I read Sirin Kale’s generally excellent article with mixed feelings (‘I was worried Lindsay, Paris or Britney would die’: why the 00s were so toxic for women, 6 March). I was truly baffled by the subtitle: “The decade that feminism forgot”. Surely, as she shows, it was the decade that forgot feminism. This was not by chance. Attacking women’s solidarity has a history that engenders caution over any apparent progress.
There have been proto-feminist periods throughout history, but they have always been suppressed or derailed by inimical ideologies. Such recorded histories that survive inevitably only show part of the story, since they were written and preserved by a select group of white, educated men.
A great start to understanding why feminism repeatedly loses ground is the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Susan Faludi’s 1991 book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which starkly documents systematic suppression.
Let me end on a positive note, though. There has been enormous progress. Apart from anything else, you wouldn’t have seen anything like Sirin’s no-nonsense article in a major newspaper before now, nor would you have seen as many female newspaper editors as there are now. So in that sense, I’d agree that things have improved.
So in the spirit of sisterhood, Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, thanks to you, Sirin, and to the aptly named Guardian.
Penny Florence
Professor emerita, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL
