Here's something I've been working on recently a quick and short introduction to third wave feminism from the perspective of a generational lens. It is intended for inclusion in the 3rd edition Women, Politics and Public Policy.
If you were born between the mid-1960s and the 1980s you
fall into a generational cohort named Generation -X or Gen-X. Those following
Gen-X born between the mid-1980s and 2000, are referred to millennials. Both
cohorts are characterized by childhoods dominated by the media, television,
advertising and mass consumption, and as a result, are said to be particularly
media savvy, at home in the world of popular culture and, with some variation
between the cohorts, adept with digital technologies. Both cohorts are also
seen to be at ease with change and complexity and with people different from
themselves, and are more likely than their elders to take an inclusive view of
what it takes for people to be truly considered “one of us” (Pew Research
Centre, 2015).
In the 1990s, Gen-X feminism broke onto the scene with Riot
Grrl (said with a snarl or growl) forays into pop culture in music with bands
such as Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Ani Difranco and Canadians Cub and Oh
Susanna, in film with directors Lizzie Borden and Alison Anders, and in print
magazines Bitch (bitchmedia.org), Bust (bust.com) and Hip Mama (hipmama.com).
It was a DIY culture about starting a band and making a zine with girlfriends. On
the web, e-zines (do-it-yourself magazines) proliferated with blogs (web-logs
or public online journals) and discussion forums.
As Michael Adams (1998, 102-3) said of Gen-Xers, they tend
to be more at ease with change and complexity and with people who are different
from themselves. They are also committed to egalitarian and pluralistic values,
including flexible definitions of family, a permissive attitude regarding sex,
a desire for egalitarian relationships with others…. They reject traditional
hierarchical relationships based on title, age, seniority, or religious
injunctions, and in many cases believe that traditional family, social and work
relationships are, in large part, responsible for the political, economic, and
ecological problems that confront society in general, and their generation in
particular. As Kathleen Hanna, one of the original Riot Grrls and member of the
bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, said when she expanded on the definition of
feminism in an interview with Gloria Steinem, “I also see it as a broad-based
political movement that is bent on challenging hierarchies of all kinds in our
society, including racism and classism and able-body-ism et cetera, et cetera”
(Hex, 2000, 52).
For Millennials, even more so than for Gen-Xers, the
internet is a central and indispensable feature of their lives. While rates of
blogging have decreased among this generation since 2006, “Beyond its role as
an indispensable communications hub, internet access connects users to ream of
vital information, necessary for life management health and civic engagement”
which is significant because about 2/3rd of teens and young adults
consume online news about current events and politics (Lenhart et.al, 2010, pp
24 & 26). The attitudes of millennials tend to be much more global and
progressive than older generations ranging from the rights of sexual minorities
to capitalism (Milkman, 2016). It is a
world view that combines intersectional identity politics with traditional
critiques of class inequality and capitalism in the face of growing economic and
social precarity.
As ‘digital natives,’ this generation may very well be more
literate, creative and socially skilled because of their early familiarity with
the internet including trying out various aspects of their developing identity
on-line. This includes political identities. While the 2016 CIRCLE Millennial
Poll analysis found that millennials across the board share a skepticism of
most major political and public institutions, they also found them to strongly
feel that organizing people is the best first step to social change (CIRCLE
Staff, 2016). Millennials value making a positive impact in the world whether
it is through their careers or civic engagement and are increasingly drawn to
community-based direct engagement (CIRCLE Staff, 2016). Consequently, as
Milkman (2017, 26) argues, the protest movements that sprang up after the 2008
financial crisis, such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter while not homogenous in
their make-up could be characterized as millennial social movements that
“suggest the spectre of a new wave of left-wing protest.”
