'Mrs America' shines brightest in its critique of white heterosexual feminism of the '70s
Spoilers for ‘Mrs America’ Episode 5 ‘Phyllis and Fred and Brenda and Marc’
There are many things worth admiring in the FX miniseries ‘Mrs America’. Powerful performances. A nuanced and complex portrayal of many historical figures -- feminists and anti-feminists alike. An extremely catchy pop-funk rendition of Beethoven's 5th Symphony as the intro theme. And, of course, the efforts that the costume and makeup teams have put into making the actors uncannily resemble their real-life counterparts.
But what is, perhaps, the biggest accomplishment of the show, is it’s criticisms of the second-wave feminist movement, especially in the lines of racial equality and sexual orientation. One of the more searing examples of this criticism comes in the form of Uzo Aduba’s Shirley Chisholm. The show portrays how the top leaders of the feminist movement, including Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan and even Gloria Steinem, felt their movement was more important than seeing a black woman succeed in politics, which would have been a milestone in terms of both race and gender.
That’s only the beginning. The show subtly, on many occasions, displays how despite being rooted in the anti-capitalist and anti-racist civil rights movements, second-wave feminism could be clumsy in working with people of color. African-American feminists increasingly found themselves alienated from the central platforms of the mainstream women’s movement. It’s a problem that’s present even today in what has been popularly called “white feminism”.
This is demonstrated again through the character of Margaret Sloan-Hunter, played by Bria Henderson. Margaret was a black feminist, lesbian, civil rights advocate and one of the early editors of Ms magazine. In one of the episodes, when Margaret pitches the idea of writing a feature on racial tokenism in the feminist movement, it was met with indignation from the other white editors. Some even gaslighted her, claiming that they would never treat her as a token while shrugging off her piece.
One of the bigger critiques of the show is reserved for Betty Friedan, often touted as the pioneer of the modern feminist movement. Feminist theorist Gloria Jean Watkins, who wrote under the lower-case nom de guerre, 'bell hooks', argued in her 1984 book ‘From Margin To Center’ that Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique’ did not focus on what was a universal female problem but rather a problem endured only by white, upper- and middle-class mothers and wives.
Hooks wrote, “From her early writing, it appears that Friedan never wondered whether or not the plight of college-educated white housewives was an adequate reference point by which to gauge the impact of sexism or sexist oppression on the lives of women in American society. Nor did she move beyond her own life experience to acquire an expanded perspective on the lives of women in the United States.”
Friedan’s criticism in the show also comes in the connotation of her views on homosexuality, along with the many in the movement being wary of the stereotype that feminists were mostly homosexual and the stigma that arose from it. Friedan coined the phrase “Lavender Menace” in the late 1960s in reference to the threat that lesbian feminists supposedly posed to the feminist movement.
The effect of this is present in the latest episode where feminist activist Brenda Feigen-Fasteau (Ari Graynor) is shown to exhibit bisexual tendencies. Unfortunately, Brenda curtails these tendencies and gives in to a life of heterosexuality for fear of being marked as yet another lesbian feminist. The second-wave feminist movement was imperative to the rise of modern intersectional feminism. But it nursed many flaws. And ‘Mrs America’ does an excellent job of calling each one of them out.
'Mrs America' drops new episodes weekly every Wednesday only on Hulu.
