Young Women and "Feminism"

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A lot of the ideas showing up in this thread appear in Feminist Fatale
(Paula Kamen, New York: Donald I. Fine, 1991).  Basic reasons young
women were not identifying with feminism were 1) all that's been done so
we don't have to, 2) it's too hard -- I don't want to dedicate my life
to a cause, and 3) it will offend/upset men.

Kamen's research revealed that most young women had the same concerns
their mothers did 25 years ago -- equal opportunity/pay, ending violence
against women --

The book is 16 years old and might be outdated, but it sounds still on
target.

Marilyn Grotzky

> It seems to me that "younger people", such as HS
> students, or college
> students, confer different meanings onto the
> concepts of "race", racism,
> "class", "sexism", and other ideas, to include
> "feminism", than those of us
> who are "older".
>
> They live in a different world than we do, than we
> did. Their experiences
> are very different than ours were.

Absolutely!  If I were to tell my students that their
low-rider jeans or their "hottie" sweatpants and belly
shirts were a mark of the patriarchy, they'd be pretty
turned off to feminism.  I'd rather focus on issues
around what pressures they feel to dress any
particular way.

And, FWIW, I don't think feminism should dictate dress
codes.  This issue continually divides us as
feminists, and not just generationally.

Jessica Nathanson

Jessica Nathanson, Ph.D. American Studies
Concentration, Women's Studies
Instructor, English and Gender Studies
Augustana College
Kilian Community College
janathanson  AT  yahoo.com

It seems to me that feminism will always be shunned by most of our young in
the way that being  "commies," or in these days, "liberals," are shunned:
because to young people who are still in their formative years
intellectually,  peer pressure dictates their fashions and ideas. That peer
pressure is magnified by the raging hormones of that age. How do you
espouse feminism when you are dying to be a sexual grown-up and the
mainstream culture actively rejects it? Only a few will break with the
pack. This is particularly the case with an ideology that is demonized by
the majority. I find that this is true, though to a lesser extent, with
college students. I can't believe the young women who come to class with
the bare midriffs, low -cut blouses, and high heels, but the desire to find
a partner is very strong, and the ideologies of feminism question the basic
roles and relationships between men and women.

This is nothing new. It was an issue with the students I taught when I was
a graduate student and it continues to be today. We just need to keep
teaching and remember that we may not see the effects ourselves; that they
may not realize it until they take their first post-college job, or are in
their first serious relationship.

Hello

I have been following this thread of emails on young
folks fear of associating with feminism closely and
wanted to add an additional perspective.  I don't
think young women and men fear or shun association
with the label "feminist" any more than adults.  Our
culture as a whole rejects the label and the political
movement because to be a feminist in many ways means
to challenge the status quo and that can be a scary
and hard thing to take on as an individual.  It's a
lot easier or at least more inviting to challenge the
status quo when you have someone next to you doing the
same thing.

So maybe the way to attract more young folks to
feminism and women's studies is to start with asking
ourselves why adults fear feminism as well.  No one
wants to be ostracized.  Building a critical mass of
feminists who can surround adults and youth and show
them support as they begin to challenge everything
they once thought was acceptable and natural is a key
piece to building a community where feminism attracts
new faces and perspectives. :)

Just for fun (and to make a point), I recommend the song

You Ain't Doin Nothin (if you ain't been called a red!)

By Faith Petric

 When I was just a little thing
 I used to love parades.
 With banners, bands, red balloons,
 and maybe lemonade.
 When I came home one May Day,
 my neighbour's father said,
 "Them marchers is all commies.
 Tell me kid, are you a Red?"

 Well I didn't know just what he meant-
 my hair back then was brown.
 Our house was plain red brick-
 like most others in the town.
 So I went and asked my momma
 why our neighbour called me red.
 My mummy took me on her knee
 and this is what she said,

 "Well ya ain't done nothing
 if ya ain't been called a Red.
 If you marched or agitated,
 then you're bound to hear it said.
 So you might as well ignore it
 or love the word instead.
 Cuz ya ain't been doing nothing
 if ya ain't been called a Red."

 When I was growing up,
 had my troubles I suppose.
 When someone took exception
 to my face or to my clothes.
 Or tried to cheat me on the job
 or hit me on the head.
 When I organized to fight back,
 why the stinkers called me Red

 But ya ain't done nothing
 if ya ain't been called a Red
 if you marched or agitated,
 then you're bound to hear it said.
 So you might as well ignore it
 or love the word instead.
 Cuz ya ain't been doing nothing
 if ya ain't been called a Red.

 When I was living on my own,
 one apartment that I had.
 Had a lousy rotten landlord
 Let me tell you he was bad.
 But when he tried to throw me out,
 I rubbed my hands and said,
 "You haven't seen a struggle
 if you haven't fought a Red!"

 And ya ain't done nothing
 if ya ain't been called a Red.
 If you marched or agitated,
 then you're bound to hear it said.
 So you might as well ignore it
 or love the word instead.
 Cuz ya ain't been doing nothing
 if ya ain't been called a Red.

 Little Red Songbook

****

Georgia


************************************
Georgia NeSmith, Ph.D.
Adjunct Associate Professor
Communication Department
University of Maryland University College
http://homepage.mac.com/georgia.nesmith
http://georgia_nesmith.tripod.com
************************************

I've also been following the discussion after my short interjection
earlier.  I think the other thing we need to be clear about is why do
we want young people to associate with the term?  Assuming we agree
that all political labels are a product of their time and location why
is it important that young women call themselves "feminists"?

I would argue that their commitment to the issues of feminism is more
important.  And in my work with UK high school level students I've
definately seen that commitment.  Young women who may not even know
what feminism means feel a strong commitment to women's empowerment,
equal rights and rights over reproductive control.  These girls are
living feminist lives in some ways, the language and the ideals of
feminism form part of their basis.  I would advocate not getting tied
up on a label (after all it's not as if the term was uncontentious in
the 1970's and 1980's and some women chose not to be associated with
it despite sharing ideals) and to get motivated on the fact that these
young people do share ideas, and have news ones.

I think it's essentially problematic to be asking "why don't young
women associate with a term located in it's creation in the 1960's and
1970's which has been contentious and posited as exclusionary from
that moment and which has a very negative set of connatations?".
Phrased that way doesn't the question seem almost redundant?

I would however be concerned if what we were asking is "why don't
young women believe in the right for women to have reproductive
control?" or "why do young women condone violence in intimate
relationships (particularly male on female violence)?" and so on.

Dr Louise Livesey

In response to Wendy,

I like that term "toxic environment."   We seem to be
in an era where the dominating climate of opinion is
distinctly anti-humane and aggressively anti-publication,
anti-validation of any deviation from behaviors that does
not promote general commercial success or admiration
for individuals.

The decline or erasure (and perversions) of feminism
form an important patch in a larger picture.  The importance
can be seen in how women are made to bear the
burden this aggressive thrust as its (meaning men's)
possessions and exemplary trophies.  I suggest
you have to take into account -- and discuss
the larger picture too.

I recommend a book I used with 2 sections of an Intro
to Lit class last term and am forging ahead (I really
am) again with this term in a Junior Level Humanities
comp course:  Azar Nafisi's _Reading Lolita in Teheran_.
You have real life stories and the different sections
about different books and authors enables you to
bring in many interlocking themes (capitalism for
one) as well as real life politics and wars going on
right now.

Ellen Moody

This is a great song, and while I would perhaps like to claim a female
author for it, I'm very sure that this song was written by Elliot Keenan.

> Just for fun (and to make a point), I recommend the song
> You Ain't Doin Nothin (if you ain't been called a red!)
>
> By Faith Petric

Louise, your argument presents important food for thought.

