WOMANIFESTO

I recently responded to a Professor at Duke asking this feminists-in-the-media listserv I’m on about how we define third-wave feminism (for their future archive on the same) and I realized I wrote basically a personal (wo)manifesto on the topic. And also because I haven’t had tons of time to blog, much less pontificate on feminist philosophy, for like four months, I’m putting it out there. Discuss.
How would you characterize or define third wave feminism? (Keywords or short phrases that come to mind are fine.)
Third wave feminism – a diverse group of heavily pop culture-informed young women who live daily with the great strides and advantages made by the second wave, but who must work out the nuances, whether it’s better access to ob-gyn and abortion clinics, to navigating complex sexual landscapes in the aftermath of certain societal gender shifts. We are the babies of the OGs.
Do you consider yourself part of the third wave feminist movement?
I did, until the 2008 Democratic Primary Election season. The way some second wavers reacted to Obama, and the reasons they went in for Hillary (second wavers being boomers) exposed how split the ideas of the second wave are from the late-gen third wavers. I believe this season was the birth of the fourth wave, and I consider myself a part of it. I can pinpoint the one moment I felt this: when Gloria Steinem wrote an op-ed in the NY Times basically comparing gender discrimination to race discrimination and deciding women have had it worse than blacks. As if there aren’t black women, or as if you can even compare the two, or most importantly, as if civil rights and gender rights weren’t both inalienable, and aren’t part of the same end-game. The fourth wave is able to see clearly that social justice does not stop with gender, that if women are to be granted equalities across the board, that we must fight for equality for each one, all. The work, revelations (indeed the growing-up process) of the third wave got us to this point. I relate to second wavers less and less.
What do you see as the most important issues for today’s feminist activists? On the flip side, are there issues or constituent groups that are left out of the third wave?
Women of color, and women in poverty, particularly in the ’90s, got a lot of lipservice from the thirdwave, but there was not enough followthrough. One of the most important issues today for feminist activists is including all women in our agendas, particularly since young women of color have the highest instances of HIV contraction and if that isn’t a feminist issue I don’t know what is. Also, as ever, the right to choose is a fragile queen in our menagerie.
Fighting for women globally, especially in countries facing genocide, are key. Women are mass-raped in Darfur and they are sold into sex-slavery in Myanmar and they are sometimes beaten to death in Iran. The ongoing murders and disappearances of women of Ciudad Juarez is an ongoing, and vital, issue. We must use our power to work for these women in crisis, without disrespecting cultural differences and/or stomp in with our entitled western ideas and try to “fix” things. We must recognize feminist issues within larger ones–how globalisation, global warming, speed-industrialism, economic turmoil, late-stage capitalism, adversely affects women across the world.
Name a few individuals and organizations that you would consider to be key players in the third wave movement.
mine are mostly feminism through the arts, as an arts editor and cultural critic:
chicaluna.com
Michelle Habell-Pallan
Tricia Rose
Mark Anthony Neal, self-described hip-hop male feminist (and duke professor!!)
Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Moya Bailey, activist formerly of Spelman College
Rosa Clemente
Elena Poniatowska
Lydia Cacho
Joan Morgan
Majora Carter
riot grrrl
bikini kill (in the ’90s)
code pink
not on our watch
rock n roll camp for girls