I hate to jump to any conclusions here, because I actually have no confidence in a fourth wave of feminism coming out of the United States.

Yet, it does seem that significant numbers of American women are waking up and smelling the coffee, regarding our lack of progress, unlike women in Scandinavia or Botswana, for example. All critical statistics say that American women are losing ground, compared to the rest of the world.

Amy Siskind writes in The Daily Beast’s “A Year in Sexism”:

As we stand at the crossroads of possiblity, women’s advocacy must adapt. We can no longer afford to remain one-party dimensional. It’s a losing proposition.

Is Siskind suggesting that Democratic women exercise their option to become Republicans? Or is she suggesting something more dramatic — that women’s revolt from both parties? I’m not sure.

Third parties function all the time in Europe, but I don’t think women can raise the mooney in America, so we’re stuck with the two party system we have.

Sorry, ladies. Both parties have women just where they want them. We gave them that power in the eighties forward, and our fate is signed, sealed and delivered.

Progress is made where it’s mandated. Fifty years after marching and accomplishing not much in America, compared to other women in the world, we babes are stuck with our lot.

However, it’s good to let off some steam, and Amy Siskind does that.

Taking a cleansing breath is good for the spirit before we hunker down into the same old rhetoric again. It does all sound pretty familiar out there doesn’t it? I know; I know … change is coming.

The femmes also got a bit rankled over the film industry this week. Let me try to keep this focused:

Nancy Meyers directing a scene from ‘‘It’s Complicated.’’ via NYTimesDaphne Merkin has a weekend New York Times magazine feature Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women? I haven’t read it yet.

Merkin writes about director Nancy Meyers, whose latest movie “It’s Complicated” opens on Christmas Day. Think of the sassy previews with Meryl Streep and Alex Baldwin, divorced but together again in a hot tub or similar venue.

Merkin’s focus is on Hollywood, where women heads of studios are just as tough as men in saying “no deal” to women directors.The conclusion: women cannot make movies that make money. It’s just not part of women’s DNA.

Merkin is contained in her NYTimes piece, but properly so. After all, she’s writing for the NYT.

It’s Jezebel where Merkin let’s loose. Quoting the critic, the headline is (ahem) compelling: “Fuck Them”: Times Critic on Hollywood, Women, & Why Romantic Comedies Suck”. I assure you that the piece got far more notice than the NYTimes original article.

Dargis’ “fuck them” - the first of several - refers specifically to a fact she highlighted in her piece this weekend on the lack of progress in Hollywood films for and about women: Two major studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures, didn’t release a single movie directed by a female, even in a year of renewed prominence for women in film. One bright spot: The Hurt Locker by Kathryn Bigelow (pictured above) is sweeping the early critics’ awards : in the past two days alone she and her film have gotten top accolades from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the American Film Institute, The New York Film Critics Online, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.

Read on at Jezebel.

A certain cheerlessness about the reality of sexism is hanging over the NYTimes this weekend.

Patricia Cohen’s From ‘Vibrator’ to ‘Cougar Town,’ Sex Is Still a Man’s World acknowledges that although America has moved on from a Victorian view of sex to a boldly open, 24/7 365 Super Sexy culture, there’s a downside to the trend.

The difference now, say media, feminist and cultural critics, is that the mostly male-run film and television industries, as well as the profit-driven medical and pharmaceutical establishment, can aggressively promote their own self-interested standards of beauty, sexiness and normality.

“Men comprise the majority of the creative community,” said Martha M. Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. In a nutshell, the manly, often frat-boy vision of female sexuality prevails.

In our super-sized porn world, the fantasies can be even more detatched from women’s inner sexual life.

Dr. Lauzen studied the 2008-9 television season, surveying more than 2,100 of the most powerful jobs in prime-time network broadcasting. Women held a quarter of the slots, presumably because women can’t create programming that makes money.

Dr. Lauzen did a similar examination of the film industry, which revealed that of more than 2,700 people who worked on the top 250 films at the domestic box office last year, women accounted for 16 percent of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors. Nearly a quarter of those films employed no women in any of those key jobs. Presumably, women can’t make financially successul films.

Focusing on directors, the Lauzen team found that women made up a mere 9 percent of the total — the same as in 1998. Same story, ladies. We lack creativity.

My position on this feminism issue is pretty clear.

Compared to women in Europe, parts of Africa and probably China, too, American women have been more concerned about being “good girls” then behaving like second-wave feminists who were self-absorbed, bad mothers whose narcissistic nature forced a generation of our adult children into therapy.

Many have never recovered from the trauma. We also launched a self-help industry in our wake and the fact that we’re having sex in our fifties is further evidence of the fact that we just can’t stop being the center of attention.

Apparently, there was a lot of collateral damage in America in the wake of seventies feminism.

America is also a very largely religous country, and there’s no important place for women in most religions. We are helpmates, which is our divine nature. Also helpmates are critical to the planet. It’s not that we lack self-worth; it’s just more hidden and modest. See Nicholas Kristoff’s comment on Jimmy Carter on Religion As Agent of Women’s Oppression.

Feminism was just too much for America to bear, and so it passed us by, compared to many other countries.

Today’s college women think there is no discrimination in women’s lives in America. Let’s hope that their total confidence means that they won’t hesitate to ask for raises, will celebrate a fair win over a worthy opponent, and learn to play golf.

Fifty years later, nobody takes women all that seriously anymore, when the topic is sexism in America. We blew our wad, and guess what — nobody’s shakin’ in their boots over American women. We would have to do something really radical to move any further forward, than we have to date. We’re tapped out, ladies.

Yes, I know. The 21st century belongs to women; I’ve read all the reports. We’ll see. Personally, I think the patriarchy is gearing up big time.

There’s hope, though. Every week, more men than women say “rally on” in my mailbox. They are the good guys, but only women improve women’s lives. There is no good girl silver platter headed our way, even though hope springs eternal.

Meanwhile, we can focus on poor women with no rights. Perhaps our energy will bring better results out of America. Anne