This begins a series of posts that, all together, comprise my literature review for my Master’s thesis research.  You can view all of the posts by clicking here.

What follows is the section on the feminist movement and defining feminism.  Enjoy!

For quite some time, feminists have used the power and ease of distribution of the written word to spread their ideas to a wider audience.  They wrote radical texts in the form of manifestos, guides, statements of purpose, and other political texts that were often linked together – or referential to each other in some way – and were distributed quickly and publicly and often disappeared as rapidly as they appeared.  Feminists have always used literacy events to spread information about their causes; from pamphlets and packets to websites and blog posts, feminists rely on the written word to create a community and recruit community members.  Historically, women activists have formed communities by holding meetings and quickly distributing information.  Now, however, feminists seem to have taken up a presence online, and communities of feminist bloggers are springing up seemingly out of nowhere and without a formal site or forum for discussion.  How do these feminist bloggers create a community online using nothing but literacy practices?  How do their processes of reading and writing online work together with others’ processes in order to create such a community?

Before we can begin to answer these questions, though, we must explore what we mean by “feminism.”  Feminism has taken many forms since women first started fighting for equal rights.  From the volunteer force of women including Jane Addams to activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and authors and theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, feminism has produced as many theories as it has definitions for the term.  In fact, there seem to be as many definitions for feminism as there are feminists. bell hooks, one of the foremost feminist theorists of our time, discusses the problems with feminist discourse in her essay “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression.”  She says: “A central problem within feminist discourse has been our inability to either arrive at a consensus of opinion about what feminism is or accept definition(s) that could serve as points of unification.  Without agreed-upon definition(s), we lack a sound foundation on which to construct theory or engage in overall meaningful praxis” (18).  This is precisely the problem feminist bloggers deal with on a daily basis.  Every writer has a different definition of feminism, and this can cause discrepancies and arguments within the feminist community – a community that needs solidarity to survive.

There are several feminists who have tried to define feminism; among them are Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards.  In their book, ManifestA: young women, feminism, and the future, they wrote an entire chapter titled “What is Feminism?”  In this chapter, they work to posit many definitions of feminism.  They write: “In the most basic sense, feminism is exactly what the dictionary says it is: the movement for social, political, and economic equality of men and women” (56).  Although this definition is very basic, it does cover all of the issues feminists want to cover in their activism.  Baumgardner and Richards take it one step further, and break down this definition:

It is a movement, meaning a group working to accomplish specific goals.  Those goals are social and political change – implying that one must be engaged with the government and laws, as well as with social practices and beliefs.  And implicit in these goals is access to sufficient information to enable women to make responsible choices. (56)

Baumgardner and Richards also point out that feminism is just as often described by what it is not than by what it is: it is not narrow minded; it is not about rejecting women who love makeup and designer clothes or women who decide to stay home with their children; it is not about “dissing men” (63).  The list goes on, but the implications are clear: feminism must be defined by what it is rather than what it is not in order to create a radical movement necessary for change.

Most researchers and theorists agree that definitions of feminism – and, consequently, feminists – exist on a spectrum.  In their 1996 study titled ‘I Am Not a Feminist, but…’: College Women, Feminism, and Negative Experiences,” Joan K. Buschman and Silvo Lenart found that college women, ages 18 to 22, strongly believed in equal rights for women and the importance of “nontraditional” gender roles, but the young women they interviewed did not necessarily identify as feminists.  Their study discovered that there were varying levels of group consciousness when it came to feminism.  Women who identified themselves as feminist made up 17% of the interviewees and were the strongest proponents of women’s rights and equality.  The population that Buschman and Lenart define as Post-Feminists make up 35% of their population and “are more likely to see the battle for equality as a past victory than an on-going struggle” (67).  The Anti-Feminists comprised about 4% of their population and such a small size did not allow them to conclude much about that part of the population.  They did identify a new cluster of people who existed between the feminist and post-feminist populations.  These interviewees were not satisfied with women’s status at the time, but believed that individual activism was necessary for change, not the group activism the self-identified feminists sought.  Buschman and Lenart also found that, more often than not, growing up with a mother in a “nontraditional” role did not make a woman identify herself as a feminist.  Experiences that did contribute to a positive view of feminism were acts of violence against women, such as rape, sexual harassment, or other forms of sexual violence.

