The Number One Question about Feminism
Author(s): Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 2003), pp. 448-452
Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc.
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The Number One Question about Feminism
Jennifer Baumgardner and
Amy Richards
"I consider myself a hard-corefeminist,"said a twenty-year-oldwomen's studies majorat Tulane Universityin New Orleans."Butis it okay
that I wearthong underwear?"
We laughed-in recognitionprimarily-whenwe heard this "feminist
in a thong"question. At the 150 or so colleges where we have spoken
since our book Manifesta: Young Women,Feminism, and the Future
hit the shelves, the "can I wear a thong?"type of query is one of the
most popular.' On the surface, the statement feeds into stereotypes
about young women, seeming to reveal that they are oddly obsessed
with body image and shopping issues and their personal lives, rather
than politics and revolution.On a differentlevel, however,the question
is symbolic of young people's relationshipto feminism: meaning that
the relationship is often personal, invisible, and uncomfortable.This
questioncan be a metaphorfor the generationgap between older women's feminism and youngerwomen's.Manyolder women hear that Tulane studentand think, "what'sa thong?"
These women worryingabouttheir underwearare not the "I'mnot a
feminist,but .. ." types. They are women who fear they aren'tworthyof
being feminists because they haven'tdone enough-and there are thousands of these women. They are the women's studies majors,the girls
who volunteerat the women'scenterand PlannedParenthood,the ones
who organize domestic violence week and Take Back the Night. They
are the feminists. In our talks with college students (mostlywomen, but
always a handful of men, too) we spend a lot of time confirmingthat
they are capableof being just as good feminists as anyone else, which
bringsus backto the issue of the thong.
Young women are into the ideals and goals of the women's movement, but they are afraid.The real questionbeing askedby that Tulane
student is: Can I be who I am and be a feminist?Manyyoung women
FeministStudies 29, no. 2 (summer2003). @2003 by FeministStudies,Inc.
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sense that the personal decisions they make-having boyfriends, indulging in Brazilianbikini waxes, getting married,wanting to have a
body like GwynethPaltrow,or being into fashion-permit others to assume that they are dupes of the patriarchy.Aren'tthese the trappingsof
femininitythat their mothers (or women's studies professors)rejected?
Manifesta was written in part to address exactlythis crowd, the ones
who say, "Itook the Women in Mass Media class-why do I still feel the
need to wearhigh heels?"We dedicatedthe book to those of our generation who say, "I'mnot a feminist, but.. ." as well as those who say, "I
am a feminist, but .. ."because both are statementsrevealinga person
workingout a relationshipto the women's movement into which they
were born. There is no doubt that younger women connect to feminism's ideals. Similarly,they are inspiredby its history.What they are
often lackingis a sense of how to be a feminist. They aren'tclear about
what feminism requiresfrom them. Often they perceivethat their personal lives undermine their political convictions. They often think of
feminism as telling them whatthey can'tdo, ratherthan as a philosophy
that shows them the potentialfor what they can do.
There is some historicalprecedentto this problem,and it relates to
that four word feminist mantramany of them learnedin their women's
studies classes. In the first chapterof our book, "TheDinner Party,"we
quoted Katha Pollitt. "The personal is political," she wrote of the
mantra, "wasa way of saying that what looked like individualexperiences with little social resonance and certainly no political importance-rape, street harassment, you doing the vacuuming while your
husband reads the paper-were part of a generalpatternof male dominance and female subordination."Pollittobservedthat to make a political argument, you need more than your personal experience. True
enough, but the phrase, we wrote, "wasmisinterpretedto mean that
what an individualwoman does in her personallife (like watchingporn,
wearing garterbelts, dying her hair, having an affair,earning money,
shavingher legs) underminesher feminist credibility,and can be levied
against her, like a fine." We concluded: "Thusit has sometimes been
used to restrictwomen ratherthan to free us"(19).
But feminism is about freeing us. Therefore,althoughthongs aren't
political in and of themselves, the girl wearingone certainlymight be.
Furthermore,the girl wearingone is still entitledto commenton beauty
standardsand consumerism.The thong does not disqualifyher.
Despitethe anxietythat these youngwomen'ssartorialchoicesbring,
they tend to have consideredthese choices at length, and the shavingor
Gwyneth-body or high heels are what some of them genuinely want.
Personally, they are attracted to these articles of femininity or consumerism but analyze that desire from the perspective of others as a
conflict and a potential compromise of their feminism. These young
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feminists came of age in a much more disposable,capitalistictime than
did their Second Wave predecessors.They do not view rejectingconsumerism as synonymouswith rejectingpatriarchy,but that does not
mean they rejectfeminism.
The reason young feminists debate pop cultureand hygiene choices
and feel so judged that those issues underminetheir feminism is that
they don't have a clear basis of feminism in their lives. Feminism,by
dint of its success, has become part of the receivedwisdom for this generation,just as sexism and compulsoryheterosexualitywere for the previous generation. They learn that consciousness-raising groups were
formed.Theylearn that organizationswere createdand by whom. They
learn that legislation was passed and that groundbreakingbooks were
published.In essence, they learn history and that women had a role in
it. They also learnthat what they are doing in their own lives bearslittle
resemblanceto that SecondWave activismand energythat they so fervently study. These students can probablytell you the differencebetween a Marxistfeminist and a liberalfeminist. They can tell you what
rights feminism has gained for them, but they may not be able to tell
you how feminismrelatesactivelyand personallyto their reallives right
now; that is probablywhy there is such a focus on what is in their lives
(shaving,Gwyneth,high heels). They have been presentedwith the political analysis of an entirely different generation reacting to its time.
