'Fourth-wave' Feminism

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The past couple of years have seen an upsurge in feminist activity in the UK at least - Laura Bates' Everyday Sexism Project, the No More Page 3 campaign, and the recent malarky with Jane Austen/banknotes. I was reading this article today, linked by the No More Page 3 Facebook page, with the quote describing these women as 'new wave' feminists:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/27/new-generation-of-feminists-set-agenda#start-of-comments

And it got me thinking:

what can we surmise of this definite upsurge in (successful) feminist activity quite recently, in the UK? I mean, some of it is cosmetic (the bank notes), whilst the page 3 and everyday sexism campaigns have really caught on and had some tangible results, with some universities voting not to stock The Sun anymore, and the popularity of everyday sexism speaks for itself, and has been important in highlighting that the sort of bourgeois moralism of "oh, it's 2013, of course the WORST of sexism doesn't exist anymore" is a falsity, and that women a) suffer some sort of sexism on a daily basis and b) a huge, huge amount of women suffer some sort of sexual/physical abuse and it flies under the radar.

The title of the Guardian piece got me thinking, though: "What now for Britain's new-wave feminists – after page 3 and £10 notes?"?

On the one hand, I wouldn't want to belittle the very real and impressive achievements of recent feminist activity in Britain - having been involved in some of the page 3 stuff really opened my eyes into, well, everyday sexism and the shit that women get just for standing up for themselves and gender equality. BUT, this 'fourth-wave' feminism also seems to be characterised - and limited - by and to grand gestures: it is a coup to avoid all-male bank notes, and to put enough social and political pressure on The Sun to bring the topic of No More Page 3 into the national public eye, but at the same time to what extent can we connect these eye-catching campaigns and changes to the real, daily struggle of women? And when I say real, daily struggle, i'm not so much thinking about women in the boardroom, or women on banknotes, or historical feminist figures, but women at the bottom of society - it's a well known fact that recessions tend to hit women worst in terms of unemployment, and single mothers also tend to have an equally hard time, so I guess my main question and topic for discussion is this:

how can this 'new wave' of feminists connect their eye-catching, public campaigns to the struggles of women who are, essentially, being screwed over by current economic conditions?

[Quail]

I think a lot of the problem with focussing on stuff like page 3 and bank notes is that even if the campaign is successful, it doesn't really have a lot of impact on the every day lives of women. I don't like page 3, but at the same time I can't help but feel that removing page 3 on its own isn't actually going to prevent people treating women as objects. It's more a symptom than a cause. Same with bank notes. Women and their achievements are under appreciated so naturally nobody thinks to put women on bank notes; women aren't under appreciated because they're not on bank notes.

The real issues that feminism needs to be tackling (alongside street harassment and other well-established campaigns) are things like women living in poverty, who are skipping meals to feed their children when their children are still going hungry. Women with young children who would like to go back to work, but there isn't enough help with childcare so they're effectively forced to remain on benefits. I'm not really sure what we can do in this respect though. There was the "save our sure start" campaign a while back, but I don't really know how effective that was. Sure start centres have still suffered big cuts to funding, despite being a really good resource for all parents, not just women.

I think "mainstream" feminism basically has no class analysis, and a lot of feminists are kind of well-educated and middle class. Last time I went to a feminist event I felt weirdly out of place (despite being a relatively well off university student myself) among a bunch of people who all seemed to be feminist academics, and I am pretty well equipped and confident in my ability to talk about feminism. I can't imagine what it would feel like for someone who was new to the ideas and perhaps from a less privileged background. The point being, many working class women are going to feel alienated by a movement full of white middle class academics so I think that's a barrier to actually organising with the women who are suffering most at the moment.

I think stuff like childcare co-ops and community food events would be helpful, but I'm not really sure how to go about organising that kind of thing.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

i suppose in the classist sense, things like tackling the sun and page 3 are quite effective given that the sun's readership is the working class and the kind of sexism in papers like that one helps to normalize gender roles in working class communities. my mum used to read the sun and even as a kid i thought it was odd to see a woman so happily reading through a paper which starts to objectify and degrade women right from the start.

perhaps i'm just being blindly optimistic but i think little things like this will help. as for the working class in general, they are force-fed the kind of bollocks that goes out in tabloids and they don't have any real arenas to discuss these issues in the same way that middle-class academic women can so that is a real problem. not just in terms of the gender struggle but also the broader struggle against the class system, and we obviously understand these things as a part of the same struggle. its frustrating and i'm bored of going to 'revolutionary' meetings that are chaired by academics and most of the people in the discussion haven't ever truly worked in the same way that the majority of people have to, and they have the necessary cultural capital that's needed to be able to view their situation critically. i know its not always the case but based on my background, most of my mates ended up becoming reactionaries (raised on the sun, which is indicative). sexist, racist, ignorant but not always bad people, if you can imagine that - its not their fault. the same goes for gender too, i know very few conscious feminists and i'd say that i've never met a feminist from a working class background. i'm not saying that this is the norm as it obviously isn't but i would hazard a guess that most conscious activists in feminism come from middle class backgrounds where they were educated and had spaces in which they could discuss gender and issues like that, so they ignore the class aspect as many of them don't see the sexism that surrounds them as coming from our class society, because their class position hasn't always led them to criticize class society but their position as women has led them, rightfully, to criticize our culture of gender. the missing link is between gender and broader social relations, which most of us here would reduce to class. on the other hand, women that are raised into ignorant, sun reading families are socialized into gender roles from an early age and due to a lack of intellectual space when it comes to questions of gender, they never truly question their position in society, because it has been normalized. thinking 'outside of the box' isn't on the cards, its not even a consideration for many working people.

