Feminism out of Fashion? Nina Funnell asks why young women are reluctant to call themselves feminists
In 1994 feminist Anne Summers penned an open letter to the next generation of women asking them why they feel so alienated from the feminist movement. In it, she asks why young women do not fully appreciate the battles that have been fought on their behalf by older women.
Summers writes, ‘Wouldn’t (a young woman) acknowledge this? Wouldn’t she feel something- gratitude? A debt? A responsibility to keep widening those choices for herself and her generation?’
Since then a throng of commentators have remarked on the generation of young women who have thrived off the gains of feminism, while disowning the movement in the process.
But rather than looking at how young women have undermined the feminist project through ingratitude and political reticence, it might be worth considering why so many young women opt not to identify as ‘feminists’, even when they do identify with feminist aims such as equal pay for equal work, equal division of labour in the home and the elimination of gendered discrimination.
One of the pleasures of teaching in a university context is that I get to canvass the views of bright young women. Last year I carried out an exercise where I asked all the female students in my class to raise their hand if they identified as a feminist. Not a single student did.
I then wrote a list of feminist aims and principles on the board and asked the students to raise their hands if they supported these principles. Without exception, all the female students did.
So why is it that young women feel such disdain for the term ‘feminist’ even though they support feminist ideals?
For some the answer undoubtedly lies in the unpopular and stigmatised stereotype of the man-hating, bra-burning, hairy-legged feminist.
But whilst it’s unsurprising that young women would want to distance themselves from the stereotype, it’s worth remembering that this cliché has not been circulated by feminists themselves, but by those who would shut feminism down. Moreover the contempt for the ‘hairy-legged lesbian feminist’ actually has its roots in homophobia, not in any valid critique of feminism itself.
Of course other young women may find that they agree with feminist principles but perceive feminist methods as outdated or too extreme. Once again, the assumption that all feminists subscribe to radical feminism is a myth perpetuated by anti-feminists who are, after all, the ones who have made ‘feminism’ a dirty word.
However, having said that, feminists do need to shoulder some responsibility for young women’s waning interest levels. For me, part of the answer to Summers’ query lies in her own rhetoric. When the older generation of feminists starts discussing itself as being above, and young women as below and ‘in debt’, young women who do sympathise with feminist aims begin to feel an increasing level of discord and detachment.
In the last two decades a type of elitism has crept into the ranks of feminism. Many senior feminists have begun talking down to young women, tutting their dress and behaviour and indicting their political motives.
Academic feminist Catharine Lumby says that from where the younger generation of women sits, the old guard has begun to look suspiciously like the patriarchal order it once opposed.
Of course this intergenerational distrust cuts both ways. On one side of the generational divide, many older women question the political sincerity of young women who appropriate the feminist tenets of ‘choice’ and ‘empowerment’ to lend hollow justification to their raunchy pole-dancing performances and Britney Spears inspired outfits.
On the other side of the fence many young women view criticisms and concerns about their behaviour as covert attempts by others to regulate and control them.
Last year feminist author Ariel Levy stated that ‘young women today are embracing raunchy aspects of our culture that would have caused their feminist foremothers to vomit. All the things that feminism once reviled are currently being embraced by young women as supposed symbols of personal empowerment and sexual liberation.’
Levy’s concern is that young women are not only failing to fulfil their obligations to the feminist project, but, to add insult to injury, they are also misusing and abusing the freedoms granted to them by past generations of feminists by engaging in excessively ‘skanky’ behaviour.
Of course the risk of granting freedom is that if it is to be genuine, then once it is granted, the giver must surrender the right to dictate how that freedom is used. This is the predicament that some older feminists now find themselves in; by declaring young women liberated, they have unwittingly lost the right to prescribe and regulate how young women behave.
That’s not to defend the smutty behaviour associated with raunch culture, but the point is that it’s hardly surprising that young women would be reluctant to partake in a movement that appears bent on policing them.
The point is that if the feminist movement is in fact weakening, it’s not simply because patriarchal authority is winning out, it’s also because women of different ages are failing to view one another as equals.
Getting young women to participate in the feminist movement is by no means unachievable, but for young women to do so they need to feel as though they can participate as equals. This means that the intergenerational struggle for authority between older and younger women needs to subside.