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From riot grasps to "Girls" Tina Fey and Kathleen Hanna----
A rather lengthy excerpt, one I found quite interesting
SUNDAY, AUG 31, 2014 12:00 PM PDT
From riot grrrls to “Girls”: Tina Fey, Kathleen Hanna, Lena Dunham and the birth of an inspiring new feminism
Texts have helped to spread feminist ideas since the beginning of the U.S. women’s movement — from suffragist newspapers in the nineteenth century to mimeographed manifestos of the late 1960s to bestselling feminist books in all eras. In the late 1960s, it was not uncommon for feminist groups to write political statements, or manifestos, outlining their beliefs and goals. Such documents tended to come out of consciousness- raising and political groups, produced by a collective of women rather than just one author. Documents of this type, such as the “Redstockings Manifesto” (1969), were widely circulated in pamphlet form and often republished in feminist journals and anthologies, some of which became bestsellers, such as the collection “Sisterhood Is Powerful” (1970). Likewise, the emergence of a new feminist sensibility in the post-1990 era can be connected to texts, whether Rebecca Walker’s 1992 Ms. essay or feminist books preceding it, such as Susan Faludi’s “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women” (1991) and Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women” (1991). Texts were especially important in giving a presence to this new feminism, since it did not rely on the gathering of women in activist groups. If the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s and 1970s was characterized by the rapid formation of groups and publication of their manifestos, the feminism that emerged in the mid-1990s developed primarily through the publication of individually authored texts. Texts named the generation, texts energized it, and reading texts became a way of participating in the contemporary movement.
The boom in new feminist writing in the 1990s and 2000s, much of which used the terms “third wave” or “next generation,” often took the form of anthologies of individual essays, almost exclusively written in a first- person voice, which provided concrete examples of how young women (and some men) were living feminism in a supposedly “postfeminist” era. These collections were joined by monographs which also described feminism through an autobiographical voice, as well as books that sought to give young people concrete examples of how to engage in everyday activism. More recent books have attempted to reach even younger women — and girls — to encourage them to see why feminism is still vitally important. Two new feminist magazines also began publishing in the 1990s — Bust (created in 1993) and Bitch (created in 1996)—both of which took a decidedly “ third wave” approach in their look and their content. “Just as Ms. harnessed the vibrant pamphlet culture of women’s liberation, Bust and Bitch founders tapped into the rich feminist ’zine culture associated with the Riot Grrrls movement,” which had combined radical feminist politics with a punk rock, do-it-yourself aesthetic.
At the same time, a new crop of feminists began publishing books that discussed the wide range of activist projects that younger feminists were working on, including issues as varied as the environment, the prison industrial complex, and media representations of women. As the 1990s progressed, young feminist scholars — many of whom had been trained in women’s and gender studies and were now professors themselves — began publishing books that took a more scholarly approach to this new feminism, tracing its history and its theories and critically analyzing what exactly this new feminism was all about.
What these books all had in common was a central thesis: feminism is still relevant and vitally needed. Whether they presented this point through autobiographical testimony, appeals to younger women to recognize their innate feminism, or blueprints for how to do activism in the twenty-first century, these books reached a broad audience and helped to bring about a renewed interest in feminism in the United States. This writing did not come out of group meetings or collective visions of a feminist movement, but it helped create and foster a feminist mindset among a wide range of younger women and men in the United States, leading them to go out into the world and continue the feminist fight.
Excerpted from “Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements” by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon and Astrid Henry.” Copyright © 2014 by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry. With permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
From riot grrrls to “Girls”: Tina Fey, Kathleen Hanna, Lena Dunham and the birth of an inspiring new feminism
Texts have helped to spread feminist ideas since the beginning of the U.S. women’s movement — from suffragist newspapers in the nineteenth century to mimeographed manifestos of the late 1960s to bestselling feminist books in all eras. In the late 1960s, it was not uncommon for feminist groups to write political statements, or manifestos, outlining their beliefs and goals. Such documents tended to come out of consciousness- raising and political groups, produced by a collective of women rather than just one author. Documents of this type, such as the “Redstockings Manifesto” (1969), were widely circulated in pamphlet form and often republished in feminist journals and anthologies, some of which became bestsellers, such as the collection “Sisterhood Is Powerful” (1970). Likewise, the emergence of a new feminist sensibility in the post-1990 era can be connected to texts, whether Rebecca Walker’s 1992 Ms. essay or feminist books preceding it, such as Susan Faludi’s “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women” (1991) and Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women” (1991). Texts were especially important in giving a presence to this new feminism, since it did not rely on the gathering of women in activist groups. If the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s and 1970s was characterized by the rapid formation of groups and publication of their manifestos, the feminism that emerged in the mid-1990s developed primarily through the publication of individually authored texts. Texts named the generation, texts energized it, and reading texts became a way of participating in the contemporary movement.
The boom in new feminist writing in the 1990s and 2000s, much of which used the terms “third wave” or “next generation,” often took the form of anthologies of individual essays, almost exclusively written in a first- person voice, which provided concrete examples of how young women (and some men) were living feminism in a supposedly “postfeminist” era. These collections were joined by monographs which also described feminism through an autobiographical voice, as well as books that sought to give young people concrete examples of how to engage in everyday activism. More recent books have attempted to reach even younger women — and girls — to encourage them to see why feminism is still vitally important. Two new feminist magazines also began publishing in the 1990s — Bust (created in 1993) and Bitch (created in 1996)—both of which took a decidedly “ third wave” approach in their look and their content. “Just as Ms. harnessed the vibrant pamphlet culture of women’s liberation, Bust and Bitch founders tapped into the rich feminist ’zine culture associated with the Riot Grrrls movement,” which had combined radical feminist politics with a punk rock, do-it-yourself aesthetic.
At the same time, a new crop of feminists began publishing books that discussed the wide range of activist projects that younger feminists were working on, including issues as varied as the environment, the prison industrial complex, and media representations of women. As the 1990s progressed, young feminist scholars — many of whom had been trained in women’s and gender studies and were now professors themselves — began publishing books that took a more scholarly approach to this new feminism, tracing its history and its theories and critically analyzing what exactly this new feminism was all about.
What these books all had in common was a central thesis: feminism is still relevant and vitally needed. Whether they presented this point through autobiographical testimony, appeals to younger women to recognize their innate feminism, or blueprints for how to do activism in the twenty-first century, these books reached a broad audience and helped to bring about a renewed interest in feminism in the United States. This writing did not come out of group meetings or collective visions of a feminist movement, but it helped create and foster a feminist mindset among a wide range of younger women and men in the United States, leading them to go out into the world and continue the feminist fight.
Excerpted from “Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements” by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon and Astrid Henry.” Copyright © 2014 by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry. With permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/31/from_riot_grrrls_to_girls_tina_fey_kathleen_hanna_lena_dunham_and_the_birth_of_an_inspiring_new_feminism/
