Fourth Wave Woman

Imagine my surprise when the New York Times used the phrase “fourth wave feminist” in an interview with Jessica Valenti. Doubtful that they got the idea from here.

It’s documented that I can’t stand Valenti. I think she’s one of the younger and brassiest women to take on the mantle of feminism, so people pay attention to her. Face it, the media is tired to listening to the same five or six women who have been saying the same thing since the 60s. Ms. Valenti isn’t afraid to drop f-bombs and create a spectacle, so she gets attention.

My biggest qualm with Valenti is her logic. In her mind, if you equate something with Republicans, it is stupid because Republicans are stupid. I hate to break it to her, but that rationale doesn’t make sense. Simply because you don’t like something doesn’t mean that the other side lacks validity or purpose.

She actually mentions has an inaccurate comment in the interview regarding bra-burning and online activism.

Bra-burning never happened. It was completely made up by the media. A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners.

She’s correct that bra burning never happened. According to Susan Brownmiller’s memoirs, In Our Time, the phrase was used in a press release before the Miss America protest. The media latched onto that phrase, and the participants in the protest applied to Atlantic City for a permit to hold a bonfire on the boardwalk. Of course the city denied it, so the “bra burning” never happened. However, the phrase was used at the time, and perception is reality. It was also more than a  couple of people. The Miss America protest in 1969 actually drew a small crowd, and several influential writers,  including Kate Millet  and Brownmiller, where there. It was the first major event for the fledgling women’s movement and was viewed as a turning point by many until the “bra burner” stereotype became distasteful to them. (AKA when membership started to drop).

I do agree with her about the wave concept.

I don’t much like the terminology, because it never seems very accurate to me. I know people who are considered third-wave feminists who are 20 years older than me.

There’s not clear line of demarcation between second and third wave feminists. Historians like to categorize events neatly, but I’m not sure if feminism can be organized so simply. It was more of a cultural phenomenon rather than an organized political movement. Feminist history is quick to point out that due to identity politics, groups kept splintering. Being a woman was too vague of a concept for one group or movement, so you were left with black feminists, lesbian feminists, academics, activists, anti-porn feminists, pro-porn feminists, etc. Also crisis rape centers and domestic violence shelters grew out women’s liberation all within a period of 15 years.

Once the 80s rolled around and the average woman started getting sick of angry women and the ERA, women’s liberation lost steam. In the late 80s and 90s, women like Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf replaced the militant, man-hating persona with a whiny victim. This image largely still exists and has merged with the hyper-sexualized “if it feels good and empowers you, do it” philosophy.

Matt Yglesias at Think Progress had a slightly different take:

The interesting thing, I would say, is that for the past 40 years or so we’ve been in something like a feminist permanent revolution. On the one hand, the abstract idea that men and women should be treated equally in a manner that goes beyond formal legal equality, is now rarely contested by anyone. Yet at the same time, many of the practical implications of this idea remain extremely controversial. So we’ve seen, are seeing, and will continue to see many fronts of conflict animated by this incredibly far-reaching idea.

If there was a feminist revolution, it ended in the early 80s. Yglesias is correct that society has largely adopted the ideas of equality. Sure sexism does exist (I pointed out an example today), but the media is the biggest offender and most of the sexism is directed towards conservative women. The people who use it know that it is wrong and wield it as a weapon. Feminism ceased to be a revolution when it deigned to speak for all women and marginalized those who disagreed. Rather than debate them, they attacked the dissenters.  Feminism hasn’t made any inroads in the last 20 years because it stereotypes the majority of women in this country. Feminists attempted to exchange the cage of traditional values with a cage of feminist dogma. Their mistake was that women refused to willingly be shut into the man-hating or victim cages. Once the more practical sides of their ideology were implemented (equal pay, domestic violence laws, etc.)  there was nothing left for them to do.  An irrlevant “movement” is one that grows more shrill and crafty as they weaken.