Journal 10

Over the whole of the semester you will have noticed the diversity of women's experiences and perspectives through each historical era we have covered in the course. However, the modern period is often represented as offering the widest range of diversity within women's activists groups and what is referred to as the "feminist movement."

The larger category of "feminism" includes movements as diverse as "liberal feminism" (a historical movement more associated with white, middle-class women), women in the Black Power movement, Latina activism, women as leaders of the global peace movement, and women as political pioneers. More recently transgender activists also have been welcomed into and/or amplified as allies with women's movements.

It is perhaps not surprising that when U. S. society reached the 1980s and 1990s there was a kind of backlash against women’s movements and the criticism lumped all the diverse streams of feminism together without thoughtful attention to their many differences.

To put this in contemporary context, public figures as diverse as Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Megan Rapinoe and Melinda Gates (to name just a few - you can probably think of many, many others) could, believe it or not, all claim to be descended from the feminism of the 1960s and 1970s.

How would you define or describe "feminism" today? Is it still a useful term? Is it necessary? Or does it blur or simplify some important differences that we might rather highlight? How can the term be understood as applicable or relevant in 2023?

Feel free to refer to Roxane Gay's essay "Bad Feminist" as well in your response.