i'd say this is the true task for feminists and i think that's what quail was getting at, hopefully i understand her correctly.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think a lot of the problem with focussing on stuff like page 3 and bank notes is that even if the campaign is successful, it doesn't really have a lot of impact on the every day lives of women. I don't like page 3, but at the same time I can't help but feel that removing page 3 on its own isn't actually going to prevent people treating women as objects. It's more a symptom than a cause. Same with bank notes. Women and their achievements are under appreciated so naturally nobody thinks to put women on bank notes; women aren't under appreciated because they're not on bank notes.

The real issues that feminism needs to be tackling (alongside street harassment and other well-established campaigns) are things like women living in poverty, who are skipping meals to feed their children when their children are still going hungry. Women with young children who would like to go back to work, but there isn't enough help with childcare so they're effectively forced to remain on benefits. I'm not really sure what we can do in this respect though. There was the "save our sure start" campaign a while back, but I don't really know how effective that was. Sure start centres have still suffered big cuts to funding, despite being a really good resource for all parents, not just women.

I think "mainstream" feminism basically has no class analysis, and a lot of feminists are kind of well-educated and middle class. Last time I went to a feminist event I felt weirdly out of place (despite being a relatively well off university student myself) among a bunch of people who all seemed to be feminist academics, and I am pretty well equipped and confident in my ability to talk about feminism. I can't imagine what it would feel like for someone who was new to the ideas and perhaps from a less privileged background. The point being, many working class women are going to feel alienated by a movement full of white middle class academics so I think that's a barrier to actually organising with the women who are suffering most at the moment.

I think stuff like childcare co-ops and community food events would be helpful, but I'm not really sure how to go about organising that kind of thing.

^^This, exactly, although i'm a relatively poor male university student, so I felt even more out of place if anything. I mean, some people really are doing good stuff and in many ways, for those middle class, relatively well of female university students who haven't suffered the hardship that comes with alienation from work, single motherhood or any other relation to economic deprivation, campaigns such as No More Page 3 would have a veritable positive impact on their lives as women, but I can't help feel that, as you say, it's not a hugely inclusive type of politics and it does lack class analysis.

Stuff like a community food event sounds like a great idea - perhaps a 'female food bank' kinda thing? I too don't know how i'd go about organising that, though.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

btw, are there any good radical texts that posit the link between class and gender inequality/sexist attitudes in society that anyone would recommend? I'd be interested to read..

[Le Socialiste]

A book just came out titled "Marx on Gender and the Family (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Marx-on-Gender-and-the-Family)," might be interesting to take a look.

Here's a couple of articles that could be worth checking out, too:

Marxism, Feminism and Women's Liberation (http://socialistworker.org/2013/01/31/marxism-feminism-and-womens-liberation)

Beyond the Double Standard: Towards a Real Liberation Politics (http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3045)

Women's Liberation and the Fight for Socialism (http://links.org.au/node/150)

(That last article delves a little more into the Russian situation, but it's still applicable I think.)

[human strike]

I'm involved in organising around feminist issues on a university campus. What I'm struck by is the influx of people who aren't typically involved in the feminist movement and have traditionally been excluded from it; women of colour, men, working class students - though that last one depends very much on the class composition of the respective universities. I imagine feminist students at other unis experience a different situation, but I would be very interested to see if there are any general trends. Is anybody aware of any national networks for feminist students and their organisations in the UK?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I'm involved in organising around feminist issues on a university campus. What I'm struck by is the influx of people who aren't typically involved in the feminist movement and have traditionally been excluded from it; women of colour, men, working class students - though that last one depends very much on the class composition of the respective universities. I imagine feminist students at other unis experience a different situation, but I would be very interested to see if there are any general trends. Is anybody aware of any national networks for feminist students and their organisations in the UK?

No More Page 3 seems to have linked up with a few universities. We also had the 'I Need Feminism' campaign at uni which was HUGELY popular - hundreds of students from both sexes/across the gender spectrum got involved.

I'm not sure I recognise that many working class students getting involved, though. Or at least not altering the bourgeois perspective that seems to pervade a lot of university feminism. My university had an above-average number of students from poorer backgrounds and foreign backgrounds, yet the feminism that pervaded the campus was famously known for its bourgeois/middle class nature.