posted June 04, 2007 06:49 PM         

The End of Feminism’s Third Wave
The cofounder of ***** magazine says goodbye to the generational divide
by Lisa Jervis

“Are you in the third wave?”

“When did the third wave start?”

“What’s the most important issue to third wavers?”

I get asked this a lot — at campus lectures, during radio interviews, at publishing conferences. I hate these questions. There are so many ways to answer, none of them entirely satisfactory.

I always want to pepper my interlocutor with questions instead:

Do you want to know how I identify, or how others would label me? Are you asking when the term was coined? When the first feminists who are considered part of the third wave became politicized? When the first riot grrl zine was published? What makes you think it’s possible to elevate one issue over all others? Which definition of the third wave are we talking about here, the chronological or the ideological?

This reluctance isn’t just me being cranky and not wanting to answer any hard questions. Here is the reality: We’ve reached the end of the wave terminology’s usefulness. What was at first a handy-dandy way to refer to feminism’s history and its present and future potential with a single metaphor has become shorthand that invites intellectual laziness, an escape hatch from the hard work of distinguishing between core beliefs and a cultural moment.

Using the simplest and most straightforward definition, I am, indisputably, a member of the third wave: I was born in 1972, right smack in the demographic that people think about when they think about the third wave. But discussions of the waves are only nominally about demographics. The metaphor wraps up differences in age, ideology, tactics and style, and pretends that distinguishing among these factors is unimportant.

Even the more nuanced discussions of third-wavers tend to cast them (or, given my birthday, should I say “us”?) as sex-obsessed young thangs with a penchant for lip gloss and a disregard for recent history, or sophisticated identity politicians who have moved past the dated concerns of their predecessors.

It’s no mystery why the discourse that has developed around the waves is divisive and oppositional. Writers and theorists love oppositional categories — they make things so much easier to talk about. Similarities are much more difficult. So, naturally, much has been said and written about the disagreements, conflicts, differences and antagonisms between feminists of the second and third waves, while hardly anything is ever said about our similarities and continuities.

The rap goes something like this: Older women drained their movement of sexuality; younger women are uncritically sexualized. Older women won’t recognize the importance of pop culture; younger women are obsessed with media representation. Older women have too narrow a definition of what makes a feminist issue; younger women are scattered and don’t know what’s important.

Stodgy versus frivolous. Won’t share power versus spoiled and ignorant.

Nothing on this list is actually true — but, because this supposedly great generational divide has been constructed out of very flimsy but readily available materials, the ideas persist in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It’s just so much easier to hit on the playful cultural elements of the third wave and contrast them with the brass-tacks agenda — and impressive gains — of the second wave: It’s become the master narrative of feminism’s progression (or regression, as some see it).

But when has it ever been a good idea to trust a master narrative? After all, the oft-repeated notion among self-described third-wavers that those labeled as hopelessly second-wave reject humor, fashion, sex or anything else that might be fun is just a slightly — and only slightly — more nuanced and polite version of the stone-faced, hairy-legged manhater whom we all know to be a myth that originated in the sexist culture at large and was cultivated and amplified by conservative, antifeminist and/or just plain clueless journalists and pundits.

The image of the frivolous young pseudofeminist has the same provenance. Take Time’s infamous June 29, 1998, cover story “Is Feminism Dead?,” for instance. In lambasting young women for being more interested in celebrity than the wage gap and seeing vibrators as more important than protests, writer Ginia Bellafante had to carefully ignore the vibrant anti-sweatshop movement spawning on college campuses at the time, or organizations like the Third Wave Foundation, feminist.com, SOUL, Home Alive or many of the other activist projects founded and run by women born in the ’70s and after.

When feminists engage in this kind of nuance-deprived conflation of age and ideology, we’re doing little more than reinscribing the thoroughly debunked notion that we need to agree with each other all the time.

As we all know, feminism has always held within it multitudes of ideologies, tactics and priorities. The movement’s two current generations have come to be painted as internally monolithic, but they are each as diverse philosophically as feminism itself —they have to be; they are feminism itself.

There are elements of both that are playful and take pop culture as both their medium and their subject matter: The 1968 Miss America protests defined the very start of the second wave, and their lineage extends to guerrilla theater groups like Ladies Against Women in the ’80s and the Radical Cheerleaders today.

There are elements of both that are relentlessly — and appropriately — serious: Combating rape and domestic violence was a key issue 35 years ago; its importance has not changed. Affordable, accessible child care is no less a concern now than it was in the ’70s.

Chronologically thirdwave publications such as Feminista! share their ideologies about pornography and sex work with Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. The riot grrls groups that sprang up in the early ’90s have clear connections to consciousness-raising groups. Last April’s hugely successful and inspiring March for Women’s Lives was intergenerational in both planning and attendance.

There’s certainly no shortage of disagreements both large and small within feminism. There are those who see transgender folks as interlopers in feminist spaces, and those who see genderqueers as the frontline soldiers against sexist systems of power.

There are those who would like to see “feminine” values replace “masculine” values as the defining characteristics of our society, and those who reject the very notion that these values have any gender apart from what’s been assigned by a sexist culture.

There are those who see gender as the overarching factor that shapes women’s oppression, and those who think that raising the minimum wage would achieve more feminist goals in one fell swoop than any other single act.

The issues motivating both sides of the ’80s sex wars are very much still with us. Even if some views are more common among one generation than another, at their roots these are ideological disagreements — but they can’t be discussed productively while in disguise as generational issues. That disguise keeps us distracted from the real work before the movement today.

Here’s what we all need to recognize so that we can move on: Those in their 20s and 30s who don’t see their concerns reflected in the feminism of their elders are ignorant of history; those in their 50s and beyond who think that young women aren’t politically active — or active enough, or active around the right issues — don’t know where to look.

