A Wolf in Page: Speaker oversimplified feminism

In rising to become an author and an articulate speaker of women's issues at a young age, Naomi Wolf has personified her own belief system. She espouses that women must seize power and be comfortable in positions of authority.

What Wolf preaches, however, sounds like a watered-down, simplistic version of the difficulties inherent in being a woman in society. In her speech Friday night, she highlighted glaringly obvious examples of when women should act as feminists, making complex and difficult decisions seem easy. This oversimplification may lead to frustration when people living by Wolf's words face a more complicated reality.

Wolf belittled issues, breaking down adolescent experiences into trivial dichotomies. Boys play sports and learn to deal with people they do not like, while girls compete with each other over popularity and looks, developing insecure, feeble psyches. Such generalities serve to lock women into gender roles, eliminating the individuality Wolf herself stressed.

Wolf claimed that no college-age woman to whom she ever talked expressed a desire to be president or take on real responsibility. What about women like Nan Keohane, Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno? Wolf's characterization implies that they are not role models for college women, but rather exceptions to the standard of female behavior. By offering such arguments, she patronized her audience.

Wolf deserves praise for trying to paint feminism as an ideology of inclusiveness, not divisiveness. To Wolf, a feminist is anyone who believes women should have equal social, political and economic standing in society. In arguing against a litmus test for feminism, she allowed many men and women to feel part of the movement.

But many feminists know and agree with what she is saying. Although she has coined a new term, "power feminism," to describe her beliefs, she has hardly dreamed up anything new or revolutionary.

Furthermore, in trying to make everyone feel comfortable with being a feminist, Wolf excoriated extremists, ridiculing them to the point of ostracization. By doing so she undermined her own ideals. And while Wolf advocated "using the master's tools" to dismantle societal oppression, she should also remember that one of men's most effective tools for maintaining their dominant position has been the subjugation of women.

Wolf's speech offered a liberating, even inspiring perspective, but her attempt to rally the troops did not do justice to the depth of the issues she addressed. To Wolf's credit, her resolution for the imbalance of power is for women to exhibit their own power, rather than rely on their status as victims in the current structure. Wolf revels in her own ability to make it as a woman in a man's world; however, she should realize that ultimately, the goal of feminism is to no longer live in a man's world.