In 2003, Pamela Aronson took this a step further in her study “Feminists or ‘Postfeminists’?: Young Women’s Attitudes toward Feminism and Gender Relations.”  She noted that, in the late 1990s – around the time Buschman and Lenart completed their study – mass media was touting the feminist movement as “dead.”  Aronson interviewed women in her study just like Buschman and Lenart did, but broke apart the results based on race, class, and life experience.  Aronson noted basically the same definition for postfeminists as Buschman and Lenart did – that they agreed that women’s rights are important but are not active in urging for further change.  She observes, as well, that negative images of feminism throughout the media could and did contribute to women refusing to define themselves as feminists.  This, however, began to change with women who came of age in the 1990s, and these women began to make up “Third Wave” feminism.  It is this “Third Wave” generation that Aronson interviews for her study, and discovers almost the same spectrum of feminism that Buschman and Lenart did.  They found that about one fourth of the women in their study identified themselves as feminists, 19% of their interviewees fell into the category of “I’m a feminist, but…” and roughly one third of their interview participants fell into the category of “I’m not a feminist, but…” (913-917) The final quarter of their research population were unsure of how they felt about feminism or had never thought about feminism.  They did not, however, find any part of their population with anti-feminist sentiments.  What they did find was that women who took the “I’m not a feminist, but…” approach were “associated with more privileged racial and class backgrounds” (919).  Those who identified as feminists in their study were mostly college educated or had taken women’s studies courses at some point.  They further state:

Those who qualified their feminist identities and those who had never thought about feminism were disproportionately from less privileged racial and class backgrounds… were college-educated, working-class women and/or women of color who came to feminism as a result of assumptions of equality when growing up. (919)

This suggests that, although many women in modern society do align themselves with feminism and agree with feminist principles, there is a good part of the population who either does not think about feminism or, as bell hooks states throughout the essays in Feminist Theory From Margin to Center, has felt excluded by the predominantly white, upper- or middle-class, college-educated mainstream feminism.  It seems that “feminism” may never be concretely defined, but that it is best to allow the definition of the term to be fluid and allow each individual feminist to take her – or his – own definition.  After all, as the Second Wave feminists said, the personal is political.

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Amanda ReCupido

Today’s post comes from Amanda ReCupido, and is part of a Salon of blog posts asking feminists to define what feminism means to them. You can follow Amanda on Twitter, read her blog, and check out her answers to the Literacy in the Feminist Blogging Community interview.

It Takes a Village…To Raise a Feminist
or, What Feminism Means to Me

It’s that loaded question, “What does feminism mean to you?” that sparks thousands of thoughts, every which one of them equally important. I certainly have had no problem asking it, but the best way I can make sense of my own feminism is to revisit the experiences that have shaped it. There wasn’t one moment I remember where the feminist light bulb went off in my head – somehow I just always knew. But that doesn’t mean I was any less changed by the people who contributed to my feminist journey – for better or for worse. Here’s a look at the people who have made up my “feminist village” so far…

My parents, who told me I could be anything, who simultaneously signed me up for karate lessons and ballet, who suggested I work at Hooters and write an expose ala Gloria Steinem (spoiler alert: I didn’t), and who, in their own humanness, weren’t always perfect.

My Girl Scout leader, who handed me a journal and encouraged my story, who let me be a little rambunctious, who later would tell me, after her own divorce, to not live life dependent on a man.

My (female) elementary school teachers, who gave me a foundation of confidence, and my (male) high school teachers, who continued to push me to excellence.

