Appetites [Chapter 4]

 Psychology of Women

Knapp’s major argument in this chapter shows the progression time has had on the feminist movement. The second wave of feminism in the 60s and 70s was fought by a generation ahead of Knapp, and did not immediately infiltrate the world of school and adolescence that she occupied during that time. As such, her generation came into their own in the 80s with what she described as a “half-full tool kit”, “opening the door into a partially lit room”. The second wave gave girls permission to be sexual, but was unable to give them an adult understanding of what that meant. Corporations have since jumped on this bit of psychology, and have exploited women’s repressed desires. Everyone wants to be free, loved, beautiful, desired: but to do so now means to buy things, not be things. The American lifestyle thrives on the illusion of quick-fixes and conveniences.

            This, of course, is why feminism induces so much eye-rolling and scoffing today. It’s seen as illegitimate, something already fought for; an issue that only remains alive through people who romanticize a forgotten age before technology. It’s not over, merely more transparent – microscopic – harder to pull the ingredients out of the cake you might say. Problems all women face are seen as personal issues, individualized into illegitimacy. If it’s just one woman’s problem, you can tell her to “suck it up” or “get over it”. Since the heterosexual script dictates that there are only two kinds of women in the world anyway, then we all represent one of two giant women – a much easier number to hold down rather than half the population of the world.

            Someone I'm close to was born in 1978, making her a child of the 80s and a teenager of the 90s.  We are polar opposites and hardly ever agree. She’s also taken a very subservient role in life and is generally oblivious to anything intellectual I have to say – choosing to ridicule and dismiss me instead. Nevertheless, she was able to pinpoint this exact idea of “diminished outrage” in the women of the 80s. People just stopped fighting, and started shopping. Like Knapp said: they stopped trying to keep up with their neighbors, and instead tried to be the fantastical images produced by movie studios. 80s women latched on to this more severely than men because that’s what they were set up to do: they were now allowed to desire, but didn’t know what it was exactly they should be desiring. In other words, the mothers and grandmothers of the 60s and 70s brought their 80s daughters into a room full of juicy and exotic fruits on one side, and heavy, decadent chocolate cake on the other – but they left before they could teach them that both were equally delicious. Cake is not really natural and it’s a treat – while fruit is sensual and healthy. You can have as much as you like. A lot of women, starring at this strange and foreign fruit, chose the cake.

            I absolutely agree that the 2000s is a world where things have to be labeled acceptable before they can be accepted – seen as sexy and desirable before it’s okay to want them. In movies, music, fashion, even the internet – all the consumerist arenas of our modern world are dominated by onlookers – tourists in our own homes. We wait to see what others do, and then we think it’s ok. The problem is, all those “brave” and controversial figures who are leading us toward one fashion or another, one body ideal or another – they’re in it for the money. Find the bottom line and you’ve found the motivation. Even the most experimental or seemingly indie and creative people are puppets of capitalism: if it doesn’t sell, it isn’t cool; and if we’re not used to it or as a whole unable to accept it – usually because we aren’t used to it – then it’s out. That is what we have telling us what is beautiful - people who make money selling us things to make us that way. We have limits, but they erode as we grow more complacent – as we lose the firey fight within.