Imagine President George W. Bush Sept. 12, 2001, standing proudly on top of the rubble with his arm around a male firefighter.
Some say the problem with this image is that America re-entered a time when John Wayne saves the day and the frail Doris Day looks to him for protection.
Feminists are raising awareness about this post-Sept. 11 fixation on the heroic "manly man" and attack on feminism, said English professor Jill Swiencicki.
"Bush uses bullying and aggressive rhetoric such as, 'You're either with us or against us,' in order to get Americans to do what he wants," she said. "When feminists didn't agree with his actions, it really put us in the 'against us.'"
Right after Sept. 11 feminist writer Katha Pollitt received death threats after encouraging Americans to "put out no flags," Swiencicki said. Pollitt simply wanted people to hang flags of the earth rather than the American flag.
"The flag of the earth shows the interconnectedness that feminism supports," she said. "And that is what crystallized feminism for me. But feminists that critiqued the war got flattened."
Swiencicki is working on a book about women after Sept. 11 and polemics, she said. When Bush told feminists not to make aggressive statements, they decided to do the opposite.
"Polemics are rants or angry speeches," Swiencicki said. "It's the most unfeminine way you could write. It's war-like speech."
The title of the book is "Rhetoric and Antiwar: Feminist Polemics after 9/11," she said. She is planning to submit it for publication this summer.
"The good thing about feminists is that they never put themselves outside of scrutiny," Swiencicki said. "That's why I like being a feminist."
Another book published on this topic is Susan Faludi's "The Terror Dream," which talks about the prediction that after Sept. 11 that women would ditch their careers and return to domestic comfort and create a baby boom that never came.
The book also shows how the female heroes were excluded from the media and firefighters were called firemen.
"There were firewomen," said junior Kyla Adams. "Women gave blood and did lots of things to help. But you didn't really hear about any of that."
One of the first things Bush said after Sept. 11 was women should go shopping and max out their credit cards to help the economy, as if this was the most important thing women could contribute, she said.
But other students think this backlash of feminism has been going on since before Sept. 11.
"It's been happening since the '80s with Reagan that feminism has regressed," said sophomore Katherine Jarvis. "But even more so since 9/11. In 9/11 you really only saw the males heroes."
Other students argue that despite Sept. 11 women are moving forward.
"Hillary running for office is definitely helping women progress," senior Bryan Filippi said. "But there is no way she is going to win."
Whether or not feminism is moving forward, young feminists are always battling with the scrutiny they get from people.
"Not all feminists are burning their bras," said Women's Center intern Kelly Hay. "People see all of us as man-hating machines, but it's actually based on equality."
Stereotyping all feminists as radicals is like stereotyping all corporations as being as bad as Wal-Mart, she said. The only feminists that are seen are the radicals in the media.
"We're not trying to fight against males," Hay said. "We're trying to fight against the social institution."
Sonja Kydd can be reached at skydd@theorion.com
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