One example of millennial organizing can be found in Gay
Straight Alliances (GSAs), student clubs in high schools that are intended to
create safe and supportive space for LGBTQ+ Youth and heterosexual allies. The
first Canadian CSA was established at Pinetree Secondary School in Coquitlam
B.C. in 1998 and over the next two decades GSAs were established in high
schools across Canada. In 2010 the national LGBTQ+ organization, EGALE Canada,
set up the myGSA.ca website to support and make available resources for
students setting up GSAs. While the existence of GSA has not eradicated bulling
and harassment based on a student’s gender and sexual orientation, as Stonefish
and Lafreniere (2015, 17) point out they have become important centres of
social activism;
a form of activism at their
inception, and a form of activism challenging heteronormative institutional
practices the fact that they were not initiated as part of any school or
provincial policy, and that they challenged school administrators and boards to
act and react to student mental health, health, and safety needs makes them
prime examples of social activism.
The point of these student founded and run organizations is
to facilitate dialogue, education and information sharing among both LGBTQ+,
trans- and cisgender youth that helps them address the complexities and
intersections of gender and sexuality. These groups not only create space to
support the deconstruction and construction or gender identities they also
provide a foundation to challenge structural and cultural institutional
gendering. They help create solidarity around
issues of gender.
As we discussed earlier in this chapter generations share a
common interpretive framework shaped by the historical circumstances in which
they come of age. Consequently, women who become feminists at different times
are likely to see themselves and the movement differently. Many second wave
feminists came to feminism as adults or teenagers who through reading and
consciousness-raising came to realize shared themes of inequality and
oppression. However, for the third wave, as Michelle Miller (2008), one of the
founders of the third wave Miss G___ Project at the University of Western
Ontario, states “third wave feminists describe themselves as drinking feminism
in without realizing its presence.“ Some came to feminism as the daughters of
second wave feminists “carted around to consciousness-raising groups and protests
by their second wave mothers,” others because of their gender studies classes
at university or because of the changing elementary and high school curriculums
of the 1970s and 1990s that presented messages of gender equality and expanded opportunities
for young women, or because they simply come up against the sexism and
inequality that continues to be present in the lives of young women and is
referred to as “feminism’s unfinished business.” Consequently, from a
generational perspective third wave feminism is very much defined by the second
wave feminism, but a historicized narrative of the second wave (see Garrison,
2000) that is filtered through the backlash of the 1990s, neoliberal state
retrenchment, and then for the millennials the economic recession of 2008 and the
growing precarity in employment and economic well-being.
References:
CIRCLE Staff. 2016. 2016 Election. Millennials After
2016. Post-Election Poll Analysis of Youth attitudes and tendencies and
prospects for future engagement. Centre for Information and Research on Civil
Learning and Engagement. www.civicyouth.org.
Tina Fetner, Athena Elafros, Sandra Bortolin, and Coralee
Drechsler. 2012. Safe Spaces: Gay-Straight Alliances in High Schools. Canadian
Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de sociology. 49 (2), pp. 188-207.
E.K Garrison. 2000. U.S. Feminism – Grrrl Style! Youth
(Sub)Cultures and the Technologies of the Third Wave. Feminist Studies 26, No.
1, pp. 141-170.
Celina Hex. 2000. ‘F-Word, fierce, funny feminists: An
Interview with Gloria Steinem and Kathleen Hanna.” Bust. Winter: pp. 52-56.
Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, Kathryn
Zickuhr. 2010. Social Media and Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and young
Adults. Pew Internet and American Life Project. Feb 3, 2010.
Files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED525056.pdf.
Ruth Milkman. 2017. A New Political Generation:
Millennials and the Post-2008 Wave of Protest. American Sociological Review
2017., Vo. 82 (1) pp. 1-31.
Michelle Miller. 2008. Branding Miss G___ Third Wave
Feminists and the Media. Toronto, ON: Sumach Press.
Pew Research Centre. Most Millennials Resist the
Millennial Label: Generations in a Mirror: How they see Themselves. Pew
Research Centre, September 3, 2015.
Twiladawn Stonefish and Kathryn D. Lafreniere. 2015.
Embracing Diversity: The Dual Role of Gay-Straight Alliances. Canadian Journal
of Education/Revue Canadienne de l’education. 38 (4), pp. 1-17
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