We all want the same thing: To borrow bell hooks’ phrase, we want gender justice.

We may not all agree on exactly what it looks like or how to get it. We should never expect to agree. Feminism has always thrived on and grown from internal discussions and disagreements. Our many different and often opposing perspectives are what push us forward, honing our theories, refining our tactics, driving us toward a more thorough dismantling of the white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy (to borrow another phrase from hooks).

I want to see these internal disagreements continue. I want to see as much wrangling over them as ever. But I want them articulated accurately. And that means recognizing the generational divide for what it is — an illusion.
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posted June 04, 2007 09:02 PM         

I read it, and its good to know feminism is alive and well, and that women, and generations of women, are not so divided amongst themselves as we may have been led to believe. I can definitely sympathize with the author's frustration with a soundbite-mad media, always looking to make things simpler and juicier by highlighting the contrasts and conflicts.

Thank you for sharing this.

posted June 04, 2007 10:33 PM         

It began as a sort of liberation movement for women, brought about some good changes, but on the whole feminists go too far and they appear in many ways to be anti-male. Which I am not nor have I ever been.

I believe in equality for all human beings. Equal treatment and equal justice for all of humanity. I am a humanist.

Others can take their sides for and against but for me if anything, any movement does not represent equality for all humanity I want no part of it. I don't find that equality of humanity in the feminist movement.

posted June 05, 2007 09:07 AM         

Melody, Stephen, and Art: you are welcome. I liked the article because I thought it articulated an interesting balance and brought up some important issues within feminism and among women and the media . I think the reason the word is so scary to some is because of how it has been twisted and misused in our society especially by the media. I agree that that is sad.

Fayte, I cannot wait until the day that society is at a point where "huminism" is enough. In my opinion that day has not yet arrived but I have 100% faith that I will see it in my lifetime. Then I too will proudly call myself a "humanist".

Mirandee, I am pretty sure that no matter what we choose to call ourselves we want the same thing I think we are just using different words. For example, when you said "I believe in equality for all human beings. Equal treatment and equal justice for all of humanity", I had to smile. This, along with supporting women and their choices, is one of the few points to which almost ALL feminists would give a big

posted June 05, 2007 09:11 PM         

You impress me so much.

posted June 11, 2007 07:48 AM         

Though I have noticed some real differences, though they're not universal. For example, many feminists below the age of 30 tend to see guns as equalizers in a violent world (Mount Holyoke College, long famed for its feminism, has just opened an undergrad chapter of the Second Amendment Sisters, btw, to the outrage of many older feminists), while many older than 30 tend to view guns as phallic sympbols of a patriarchal death cult. Though the one who first got me into shooting was herself a feminist in her 50s.

Older feminists, I've noticed, seem to think they made the world all rosy, too. They're shocked to find out like what I experienced in the school system in the 90s, stuff that's too normal but they think doesn't happen anymore. Also, older feminists tend to be a lot more tied in with the Democratic Party in the USA, though those my age tend to see blatant misogynistic behavior from that party (along with the Republicans). Ditto, the United Nations (which--among soldiers and politicians both--has conducted serious sexual abuse and trafficking of women in more than one country, but older feminists tend to trust them anyway).

Natch, these are all generalizations and not to be taken as any universal truth.

As to some not liking feminism, some men don't like it because they don't like women. Other men don't like it because they feel unfairly maligned for the sins of other men--and in some cases they're right.

Then there's what I call "victim feminism" that's powerful because victimization in our culture tends to evoke special compensation. I myself hate this as it's demeaning, as I feel it's like describing feminity with some disability, like, "Oh, I'm a woman, please feel sorry for me and take care of me because I'm not capable of taking care of myself." (A friend of mine despises "victim politics" in racial politics, too.) Unfortunately, some men are just as prone to persecution complexes so that a woman can't express a fear of rape without him condemning all women as vile perverts or castrating man-haters or some such.

It should be noted that plenty of feminists do care about male issues. It's mostly feminsits that worry about the suffering of boys, and why not, many are mothers. And when some feminist group puts out something that maligns men, another feminist group (or 2 or 3) will usually make a statement decrying that.

I myself recall not only the sexual abuse of girls on the streets (and/or running from the same) but also of boys. I think overall that girls have it harder on the streets in most ways, but I wonder how much more damaging some aspects are to the male psyche with the powerful "boys code" that tyrannically affects guys than it is on girls who endure some of the same things.

I personally get angry for those boys that get arrested for a toy gun or like that 4-year-old boy that was charged with sexual harasment for hugging his teacher. I felt for the boy as much as the girl when both were charged with mutual sexual abuse because of how stupidly a law designed to protect kids was being misused (as it's a felony to have sex with a child under 14, 2 children under 14 who had consensual sex were both charged with a felony).

Plus, it seems plenty of boys also experience a lot of their own abuse done mostly by men wanting to "make a man" out of a boy (a year or so ago there was even a toddler beaten to death as the dad was trying to make a "man" out of him, and a friend of mine said her husband got onto her for hugging her then-4-year-old boy as the dad feared it would make a "sissy" out of the boy). I hate hearing of all the sexual abuse boys do to boys in "hazing" rituals, sometimes with full knowledge (or even participation) of adults, just as much as I hated the severe sexual harassment I had to put up with in school by students and faculty both (typically by males). I guess it's like how I empathize with boys and girls both on the streets experiencing and/or running from sexual abuse.

posted June 11, 2007 03:26 PM         

quote:

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Fayte, I cannot wait until the day that society is at a point where "huminism" is enough. In my opinion that day has not yet arrived but I have 100% faith that I will see it in my lifetime. Then I too will proudly call myself a "humanist".

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