The root of my concern, while planning this upcoming course for high school
students, is my unfamiliarity with the defining philosophies and goals of
"Third Wave Feminism". Until recently, I didn't realize that this phrase
even existed. I've read "Day Without Feminism" by Baumgardner & Richards
and I have to say, some of the "feminist scenarios" it presented left me
puzzled. Still, if Manifesta IS a defining book on Third Wave feminism, I
want to make an honest attempt to understand it.

Would anyone like to share their understanding of Third-Wave philosophies?
I'm sure we could generate a valuable discussion.

Shannon Mills
 Teacher, Parry Sound High School
millss  AT  nearnorth.edu.on.ca

> Would anyone like to share their understanding of Third-Wave philosophies?

    Three years ago, the list discussed this issue very energetically.  I
came up with a historical approach, tracing the historical environment of
each "wave" of American feminism, across the entire 20th century, to explain
why feminists of one time might believe something while feminists of another
time would believe something else.  I received many favorable comments about
it; at least it gets past the problem of trying to outline a particular
approach to feminism as representative of a particular generation.  It also
focuses on comparing the similarities and differences between the two
"waves" of American feminism rather than focus on imaginary artificial
distinctions.  Some things in it I would change now, and some parts of the
history I did not fully understand, but I think that the basic theory is
sound.  Dr. Korenman has made this discussion available through the
Internet; my contribution is here.

http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/jane5.html

Hannah Miyamoto
hsmiyamoto  AT  msn.com

To all WMSTL-ers intersted in "Third Wave Feminism"
and would like more information:

I wrote the definition of "Third Wave Feminism" for
the _Encyclopedia of American Social Movements_ (ed.
ME Sharpe, Inc., 2004) and would be happy to pass it
on to anyone who would like it -- it is  a full length
article that descibes its place in the "waves", what
it is, who it is, and includes short summaries of its
defining texts (Manifesta, Listen Up and organizations
(Third Wave Foundation) etc.

just email me privately at sarahrasmusson  AT  yahoo.com
and i will send you the link or a copy of the article.


Best, Sarah L. Rasmusson

One of the issues is that the definition of third wave is not yet
settled.  Some people describe Generation X-ers, some Generation Y.
But basically there is a pretty solid understanding that 3rd Wave
Feminism is about those women born during the WLM period (i.e. 1970s
and 1980s).  There are other texts and a good introduction to some of
the problems of third wave is Breaking the Waves, Gillis, Howie and
Munford (Palgrave 2004).

For me, as a feminist activist in 3rd Wave as well as an academic and
being UK based, 3rd wave is about those young women, mostly aged from
18-35 who have grown up with feminist ideas around them and who are
passionate about moving women forward.  But also for me there is a
challenge in third wave to the dominance of gender (hence the reason
some commentators conflate it with Postfeminism).  Second Wave
Feminism maintained the dominance of gender as a category and Third
Wave, to me anyway, suggests that to eliminate gender discrimination
one must deprivilege gender in quite specific ways.  Therefore there
is a lot of "cultural" activism including camapigns around issues in
advertising and the like as well as political, empowerment and other
campaigning roles.

Thats just some quick thoughts.

Louise

Dr Louise Livesey is quite right to remind us that a rose by
any other name smells as sweet.  However, in my experience
it is true that while numbers of young women are living the
lives of feminists, many are ashamed of having sex outside
marriage in the way young men do, and many will fall silent
when any discussion of abortion, marriage careers or other
women's issues made contentious by the public media here in the
US are brought up in classrooms which are made up of an
equal percentage of men.  More:  many are in retreat, and
are believing the old myths that were supposedly exploded
in the earlier part of this century.  They don't know about
the level of male violence.  It will be said they can't learn
about the realities of the job market until they get there,
but if you can give them no warning, how can you help
them to seek the real tools that will enable them to survive.
It has been mentioned on this list that by a huge
differential men go into the applied technologies of
science that are money-making.  My husband teaches an
Information Technology course for seniors at GMU (Program
Management) and this coming term 3 young women,
and 25 young men registered for the course.

