Feminists must cut loose from left and right
TO ANYONE WHO DOUBTED the continuing influence of the American Empire, the international response to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg served as a sobering reminder. British political Twitter — forever focused on American events — was immediately filled with feverish speculation as to who might replace her on the US Supreme Court. The Glasgow City women’s football club announced that they would carry her name on their strip as a tribute to this “feminist icon and role model”.
Women I know who are not American, have never lived in America, and have spent very little time in America, expressed their sincere distress. Most of these grief-stricken Brits would not be able to name a single judge in, say, France or Australia, and perhaps not even in this country. But then, American political events are always granted a special status. This American dominance has a warping effect on the tone and priorities of feminism in this country, and usually to our cost, since British feminists who keep their gaze fixed across the Atlantic, looking to Big Sister America for guidance, often fail to remember that American feminists have not actually achieved all that much.
This is a country with no statutory maternity rights, that has never managed to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment after almost a century of campaigning, that falls in the bottom half of the world rankings for female political representation, and that has never had a female head of state. Yes, it has produced some of the most interesting and influential feminist thinkers in history. It is also the world headquarters of the porn industry.
American feminists have spent almost half a century fighting tooth and nail to defend their most precious and fragile achievement, Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that prevents state legislatures from prohibiting first-trimester abortions. The loss of Ginsberg from the Supreme Court may imperil Roe, which was a key reason for the outpouring of anxiety following news of her death. But this is a feminist issue that has far less resonance on the
