A hundred years of the women's movement and what do we have? Women sneaking off to read "mommy porn" on their Nooks.

Wouldn't our suffragette grandmothers be proud?

You've heard about "Fifty Shades of Grey," right? Despite what most men might think, this terribly popular book has very little to do with encouraging its readers to let their hair revert to its natural color.

Guys who think this novel will prevent their wives from going to the beauty parlor are kidding themselves. If anything, the opposite is true: Women are going to the salon so that they can meet other women to discuss sadomasochism and dominance while complaining the water is too hot as a stylist shampoos them out.

And make no mistake: The women reading E.L. James' book are of the graying group. It's not 18- to 26-year-olds who are devouring pages (or screens) of panting and un-panting. They are too busy doing it to read about it.

Notice that women reading the book are not attempting to look better or become more seductive for the actual men in their lives. The actual men in their lives have become props; they are far less significant than the passage held by the bookmark.

Women are swatting away their small children in order to finish the sexy bits, of which there are many (actually, there's nothing else). They are staying in their sweat pants and ordering General Tso's three times per week instead of cooking, going to work or fulfilling their "Literacy in America" volunteer commitments.

Why? Apparently the majority of 21st-century women are now fantasizing about the tortured -- and torturing -- hero of "Fifty Shades of Grey," a hugely rich man named Christian. My bet is that wealthy, virile, jet-owning men aren't exactly thumbing through the text because they're thumbing, umm, through The Wall Street Journal. (You thought I was going to say something else, didn't you?)

Not that there's anything wrong with powerful men. Some are sort of cute. Even the ones who aren't cute often exude an intriguing mix of power, charm and savior faire (French for "expensive car") that explains their attraction for naive women. Such guys might especially appeal to a significantly younger woman within their circle of influence even when their allure is starting to fade.

Think Donald Trump. Think Henry Kissinger. Think Yoda.

Women are encouraged by our culture to look for men who will provide them with an identity, even if that identity is "slave." The more prominent and elevated a man, the more difficult it is to secure his recognition and so the more valuable his attention becomes. This sort gives women, especially insecure women, a sense that they are somebody if the powerful man knows their name, their tastes or wears their ties -- or makes them wear his.

It's as if such women are invisible until a powerful man looks in their direction and then they have achieved what they've always wanted -- a name for themselves as so-and-so's latest object of desire. It used to be that the name women wanted from these relationships was wife but that is no longer the case.

And I don't think we've moved up a notch, either.

Just when we thought our daughter's futures would be defined, stronger positions in the worlds of the culture, the workplace, the family and politics, it turns out a lot of women are soaking up this message: "You want me to make choices? OK, then! I am choosing to be submissive to a man who has a playroom of pain and who wants to decide what I eat, where I go and purchases my electronic devices."

Do we really want to keep underscoring the lesson that women will obey you if (1) Cash is dangled front of them; and (2) They are treated poorly emotionally and physically?

Women are pretending that they are the virginal heroine (with the all-too-common name of "Anastasia Steele" -- don't you know, like, 12 women with that name?) whom he chooses as his object of desire.

Except "desire" is maybe not the right word for it. Maybe "target" or "victim" would be more accurate.

And maybe "bondage" is just a sexy word for "degradation."

Gina Barreca is an English professor at the University of Connecticut, a feminist scholar who has written eight books and a columnist for the Hartford Courant.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)