The girls in high school who took one look at the first lunch I bought in the cafeteria with a sneer – it was the first time I questioned how much I ate.

My first boyfriend, who told me, after I had starved myself for over 36 hours, how skinny and great I looked.

My studio dance classes, which, for better or worse, forced me to accept the image staring back at me in the mirror and figure out how to move it in step. Contrasted with…

My high school dance group, who yearned for the whistles from boys in the audience.

My guy friend in high school, who called me a prude to my face and a slut in my yearbook.

The boys who, thankfully, took no for an answer.

The boy who finally deserved a “yes.”

The professor in college who handed me Carol Gilligan and Mary Pipher, and the other professors who didn’t mind that I analyzed nearly all assigned literature in terms of feminism.

My first experience seeing The Vagina Monolgues on V-Day my sophomore year of college. Meeting Eve Ensler at the Feminist Press Anniversary Gala a mere two years later.

The guy in college who told me I was “too independent and too much of a feminist to have a relationship with.”

The fact that the magazine I worked at right out of college had a woman publisher.

The cat-calls that I get on the street nearly every day.

The roommates who ate up every reality show stereotype Bravo was willing to throw at them.

The several, potentially dangerous nights that I came home safe.

The walk that I just participated in against human trafficking.

The smart, progressive (and feminist!) women and men who don’t see themselves as such and think feminism is “over.”

The wildly talented and driven feminist bloggers and activists who inspire me every day.

These are the reasons why I’m a feminist. In spite of, and because of it all. Why are you?

To read all of the What Feminism Means To Me Salon posts, click here.

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Criss L. Cox

Today’s post comes from Criss L. Cox, and is part of a Salon of blog posts asking feminists to define what feminism means to them.  You can follow Criss on Twitter and read her blog.

I used to think “feminists” were angry man-haters who burned bras and didn’t shave their armpits. I didn’t want to be one of them — I liked men! I wanted to marry one someday. I wanted a big wedding, with a pretty white dress, and I wanted to have kids, and I wanted to stay home with my kids. Feminists hated women who wanted to quit their jobs to stay home and raise their kids, right?

Um, WRONG. Sure, there are radical extremists in every group (my sister, a SAHM (stay at home mom) and a feminist, was called out on her blog a while back by an angry commenter who accused her of setting the women’s movement back several decades, because my sister stayed home to raise her son), but those extreme outliers are not a true representation of the group or movement.

I would like to stay home with my kids, when I have them, because I like kids. I’ve spent my adult life working with children, from toddlers and infants in daycare centers to high schoolers in my teaching jobs to elementary kids in Sunday school classes at church. Kids are my thing, so when I have some of my own I want to spend as much time with them as possible.

I also have a Bachelor’s degree and I’m four credit hours away from a Master’s; I have ample experience in the workplace, and I know I can support myself (and those potential future children) if need be. If my husband and I can afford the luxury of my staying home with our potential future kids, I will still continue blogging, writing, and if in any way possible I’ll sneak in classes toward my PhD. I, like my sister, am far from your stereotypical 50’s housewife stay-at-home mom.

Feminism isn’t about telling women (or anyone) what to do; it’s about giving women, and anyone else, the right to choose for themselves what they want to do. Our job is to make sure every option is open to everyone.

Feminism isn’t limited to females, either. It’s not about ending oppression for women (which, oftentimes unfortunately is shorthand for “white, heterosexual, cis, able-bodied women”), but about ending oppression for all marginalized groups. After all, women are half of the world’s population, and in that group, you will find all sorts of women. When we fight for “women” we must fight for ALL these women.

