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And just for that hour, they see through the big lie of liberal feminism: that you as an individual woman can liberate yourself by being good enough, savvy enough, enlightened enough (and of course, by dressing for success).

To hear some people tell it, young women today are just so over all those boring, second-wave, "victim feminist" issues like rape, harassment, and battering: they've been there, done that, and are chomping at the bit for new, exciting, post-modern analyses. Have radical feminists become bitter, obsolete old curmudgeons, sitting on the campus quad and railing pointlessly at the carefree, post-feminist, non-victim young women passing by?

More importantly, it is monumentally naive to think that most students already "get" basic feminist analysis. They're not "over it"; they're not even within shouting distance of it. Young women in most areas of the country wouldn't know a "riot grrrl" if they fell over one, let alone an analysis of rape as a weapon of patriarchy.

Well said. However, let's accept the fact that we are guilty of some of these crimes right here on this site. I include myself in this. We look over the pores of celebrity women. We either celebrate them or comment negatively and, although few of us say anything truly hateful, we do objectify them. This is an important post and I'm not trying to cause a ruckus, but I do think we give a mixed message sometimes as commenters and editors. While we will defend the starlet who'd been told she's gained weight, we still post her photo and comment on her physique (even if it is a positive comment) as if that's all she's worth -- as if she were a piece of meat. We can be outraged by something said by Alan Sugar and about rape statistics but what are we really doing to teach the next generation of women that they are worth more than their bodies and that their bodies belong, truly belong, only to them. How do we teach them that they have to be the object of the gaze in order to matter and even then find them themselves so dangerously misunderstood when we are so preoccupied with those particular images ourselves. I don't raise this issue to piss anyone off but to state something that I find troublesome. This is not the type of world for women my mother fought for and I don't think anything she fought for was in any way misguided.

Now, onto the subject matter at hand: Men in our culture need to grow the fuck up. The only way I can even begin to explain something like this is just straight-up immaturity. I don't believe that most men are maliciously anti-women, but I would say that, in my experience talking to other dudes, there's a common feeling that it's ok to debase and degrade women because, whatevs, we're just kidding so chill out. "If they can't take a joke, fuck 'em." And so many have actually convinced themselves that it's just a joke that they don't realize that, no, there is a really serious problem. Yet they don't want to address it, because other men will make fun of them for it. So that's what I mean when I say they need to grow up. Stop giving so much of a damn about what the boy's club thinks and start acting like a mature adult. Jesus. Is that so fucking hard?

So if you’re a woman, you MUST not be a housewife.

What also bugs me is when somebody points their index finger at you and says you have betrayed the feminist movement. To me the only ways you can betray a feminist movement are these - To deny women choices and opportunities. To deny women their right to make the choices or access the opportunities. To deny women their rights. To not respect the rights of others.

But nowhere does this involve judging the choices women make. If you want to study the choices women make and determine that no choice is really free - feel free to do so. But don’t attach a value to the choice. Don’t rate a choice as more feminist or less feminist.