist practice has given up the habit of flirting with the familiar Man vs. Woman oppositions that deodorant commercials of the '70's depicted as feminist chic. The prevailing themes of conflict are now heard through a polyphony of women's voices--straight, gay, and other--marking the shift in strategy from reactionary to constructive politics. Millet's comment that women should focus their energies on "creating eroticism rather than fighting porn" drew loud applause from a packed audience consisting of scholars, housewives, critics, social workers, professionals, conservatives, students...
...become an organizing theme, a rallying cause for mobilizing the increasingly diverse sectors of the population with vested interests in the issue. It is a reassuring sign for feminism that both the Women's Alliance Against Pornography, which is sponsoring the local referendum, and the New Yorkbased Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force (F.A.C.T.) were on hand to pamphlet the conferences with equal vigor...
...expanding borders of the socalled "women's" realm represents at heart an impressive heterogeneity of social issues at stake. Feminism can no longer be regarded as a single radical ideology composed of socially-marginal elements. With potentially the single most powerful voting bloc at hand--in theory at least--feminist organizations currently serve as clearinghouses for a prolific variety of interest groups, allied with issues ranging from nuclear freeze to minority rights...
...women's films (including another Close encounter, Jagged Edge) proceed from the same feminist impulse. Each heroine follows her passions and intelligence into an area where, tradition states, she is not supposed to go. Each dares to be a woman, even if it means not being thought a lady. But within these contours one can spot distinctive felicities and failures. Three of the films sink under the weight of earnestness (Marie), whimsy (Maxie) or scuzz quotient (Jagged Edge). In the others, two fine actresses can be seen at their resourceful best, fleshing out a character (Sweet Dreams) or camouflaging...
...going on when she mocks gene splicing and pop art, or explains the virtues of the umbrella hat. The most poignant sequence is a reminiscence by a woman who is selling her home and its contents after the breakup of her marriage to what seemed to be a sensitive, feminist man. The piece is at once an unabashed defense of human-potential movements and a candid acceptance of their limits. Even the less ambitious, more conventional sketches contain lines to cherish. Perhaps the signature for the evening is an observation that in a time of national obsession with health...