Feminism isn’t even just about women (all women). While gender roles have traditionally put women in a more submissive role and held us back, men are also harmed and limited by gender roles. In a way, we women have the advantage over men in this area: Women can pop open a beer and watch the football game, but a guy is going to get funny looks if he enjoys a nice glass of white zinfandel and goes to see the ballet (unless he has a girl with him, and she’s, like, “making him”). Feminists work to change gender roles so both men and women are free to make whichever choices their little hearts desire without having to censor or deny themselves because of society’s small-minded expectations.

Feminist movement has moved beyond the work-or-stay-home-with-kids issue. While we must continue the work that has been done on that front (to ensure women are treated equally in the workplace and that girls have access to education so they can compete on a more even field with men in the workplace), we have so many other issues to tend to as well.

Unfortunately, one of those issues is getting others to understand what we are actually about. First of all, it’s not about YOU, it’s about ME. When I fight for women’s rights, reproductive rights, LGBT rights, etc., I’m not telling you what YOU need to do or how YOU need to live your life. I’m telling you how I want to live my life; all you have to do is LET ME. Stop passing laws that stop me or limit me or oppress me. Your right to work full-time and be a CEO of whatever company does not in any way interfere with my right to choose a career in education, a typically female-dominated (and underpaid) field, nor does it interfere with my sister’s right to stay at home with her child. My choice does not diminish yours any more than yours diminishes mine.

Another pressing item on the agenda is to dispel the myth of the scary, hairy-armpitted feminazi. Women — and man — need to be proud to call themselves feminists. It is not a dirty word! Embracing feminism is merely embracing the idea that none of us — male, female, gay, bi, hetero, cis, trans, abled, disabled, thin, fat, and everything around and in-between — deserve to be treated with respect. You know, unlike a doormat.

To read all of the What Feminism Means To Me Salon posts, click here.

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Danine Spencer

Today’s post comes from Danine Spencer, and is part of a Salon of blog posts asking feminists to define what feminism means to them.  You can follow Danine on Twitter, read her blog, and check out her answers to the Literacy in the Feminist Blogging Community interview.

Feminism is the belief that women’s rights are human rights. No matter where they live, women and girls should have the same social, political, legal and economic rights as their male counterparts.  Because women and girls have historically been marginalized by patriarchal societies worldwide, feminists have had to fight for every right men take for granted: the right to vote, work, go to school and oh yeah, make her own decisions.

I believe women’s rights are human rights because:

• Every woman has the right to freedom of speech
• Every woman should have the same legal rights as men
• Every woman has the right to an education
• Every woman has the right to own property
• Every woman should be able to find work that pays a living wage so she can provide for herself and her children
• Every woman should receive equal pay for equal work
• Every woman should be able to choose her own spouse, when and if she chooses to marry
• Every woman should be in control of her own family planning, which includes the right to decide whether or not to have children
• Every woman should have access to affordable health insurance
• Every woman should be able to go to a doctor when she is sick and obtain prescription medication when necessary

I also believe:

• No woman should be discriminated on the basis of her gender, age, income level, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability or other life circumstance.
• No woman or girl should ever be raped or sexual abused, period.  Rape against women and girls should never be used as a weapon during war.
• No woman or girl should be subjected to genital mutilation.
• No woman or girl should be a victim of human trafficking, sold into sexual slavery or work in a sweatshop.
• No woman or girl should be forced into marriage without her consent.
• No woman should die in childbirth or as a result of pregnancy-related complications

Feminism has been quite successful, particularly in the Western world. Many women today take it for granted that we can vote, go to college and work, all of which were unheard of one hundred years ago. We still have much to do. Pay equity, violence against women and health care are just a few issues of many we have to work on the United States. Still, we are incredibly fortunate to live in relative wealth in the U.S. “To those whom much is given, much is expected” applies here. We have to use our leadership to address issues like human trafficking, rape as a weapon of war, international family planning and women’s economic security.

I am proud to be a feminist. I think every woman and man should be. Feminism is making sure that every single woman and girl, half the world’s population, has the tools and resources to be the person she can be.

To read all of the What Feminism Means To Me Salon posts, click here.

