 |
|
Toronto Star (Canada), January 12, 2005 The Changing Face of Feminism by Carol Goar Feminists call it the third wave, the new surge of women's activism that will topple the last vestiges of male dominance. The first wave, known as the suffragette movement, lasted from the mid-1870s to 1930. Women gained the right to vote, the right to hold political office and recognition as "persons" under the law. The second wave, known as the women's liberation movement, lasted from 1960 to the mid-1990s. Women won legal equality under the Charter of Rights, access to the upper echelons of business and politics, reproductive choice, better pay, better protection from domestic violence and better child care arrangements. The third wave doesn't have a name yet. In fact, women's activists are divided on whether it has even begun. Some point to books such as Girls Who Bite Back and Third Wave Agenda as proof that it has. Others believe that young women are merely rebelling against the dogmatic, humourless feminism of the baby boom generation. Judy Rebick, who has just completed an oral history of the women's movement from the '60s to the '90s, has thought a lot about the future of feminism. One of the reasons she wrote her book, Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution, was to prevent young activists from making the mistakes that she and her sisters-in-arms made. "When I first got involved in the women's movement, I wasn't sympathetic to other people. What motivated me was anger about the injustice I saw. Unless you know how to handle that kind of anger - which is part of any group fighting for social change - you'll end with savage differences. "Women were cruel to each other, there's no other way of putting it. I saw it and I was part of it. We don't want to be that way anymore. We have to create organizations that deal with conflict in a creative and supportive way." As a start, Rebick says, the women's movement has to reach out to men. It can no longer be content with making space for more women in the patriarchy. It must make common cause with men who want no part of a society in which both sexes work ever-longer hours to feed the capitalist machine, at the expense of their health, their families and their personal lives. "An 80-hour week is not what we fought for." Next, feminists have to think and act globally, she says. Fighting for social and economic justice in North America is not good enough when women in much of the world are living in abject poverty, girls are denied access to education and basic health care and HIV/AIDS is spreading through the female population. Third, young feminists have to tackle problems that her generation either failed to solve (a fairer distribution of unpaid work, universal child care, ending violence against women) or didn't face (teenagers trying to look like anorexic models and transgendered individuals seeking acceptance). Finally, Rebick says, feminists need to lighten up. As serious as the battle for an egalitarian world is, it won't be won by grim, self-righteous activism. Having acknowledged that she and other "kick-ass radicals" of her generation got a lot wrong, Rebick maintains that they got quite a lot right. They didn't give up, despite innumerable setbacks and their own internal divisions. When one path was blocked, they tried another. When one faction was immobilized by backbiting, another faction moved ahead. "Changing the world is never easy." They understood that women have to work for change both within the system and on the streets. While pioneers such as Flora Macdonald, Doris Anderson and Laura Sabia fought for legal, political and workplace equality, grassroots organizers set up women's shelters, daycare facilities and rape crisis centres, mostly without government funding. "Young activists still think you can do it all from the outside." They knew enough to keep expanding the circle - even when it meant losing long-time members - to include aboriginal women, lesbians, women of colour and women with disabilities. "The fault lies not with those demanding that their voices be heard but with those who walked away." And they had the courage to follow their convictions. They distributed birth control and abortion information when it was illegal. They organized Canada's first - and only - national leaders' debate on women's issues during the 1984 election. They learned how to lobby and set legal precedents by doing it. "There was no road map. We had to trust ourselves." Each generation has to fight its own battles, Rebick says. At 59 years of age, she is not about to start telling young activists how to set their priorities, mobilize their peers or work through their differences. "I see young people who already understand how to handle conflict better than we did." But she hopes the third wave of feminism will gather strength from the suffragettes and women's libbers who dared to envision a world in their gender would not stop them from being what they wanted to be or doing what they chose to do. They never reached that world, but they made Canada a lot more like it. Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. << Toronto Star -- 1/12/05 >>
Home About Us Newsletters News Archives Donate
|