You Said It, Girl

60s/70s Brit feminist Sheila Rowbotham in the Guardian bemoans those nasty capitalists who have hijacked her lovely revolution. Laban repeats himself.

"Four decades on, we can see that the rebellions of 1968 coincided with capitalism changing gear."

That's one way of putting it. But it was no coincidence.

Your brilliantly successful cultural revolution weakened the old culture to the point where capitalism, flexible by nature and untrammeled by its previous cultural constraints, could flourish on the weakened organism like some opportunistic infection.

"How could we have known that empowerment would be the adman's dream ticket or that the market would zoom in so thoroughly on personal identity ?"

Because you destroyed the old, basically Christian culture, and didn't replace it with anything (although I expect questionnaire will be along at any moment to agree that it was all those nasty capitalists).

It's not as if the signs weren't there from the beginning, either. Remember the Virginia Slims cigarette ads ?

"You've come a long way, baby"

But we have further to go yet. Enjoy the ride.

(Incidentally, ex-smackhead/ex-drunk driver and Spare Rib founder Rosie Boycott has either recanted all her beliefs or she's very short of cash. In today's Daily Mail she argues that the reason there aren't more female CEOs is that biology is destiny.

"because of their biological make-up, most women want to limit the amount of time they spend at work and to find "inherent meaning" there, as opposed to domination - a goal which thrills men but leaves most women disenchanted. As such, women's biological make-up conflicts with making lots of money and rising through the ranks.

These, of course, are the sort of conclusions that used to make my feminist blood boil.")

But it's a comment by "millytante" on Ms Rowbotham's piece that really hits the mark :

"You [meaning the Western male] have lost control of your women." Screamed one red faced apoplectic imam at the camera in a bbc docu.

And he is right, and thank gawd for that. But instead of celebrating the release we women are getting from these patriarchs we find the western male too lily livered to protest"

Yup. Lily-liveryness isn't something you can just turn off and on as convenient. Milly, I'd like you to meet an old family friend, Mr Unintended Consequences.