Foucault, Femininity, and the Moderinzation of Patriarchal Power

Bartky asks a very important question near the end of her piece on feminism, "Why aren't all women feminists?" While I could sit here and attest to a never-before-seen realization of how men may actually oppress women more than we know, I find that trying to answer that question using her own argument may be a more effective use of this assignment. It should be mentioned however that I am trying to approach this entirely sexually unbiased, as I know, being male, my arguments against the feminism ideals of Bartky may come across as such. I find that the reason why more women aren't feminists, at least when this article was written, is because there was a severe lack of coherence and message in the movement itself. Bartky focuses her argument on the theories of Michel Foucault, and on Jeremy Bentham's idea of the Panopticon, a single-towered, circular prison in which the prisoners are psychologically inclined to police themselves as they always know they are being watched. When I read this statement I immediately saw where Bartky was coming from. It is not hard to imagine that women are constantly and unfairly being watched over by society and are expected to appeal to a certain set of ideals in order to be accepted, therefore learning to police themselves constantly. This being concretely conveyed, she goes on to lose her readers in an analysis of who exactly should be to blame for the existing oppression, who, in reality, is standing in the proverbial tower of the Panopticon of society. She first accuses men, which was of no surprise to me, nor was it entirely incorrect, referring to how, "a panoptical male connoisseur resides within the consciousness of most women: [where] they stand perpetually before his gaze and under his judgment." But then she backs this argument up with instances that, instead of reinforcing the position of the male in the "tower," rather enforce the ideal of the women policing themselves from inside their "cells". She gives her readers a number of examples of "self-movements" wherein women are constantly changing and criticizing their images for the sake of themselves and one-another without the direct influence of any disciplinary force outside of themselves. I find that with this in mind it seems as though the feminist movement lacked the one thing it needed most to be as successful as movements like the Civil Rights Movement were...a cohesive enemy. In being unable to place or accept any blame, be it violent or not, it seems as though the movement could not decide whether to address the oppression they believed to be instituted by men, or rather to go after their own who inadvertently "put down" the "rebellion" every time they, "[pick] up [their] tweezers or [embark] on a new diet." I suppose I may be using circular logic to a degree here but I just had a very hard time in finding any kind of direction to Bartky's arguments and accusations, which therefore leads me to answer her question of "Why aren't all women feminists," with her own answer: "If my analysis [of her article] is correct," the reason why all women aren't feminists is because, "such a feminism is incoherent."