Marxism And Women's Liberation by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909026971
Google: YA0mjgEACAAJ
Publisher: Bookmarks
Published: 2015-01-15T04:07:49+00:00

The third wave

The idea that women should reject “victimhood” was mirrored in some of the ideas that came to the fore under the banner of the “third wave” of feminism. This developed alongside post-feminism and took up some of the “we don’t need extra support we can do anything we want” attitudes but from the point of view that “feminism” in some form was a good thing and was still needed.

It was in many ways an explicit rejection of second wave feminism, which was seen as solely representing white middle class women who had now found their place in society. Instead the third wave was to be about anti-racism, queer politics and identity. Rebecca Walker, the daughter of feminist author Alice Walker, coined the term when she wrote a piece in the US feminist magazine Ms in early 1992, declaring, “I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave”.344

Third wave feminism was pluralistic, it generated websites and ’zines and influenced music scenes including, for example, the Riot Grrrl movement, as well as rock and hip hop.345 It didn’t claim to have a unitary project and proclaimed itself to be less prescriptive than second wave feminism, which was, according to British writer and journalist Natasha Walter, “associated with man hating and with a rather sullen kind of political correctness or Puritanism…the movement is seen as intolerant”.346 The new feminism was sold as fun and sexy, apparently to distance it from the dungaree-wearing, unshaven women of the 1970s—a stereotype lifted straight from the right wing media. US feminist Jessica Valenti wrote, “Is there anything wrong with being ugly, fat or hairy? Of course not. But let’s be honest. No one wants to be associated with something that is seen as uncool and unattractive”.347

It is true that the WLM in the US did come from a narrow class base that was predominantly, though not exclusively, white. Ultimately it was unable to relate to the day to day problems of the mass of working class women. Yet the third wave did not offer a real solution either.

This became a feminism that decided it could subvert sexism and reclaim language, so women wore T-shirts with “slut”, “bitch” and “porn rocks” emblazoned on them, websites such as Bitchphd and Angryblack appeared, as well as magazines Bitch and Bust. And they were often successful in reaching a market—“Bust distribution rose from 1,000 to 32,000 in its first five years”.348 The US website aimed at younger women Feministing.com, originally set up by Valenti, has as its logo “an image of a silhouetted seated female with an exaggerated physique (notably very large breasts)”. They claim they are subverting the classic sexist “mudflap girl” image because the woman is raising her middle finger.349

Feminism became whatever or whoever you wanted it to be. For example, the feminist pressure group the Fawcett Society ran a campaign in 2006 with photos of high profile individuals wearing their “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirts. They included the Tory Theresa May.

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