From One Feminist to Another: “Unclench Those Butt Cheeks!”
Last night, the 92nd St. Y held an event called Young Women, Feminism and the Future: Third Wavers Then and Now. BUST Magazine founder and editor Debbie Stoller, original Riot Grrrl Allison Wolfe, and Manifesta co-authors Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards were there to talk about, essentially, feminism’s shifting priorities. The conversation covered everything from growing up with feminist moms to Olympia, Wash. (where Riot Grrrl was founded) to Male Studies and whether or not, in 2010, there is a feminist backlash. But this point, about the focus of feminism, struck us as particularly poignant:
When BUST launched, in 1993, “men loved it and feminists hated it,” Stoller explained. To Second Wavers, the magazine—which covered pop culture—simply wasn’t serious enough to mesh with an overriding sentiment that “if it’s not about abortion and rape, it’s not feminism.” On the Second Wave insistence that feminists focus on those issues (and those issues alone), Stoller said: “you just can’t unclench those butt cheeks.”
It’s interesting to hear these women talk about inter-generational conflict, because from our perch, it’s the intra-generational conflict that seems so inflexible. Perhaps that’s a result of the nonstop pace of the web, perhaps it’s a culture that pits young women against each other, but it seems an endless stream of quibbling about nuance, heated arguments about inclusivity, and constant nitpicking about sources and views. It’s almost as if there are self-appointed arbiters of “feminism,” who judge—harshly—whether others can measure up.
This came up recently not just because of our own writing, but because of a colleague’s recent piece on millenials and abortion, which was met by so much hostility among the online feminist voices that it actually sparked a petition. It’s great to debate these issues, but it seems to us that if the amount of energy that was spent criticizing Sarah’s piece instead went towards engaging the young women Sarah writes about, pro-choice activists would be in a much better position. As we told Choice USA:
Many women I’ve spoken to read the story as an alarming call to arms. Groups like yours could use this opportunity to engage those folks. Choosing to argue over nuance and the like seems, well, counterproductive. It also seems like it might be part of exactly what you criticized—cutting women down when they’ve got the best of intentions seems to me like it could be directly related to the failure to properly own the argument and engage this generation.
It all makes us wonder whether the young women in this movement aren’t their own worst enemies.
