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Issue link: https://fairweathermagazine.epubxp.com/i/144159
Looking back, it is incredible to believe how naïve we were. It was all smoke and mirrors, but no fre. Everyone mistook a sign of liberated sex in the bouncing tits under marching tee-shirts which captured the media's attention. Women's willingness to go braless may have been one of the few lasting impressions we made (and, as the ligaments we abused 30 years ago now begin to sag, the braless look proved to be a mistake as well). Those were heady days, but we didn't realize we were simply getting our 15 minutes of fame. The power structure remained unmoved. Young and old went into battle without understanding the forces that formed and maintain the male establishment which controls business in America and the rest of the world. Equally crucial, we were not given the tactical knowledge needed to conquer and hold new social territory. Some feminists remained at their command posts, blissfully unaware of the defeats at the front. The rest of us came home, tired and weary but still very hungry for something more than a simple armistice with the men who run the business world and who retain that ultimate aphrodisiac for themselves: wealth and economic power. The explosive feminist movement didn't change the professional or economic facts of life for American women. In chasing equality, the radical feminist leadership rejected out of hand the basic biological and emotional diferences that will always exist between men and women. In the process, they robbed women of one of their most potent weapons: sex and sex appeal. Rather than yelling "Burn the Bra!" as we marched through the streets, we should have been chanting "All Hail the Mighty Cleavage." The movement's failure to achieve its objectives can be blamed on several serious miscalculations. Telling us we can succeed, without telling us how, left us with no roadmap for success. In a horrible strategic error, the movement stripped away our sexuality in the workplace, denying us a crucial weapon that has been used to efectively defeat men since the Creation. Instead, they had us copy the way men dress, putting us into sterile unisex clothing calculated to make us "look like a man." This feminist strategy was horribly fawed. Still, they told us that since we were already as smart as men, if we would make ourselves look like men, talk like men, and walk like men, surely we would attain the success that men acquired just by virtue of being men. We were told to take of our makeup, too, and remove any hint of allure. But a woman can't look like a man, so the suits that have been designed to fatter men make women look asexual. The idea was to blend into the corporate world. Within the ofce setting, women were to be seen as man-like, not as females. We all wound up in pin-striped power suits, but without the power. The movement failed to recognize that men would adopt feminists talk of equality and freedom without actually enacting it in the workplace. The movement urged us to assault the males' power universe and then ignored the bruised and bloody bodies of women who did so. Bright, believing women were left to wonder, in the fnal moments of their career, why their college degrees left them forever condemned to fetching cofee. Today, the feminist revolution has mutated dramatically. Its leaders have their own hidden agenda. They victimize other women to protect their own power base, their feminist patronage system and their personal political goals which too often have nothing to do with the vast, majority of working women. This neo-feminist movement continues to exist because women are still at the bottom of the economic scale, and we are left fghting among ourselves for scavenging rights. We wouldn't need women's legal rights advocates, or the pathetic attempts at feminist networking, if the original movement had been successful and given women the tools and the insight to play the game in the male dominated business environment. The mutants of the feminist movement have no clue how women can gain real power in business. Given their leadership in the feminist bureaucracy that has evolved, they are quite content to merely complain about it. We need to kill of the mutation! The leaders of today's neo-feminist movement need a harsh reality check. They have become far more adept at fund raising than taking the pulse of working women in the 21st century. Despite the increased numbers of women in the workforce, very few hold positions of real power. Don't be fooled: most titles are meaningless! What good is it to be a vice president, or even a senior vice president, if you don't control the corporate purse strings. Why do you think those few women who are CEOs are so highly publicized? Because, by their rarity, they are considered "news.'' How many women actually own or run companies? Precious few. It's time for a radical change: a newly organized, covert operation that provides women with that strategic game plan missing since the frst days of the feminist revolution. This strategy will allow women to show our sexuality (which will please men), and use our sexuality to gain access to power. It's time women accept, embrace and use the normal sexual tension that exists – and will always exist – between men and women, in the ofce as well as everywhere else. The frst thing men and women notice about each other is not their college degrees, or how smart they are, or how well they can do their jobs. People relate to each other sexually, frst and foremost. Always have. Always will. In fact, men can't stop thinking with their penises. Thank God: that's their vulnerability. That's how we can succeed. Women just have to play the eternal game of trying to keep that penis aroused, but this time it isn't to gain access to a house or a fur coat. This time, the object is to advance to a real career, with real power and real money. To achieve this will require us to make a leap as dramatic as the initial feminist revolution more than 35 years ago. It's time for a new sexual revolution – one that tells women how to set goals and how to achieve them: how to strategize, how to manipulate, and how to network – not with other women, but with the men in power. This revolution will teach women how to use their sexuality to meet the right people, and to get on the inside track. The symbol for our new revolution? The same one used by the French when they toppled King Louis—a bare-breasted Liberty at the barricades! FAIRWEATHER | SUMMER 2013 | 53