This is fine if they focus on gaining criticaltools. More often, though,
they have ended up with rules.
Our goal is to help these young women build a foundationof feminism in their own lives. Sometimes this requires assuring them that
their thong is not an issue, that feminism isn't about what choice you
make,but the freedomto makethat choice.Moreoften, it is givingthem
tangible answersto the question:How can I change my world?For instance, while they are learningtheir feminist history,they aren'talways
takingawayfrom it the message that sexualharassmentlaws and equal
pay legislationbegan with one woman sayingthat she was being groped
or underpaid.Nowadays,on a campus,so much has changedand been
named, it is hard to see what needs our continued focus as feminists.
The absence of women from schools, sports, and workplaceswas more
obvious than continuing inequalities such as a lack of tenured female
professors,unequalfundingfor girls'sports, or female kitchen-workers
earninga sub-standardwage.
When women asked for access in the 196os and 1970s, eventually
their requests seemed reasonable and even necessary. But asking for
equality,then and now, is seen, sadly,even for those who are askingfor
it, as asking for too much. (Wages for housework makes a great slogan,
but should parents really get paid for making their children's lunches?)
Second Wave women asked for equality, but what they got, access to
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traditionalavenues of power,was only a start towardthat goal. The act
of opening the door was mislabeled "equality."In truth, it was more
often just opening the door for a few. This createdanotherproblem;it
took the onus off of the people who were in power (a.k.a. men) and put
it on the few women who got access. (The "womenare their own worst
enemies" trick came into play rather quickly.)We now know that we
have the right to be in the army, in the boardroom,on the President's
cabinet, flying airplanes, and playing basketball.We need to focus on
the rightto be there in equalnumbersand the rightto equaltreatment.
Now we are faced with buildinga new structurefor equality.The fact
that access isn't equality plagues our understandingof modern feminism. The main reason the women's movementis perceivedas a white
middle-classmovement,for instance, is that the gains of feminismhave
been measured by our acceptance in privilegedwhite male spaces. It
doesn't take CornellWest to tell you that white women have more access to the white male sphere than women of color. Yet, if we measure
feminism by a "qualityof life" standard,not by access to elite institutions, feminism'sstorychanges.How much do women of all ages, races,
ethnicities,and income bracketsthink that they are capableof? How do
they valuethemselvesand their contributionin the contextof theirjobs,
their relationships, their communities, their bodies, and their own
households? Is it significantlymore than what women of those same
groupsthoughtthey could do fortyyears ago?Yes.
Movingfrom accessto equality-fromone generation'sbreakthroughs
to breakingthe next generation'sbarriers,and from receivedwisdom to
feminist insight-is causingsome growingpains. How does this play out
on collegecampuses?Women'sstudiesis at a crucialmoment:it is highly successful,yet clearlyanxious about its raison d'tre. We see this in
the debate about calling the discipline "genderstudies" rather than
"women'sstudies."Manypeople are anxiousthat this means "losing"the
focus on women. We see this when Ellie Smeal comes to campus and
only fifteen people show up, causing the women's studies professorto
worrythat there "isso little interestin feminism."
Because the discussion blames student apathy, opportunities are
missed to point out genuine, concreteways that feminism affectsyoung
women's lives. Even when students know exactly what is wrong, they
frequently don't have faith that it can be changed and that they can
change it. A gung-ho feminist student named Brookeat the University
of North Carolina,Chapel Hill, for instance, identified the dearth of
childcareat her school and noted that many studentswere in dire need
of part-time employment. She knew that the school's infrastructure
could utilize students as temps but didn't feel that she was the right person to forge a babysitting service through the university. Brooke saw a
barrier and thought: What can I do? Am I allowed to make these things
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a feministissue withoutthe approvalof the "feminists"?In otherwords,
if it was such a good idea, wouldn'tthe real feminists-the ones who inventedV-Day,or coinedthe term sexualharassment,or wrotethe books
I'm reading-wouldn't they have alreadythought of it? In Manifesta,
KathleenHannacalledthis naggingvoice "ThePhantom."The phantom
says, somebody alreadythought of that. Somebodyalreadywrote that
book. Just glom onto someone else'splan.
The reason the phantom has so much power can not be neatly explainedby sexism and low self-esteem.We spend so much time talking
aboutwhat feminismis, or was, and not enough aboutwhat it couldbe.
Because we learn so much more from what people do than what they
say, we need to take a step back from rhetoricand put the focus on action. What seem to be missing from women's studies are those basic
steps that take an observationof an injusticethroughto politicalaction.
Some women's studies departmentswe've seen are indeed tryingto reconnectwith their activistroots.Theyrequireactivistprojectsor internships as part of a class. They encourageundergraduatesto undertake
originalresearch,as with the young feminists at Hope Collegein Holland, Michigan,who are conductinga historyof a local separatistfeminist communitycalledthe Aradians.
Returningto activism-answeringthe question,what can I do?-is key
to understanding feminism for this generation. We think that when
more students are engaged in changing their world, they won't care
what anyonethinks of their underwear.
NOTE
1. Jennifer Baumgardnerand Amy Richards,Manifesta: Young Women,Feminism,
and the Future(NewYork:Farrar,Strauss&Giroux,2000).