Comments on: The Fourth Wave(s) of Feminism

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:03:49 +0000

I have to say, although this is quite nitpicky of me, that your interviewer’s question about why the site was named feministing, and you “ungainly language” being a “veteran writer” and all was quite obnoxious. I think feministing is a great way to make feminist a verb, and it is very clever.

By: Serena Patterson

Serena Patterson — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:13:38 +0000

Nice post. I teach the history of feminist thought as overlapping and mingling streams; sometimes, as you say, pushing against one another, and that’s a healthy thing. I also believe that as feminists we live in the land of paradox a lot–a space where two or more things may be absolutely true, and absolutely contradictory. To forget this fact is to court the blindness that only ideology can bring. Should, for instance, feminism blend into a greater and more diverse struggle for the rights of humans? Well, of course. And of course not.
Maybe the only wave is the one we can catch at this moment to surf upon. As you say, everything changes.
You and I met once in the awful, sterile Chicago suburb of St. Charles a couple of years ago, btw, At a meeting of the Feminist Drinking Caucus of NWSA. We talked of inter-generational dialogue. I think that you, personally, have been listening all along to your foremothers, and enriching it with your own voice. But at 51, it’s startling to find myself so often dismissed by younger feminists as “Second Wave”. As I want to tell my 20-something WST student daughter, “We were busting gender binaries when you were still twirling in your princess skirts! Where would you be without us?” Perhaps this is uniquely a mother-daughter thing, or case of the teacher’s regret at seeing the student surpass her own travels. Still, the dialogue, and the respect and–dare I say it–love needs to flow both ways. We do not serve ourselves well as Feminists by dismissing other womens’ journies, or their heartfelt struggles for a liberatory truth of their own.

By: Courtney Martin

Courtney Martin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:14:30 +0000

Awesome post Jess. I think this is a really accurate way of looking at the legitimacy and uses of the metaphor. We don’t have to abandon it, but obviously should complicate it.

By: carol lee flinders

carol lee flinders — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:01:43 +0000

Since I’ve come back and reread this piece several times now, smiling each time, I should take a moment to tell you how much I liked it and that while I agree completely that there is no monolithic or all-encompassing feminism, there is nonetheless something in the best feminist writings of all times and places — fire, light, whatever — that connects them to one another, and whatever that is, it shines out in your work too.

By: Layla

Layla — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:24:57 +0000

What is wrong w. your outfit? You look super-cute on your own terms.

By: JDC

JDC — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:16:27 +0000

I just like how the pic makes you look like you’re wearing flats and, while thinking about something else, have begun to levitate.

By: Anna Banana

Anna Banana — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:49:06 +0000

I watched “Milk” for the first time yesterday, and I noticed a strong similarity between the rhetoric and sentiments of the gay rights movement and the women’s rights movement from a few years earlier. Then I was wondering why there has been no major movie made about the women’s rights movement of the 60s and 70s (i.e., why have only the gay rights and civil rights movements been covered)? My partner and I agreed that Hwood is generally sexist, that such a movie would not be able to get major female talent to work in it, and I added that the women’s rights movement, unlike the others of the time, was not particularly violent, and would therefore not make an exciting enough film (as far as producers are concerned).

It just saddens me that so many women are “anti-feminist” (including my mother) because they believe the myths about ’second-wavers’ – the bra burning, the man-hating, the militancy, etc., and I wish there could be an average-Joe-enticing piece (like a ‘big’ movie) that could show some of the positive outcomes of the ’second wave’ (most of which we now take for granted).

By: Heather Denkmire

Heather Denkmire — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:03:24 +0000

Fabulous! Excellent! Thanks.