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Kate Rohdenburg

Today’s post comes from Kate Rohdenburg, and is part of a Salon of blog posts asking feminists to define what feminism means to them.  You can follow Kate on Twitter, read her blog, and check out her answers to the Literacy in the Feminist Blogging Community interview.

I think in large part feminism to me is summed up in the quote I use for my signature: –

“I’m an artist and a community organizer, and I believe in peace and love, and I believe we need to keep putting our stuff out there; it puts out the intention for a bigger reality.”
-Shannya Sollitt

Feminism is these things – art and activism, peace and love, and imagining a reality that could be while working in the context of the one that is.

Feminism is about choices, not in the sense that many modern-feminists use the term “I’m a woman/feminist therefore any choice I make is feminist”, but in the sense that we are about creating a space where choices are available and safe (even choice that may not be utterly feminist.) Feminism created choices (especially for women and minorities), but not all choices are feminist ones.

Feminism is not about including everyone, but it is about appreciating everyone; recognizing the humanity in everyone, and interacting with everyone in a way based in love and understanding – not fear and hate. An example for me is this: I do not believe that one can be feminist and anti-choice. Anti-choice is an inherently anti-woman system of beliefs that are in direct contrast to feminism. However, I don’t wish to argue or yell or hate people who are anti-choice, but to speak with them in contexts where there may be increased understanding, and disengage when there can be nothing but anger.

Feminism is a theory – one which has principles, principles which certainly not everyone adheres to, and therefore it is faulty to say that anyone is feminist. Indeed people must believe in the theory, and work towards the practice, in order to truly be feminist. There is not one way, nor one perfect representation of this, but there are some qualifications.

To read all of the What Feminism Means To Me Salon posts, click here.

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Transcript:
Hello and welcome to the Small Strokes podcast.  This is Ashley Lauren here, and I am the author of the Small Strokes blog, which you can find at smallstrokesbigoaks.com.  This will be an extension of the blog, and a place where I will be talking about all things feminist: sometimes it may just be me talking, and sometimes I may be interviewing another person or hosting a panel discussion to talk about feminist issues.

I’d like to begin today by talking about my definition of a feminist.  All too often, women are very reluctant to define themselves as feminists.  The word, feminism, sometimes has negative associations with an extremely radical movement and, as such, many women shy away from defining themselves as feminists.  I, however, will say it loud and proud: I am a feminist!

Feminism, as I define it, involves taking note of the marginalization of women, exploring the reasons why women are marginalized, and making an outward effort to minimize that marginalization. As feminists, we should applaud any attempt at social progress, and participate as we see fit; if radical movements are your style, then so be it.  If, like me, small strokes are more your thing, then that’s great, too.

I have been very fortunate to be welcomed in to a wonderful feminist community through smallstrokesbigoaks.com and other social networking sites.  The feminist online presence is particularly strong, and, I think, a modern form of activism. In fact, [r]adical feminists in the late 1960s and 1970s wrote massive amounts of ‘temporary,’ networked texts.  These texts were often collaborative in nature and distributed quickly.  These texts parallel today’s cyber-culture in many ways, especially in their emphasis on networking writings just like we do today through hyperlinks and social networking.  The online feminist community is a powerful force, working not only to exterminate the marginalization of women, but working to empower women as well.

I believe feminism is necessary in the world today.  We see all too many injustices against women, and we must work to correct them.  Hopefully, through smallstrokesbigoaks.com and social networking, I’m starting to do just that.  And I’d like your help!  I’m currently accepting submissions for guest posts to my blog, as well as volunteers to participate in interactive podcasts.  If you’d like more information about either of those, please visit smallstrokesbigoaks.com.

That’s all for today!  Hopefully you enjoyed my first, and shortest podcast, and, if you did, be sure to subscribe for future updates, and, while you’re at it, subscribe to smallstrokesbigoaks.com, too!

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