Author Has Her Say On `Group-Think' Feminism

She's been labeled a "pod feminist" (think "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") - someone who looks like a feminist but was planted by the right wing.

But Karen Lehrman, in town yesterday to promote her book "The Lipstick Proviso; Women, Sex & Power in the Real World," says that put-down just points up the kind of "group-think" she's protesting.

"It's a reflection of our insecurity that we all have to think alike, and like each other, and sing `Kumbaya' at rallies."

True, the 36-year-old former New Republic editor sprinkles her conversation with little zingers guaranteed to push the buttons of classic feminists: "The personal is no longer political"; as for sisterhood, "I'm a sister only to my brother."

You could call Lehrman's brand of feminism "back to the basics" - the idea that women need to keep it simple: equal rights, equal responsibility.

As long as women have the freedom to choose all courses, as long as they aren't self-destructive (big "ifs," some would argue), it can be equally feminist - or not - to enter a wet T-shirt contest, work in the "pink-collar ghetto" or get your breasts enlarged. Depends, Lehrman says, on the woman. (By this way of thinking, a tube top might be OK for some, but 3-inch spike heels, which cripple women's feet, are self-destructive.)

"Feminism," Lehrman says, "isn't a political agenda, lifestyle or wardrobe."

If that focus is kept, she argues, more women will buy into feminism - women who rejected it for fear it meant giving up the nuclear family, makeup or courtship, sacrifices that aren't necessary or desirable to Lehrman.

And why does it matter that women see themselves as feminist? Lehrman says that if they embrace the true feminist ideal - to be strong and independent, and to make their own choices - they'll be better off.

Her arguments emcompass a kind of "tough love" attitude toward women. Too many women, she argues, are overly sensitive and focused on relationships, wallow in their problems and blame themselves - leading them to make irrational choices, such as staying in abusive relationships and saying "yes"' when they want to say "no."

While socialization may be partly to blame - and biology, too - in the end, women's goal should be the same, she says: "I'm not saying there is no sexism or discrimination, but I'm talking about the tools for getting beyond it. It's not going to come from the government." (She's against quotas, for example.)

Only women themselves can give up self-destructive behaviors, she says: "I've said I think it's time to go back to the old idea of the consciousness-raising group."

She insists that despite the put-down of some detractors, she never meant that political work on behalf of women as a group (or sisterhood, some might say) isn't still needed. Areas still needing attention: domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, discrimination and abortion rights (she had a tough time deciding whether that was one of the feminist basics, and finally decided it was).

Lehrman says women have made enough political and economic gains that they can now venture - without fearing it will exile them to the kitchen - into the fraught territory of considering: Could women be equal but different?

She is quick to say that she is talking only about averages, and equally quick to say that we can't know completely what's nature and what's nurture. Since we can't see through the haze of socialization, we have to acknowledge future men and women may be different.

(To wit: How can we know if men wouldn't be more nurturing and be as eager as women to go part time at work unless the corporate and social structure are more accepting of Daddy-trackers?)

However, citing research on brain and hormonal differences as explanations for psychological and emotional differences, she speculates on what will eventually shake out. She mostly embraces the evolutionary biologists who point to emotional and psychological differences based on different reproductive roles.

Those roles mean there are good reasons, she argues, for most women not to like casual sex, to want to be courted and to put a lot of effort into trying to look good. They probably mean that, on average, women are more nurturing than men, and will be more likely than men to want to be their child's primary caretaker.

(As for Lehrman herself, in the last few years she's found herself yearning for children; single and seriously involved but not engaged, she hopes that will happen soon.)

Biology doesn't have to be destiny, she says, but if it's pulling we ought to know it, and let women (and men) figure things out from there.

It won't place women in boxes, she adds, because individual differences will remain: "Even if studies eventually find it's better that the mother stays home with the child (for the first few years), it wouldn't be that all women should be mothers, or that all mothers would be better than fathers."

One thing is sure, she says: The corporate world won't begin to respect motherhood until women do.