Amy Siskind, co-founder of The New Agenda, an advocacy group for women, told The Daily Caller that while she wasn’t ready to attribute Hefner’s attitude to feminism, she did believe over-sexualized imagery to be a byproduct of third wave feminism gone awry.“The first wave of feminism got women the right to vote,” Siskind said. “The second wave, with women like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, gave women permission to make choices and enjoy sex. But the third wave — kind of the 1990s and on…was the idea that there is empowerment in being defined by our sexuality.”
While Siskind credits the third wave with the shift, even second wave feminist Betty Friedan, co-founder of the National Organization for Women and author of “The Feminist Mystique,” walked that fine line between liberation and objectification. In 1992, Friedan gave an interview to Playboy contributing editor, David Sheff, in which she told him that she did not have a problem with celebrating the female form in forums like Playboy, so long as it did not result in objectification.
“Playboy’s centerfold is fine,” Friedan told Sheff. “It’s holding onto your own anachronism and it is not pornographic, though many of my sisters would disagree. It’s harmless. I was amused to see that a recent graduate of Smith, my colleague, posed for a pictorial and defended herself by saying that she could celebrate her sexuality if she wanted to…At the same time, I don’t approve of anything that reduces women to sex objects, and I really disapprove of anything that degrades women or depicts them as the object of violence.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member