waves of feminism, musing, part deux

[dichroic]

Note: the following applies to US feminism specifically; though I’ve seen the results of feminist movements in some other places, I don’t know enough about their history to make any intelligent comments.

I still don’t believe in anything so defined and homogeneous as waves of feminism. Well, maybe I do, if you consider it from the oceanography standpoint – waves are constantly churniing, individual molecules of water can move in and out of a wave, and flotsam can be carried along. But anyway, someone recently asked me about third wave feminism, having been disturbed by some of what she’d seen under that identification, and I do think it’s possible to generalize about some of the changes from the 1970s until now.

I would very much appreciate discussion from any feminists about whether this feels right to you, and if not, what you would change or add. (I would very much *not* appreciate comments about how all feminists hate men and want to emasculate all boys – in fact, I’m likely to assume that any comment assuming that “all” of any group of humans react identically is most probably incorrect.)

As a gross generalization, I think it’s fair to say that since the 1960s, feminism has consisted of the idea that a person’s opportunities should not be defined or limited by their gender.

From what I’ve seen I’d say that people who identify as third-wave feminists would still agree with that line, but that they’d say it isn’t quite as simple as the 1970s view.

Point 1: ALL women need to be included in that. One problem with 1970s feminism is that it tended to focus mostly on the goals that benefited middle-class white women. Those were important goals (the right to work at any job, for instance) and they needed to be won, but they weren’t always the highest priorities for all women. For instance, for for poor women who had always worked but who needed support for their working, anything from health insurance to low-cost daycare to access to clean water in developing countries. It’s not that 1970s feminists were fighting the wrong battles, it’s just that they missed a lot of the battles that needed to be won in order to win the war (and maybe got the prioritization of battle zones wrong, as well).

Point 2: ALL people need to be included in that, and not everyone considers gender as something that is binary and that never changes. The gay rights movement keeps growing its umbrella, from covering gay men and lesbians to LGBT to LGBTQi (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning and Intersex) but these are feminist issues too, if feminism is to achieve the goal I stated above, of not limiting people by gender.

Point 3: ALL people need to be included in that, and it’s as important for little boys to wear pink sparkly shoes if they want as it is for little girls to play with trucks if they want to. Actually this is something 1970s feminism did address – I just re-listened to Free to Be You and Me in its entirety last night (it turns out to be good erging music) and it’s all over that album, but it never got as well-understood as a feminist goal, as the right of women to have good jobs did.

Point 4: Trust women. Adults get to make their own decisions – even if you think they’re wrong, even if it looks like an unfeminist choice. Sometimes they are wrong, and they still get to make their own choices; sometimes, often, they understand the stakes and the bigger picture better than an outside observer can.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Comments

[oursin]

My impression - having been there and done that - is that a lot of the ways in which '70s feminism' is represented are very distorted and (also) rather USA- centric.

In the UK there were some significant instances of industrial action protesting unequal pay by working-class and non-white women - cf recent movie, Made in Dagenham, also the Grunwick strike, the leader of which, Jayaben Desai, died recently.

And as I recall, the feminist periodical Spare Rib was very much reporting on women's struggles worldwide.

I've also discussed 'wave theory' with historians of women and feminism from various different parts of Europe, and there tends to be a feeling that the US pattern doesn't really map very effectively outside its borders.

[dichroic]

Being American, I'll definitely confess to a US-centric view - but then again, it is US feminism that has made the biggest difference in my life.

On the other hand, is the third wave a global thing, and if so, can you describe it? Or is it more the wash you see after a wave, as the US tries to catch up with the rest of the world? On the other hand, I don't see women in the Netherlands or Taiwan being far ahead of American women, except that the Netherlands is generally ahead in most aspects of GLBT rights (don't know about the Q part).

[dichroic]

I've added a note specifying that this is US only due to the limitations of my historical knowledge elsewhere.

[oursin]

Which wave it is (if it is waves at all) and what it looks like varies enormously from country to country, depending on a huge range of local historical factors. And what is meant by feminism - there's been some fascinating work by a historian friend of mine on Switzerland, which of course gave women the federal vote very late indeed, on how women were able to influence the political process through NGOs and pressure groups. There are also countries - e.g. France - which have female-friendly things like excellent nursery care going back for decades, but not for feminist reasons, out of pronatalist concerns. Australia gave women the vote very early, but is far from devoid of sexism. I've heard Dutch friends say that the lauded sex-ed in schools there is not always wonderfully diversity-positive, and Scandinavians mention the lingering sexism under the apparent gender-egalitarianism (also, once heard a Swedish woman talk about sex ed and make statements about 'immigrants' that I don't think a British or Dutch speaker on the topic would have made).

So it's the usual all-more-complicated, and saying 'they've/we've got it right and we/they have a ways to go' is not really going to detail the complexities, and that some may be better on one measure and some on others.