I was really startled a couple of terms ago to find out that
in large numbers young women are beginning to think
abortion is baby-killing.  Large numbers.  In a typical
class I've had I'd say more than 3/4s of the girls say they
see it this way.  They have been led to think this through
medium and the uses of pseudo-science (like machines
which magnify heart-beats at a very early stage of
pregnancy).  They read about how they will be terribly
guilty, how bad it is to have an abortion, how they will
have a nervous breakdown (&c&c), and read little to
counter this. I assigned as a short talk two essays on
how medicine is practiced in this country:  a young
woman took it, and she was comfortable talking
about the first by Atul Gawande on "Doctors Make
Mistake" where he reveals just how chancy and
uncertain is medicine and how doctors without informing
patients practice on them; the second was by Danielle
Ofri where she tells of how she was almost prevented
from doing her responsibility to her patient because she
found herself working in a hospital supported by the
Catholic Church and was not allowed to give her
patients contraception information, not allowed to give
them abortion information.  She risked losing her job
when she became aware a patient was able to go to
a poor doctor.  She concluded her story with the story
of her abortion which was presented intelligently, bringing
in many emotoins, but emphasizing her relief and the
need she had to carry on her career.  This young girl
student pretended not to understand she was to cover
this story; when that wouldn't do, she pretended she
forgot it was there.  The existence of women's
shelters to escape abuse has grown by leaps
and bounds in the US in the last 20 years as has
the number of women politicians.  Without the
feminist movement, this would not be so.

You have to have courses, you have to present
books, you have to use language.

What are we to name these courses?  If you want to
give another side of the picture, what name do you
give your course?  You have to name it.  You have
to signpost it.  In my experience as an adjunct
lecturer I know that any name you give something
which comes with a stigma or is powerless and
in effect despised doesn't much matter.  If you
rename it, say "lecturer" the word lecturer becomes
stigmatized.  We see this in the history of the
terms crippled, disabled, handicapped and then
the sneers which accompany this attempt to
find a name which will not carry a label which
has been made painful:  physically challenged.

I agree the name feminism doesn't matter.  But you
have to name what you doing something and it's
the something that is at stake here, not the name.
"Gender studies" will soon go the way of feminism.
And use too abstract language the you will not
get your audience.

I'll conclude with a phone conversation I had yesterday
with a student I had in a class; she's in her 50s and
has no problem with labels like 'feminist' or 'women's
studies' if you ask her.  She was talking about how
startled she is to listen to young college women in their 20s
talking of their longing for babies in ways she would not
have.  She's intelligent and can understand what she
reads:  we discussed _Reading Lolita in Teheran_
and she said how from the beginning she had seen
Humbert Humbert is a abusive possessor with Lolita
as the powerless person we are seeing through his
eyes, and how much misreading the Kubrick film
causes -- or how it makes visible the way many
men will read it, and how irony and unreliable
narrators are difficult to understand (Wayne Booth
stuff I know).  I asked her if she had ever taken
a "women's studies" course.  She said she didn't
want to because "it's all women complaining."  I
was taken a bit aback.  She went on to say she
always took "it" in the hip and went on:  she got
round, managed, and somehow lived; "to sit and
complain in a ghetto" is "not me."  The deeper
idea here was about "losers" -- feminism as
like socialism the party of the havenots (we
have seen how in the US public marketplace
this split-and-lumping has been working
out with much aggressive sarcasm). I wonder how
others would respond to her.  I fear I didn't have a
good comeback.  In conversation it's also hard
to go on and on to tell so much (that needs
to be told) because you are preaching.

The fear of the label is the fear of the thing.
And if you don't have this label, you will have
to have another.  If you have no signpost which
really gives an idea what you are doing, how
will you get the people you want to come.
If you stop doing it, or do it in ways that are
overly complicit, then what have you achieved?

In the old story a rose by any other name
may have smelled as sweet, but it mattered
that the reality was Juliet was a Capulet
and Romeo a Montague.  The sides
murdered one another.  It does no good
to fight about names, but names matter because
they do attempt to encapsulate what is being
fought over or scorned or feared.

Ellen Moody