Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    1/192

    Ungrateful Daughters

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    2/192

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    3/192

    Ungrateful Daughters:

    Third Wave Feminist Writings

    By

    Justyna Wlodarczyk

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    4/192

    Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings,by Justyna Wlodarczyk

    This book first published 2010

    Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

    British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

    Copyright © 2010 by Justyna Wlodarczyk

    All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

    otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

    ISBN (10): 1-4438-2369-4, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2369-2

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    5/192

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

    Chapter One............................................................................................... 15The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction

    Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 59First Person Singular: The Phenomenon of Third Wave Anthologies

    Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 95Passing and the Fictions of Third Wave Subjectivity: Rebecca Walker, Danzy Senna, Dorothy Allison

    Chapter Four............................................................................................ 137Revolution Grrrl Style Now: Michelle Tea and the Post-Punk

    Queer Avant-Garde

    Conclusion............................................................................................... 167

    Works Cited............................................................................................. 171

    Index........................................................................................................ 185

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    6/192

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    7/192

    INTRODUCTION

    0.0. On feminism and fluoride

    For our generation feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice that wehave it–it’s simply in the water. 1 —Baumgardner and Richards, Manifesta

    The feminism-fluoride metaphor, coined by Jennifer Baumgardner andAmy Richards in Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future todescribe the impact of feminism on the generation born in the 1970s andearly 1980s, has become hugely popular since the publication of their bookin 2000. Judging from the number of times it has been quoted in otherpublications, on the web and in popular conversations, it is the thirdwave’s leading metaphor. Ironically, the one third wave metaphor whichhas made history concerns feminism’s invisibility. 2 Not only is it

    strikingly non-visual, fluoride being something one can hardly imagine ordraw a picture of, it is also, probably unintentionally, very context-specific; water fluoridation, as an element of prevention of dental caries,was implemented in the largest cities in the United States, and hardlyanywhere else in the world. Thus the effects of fluoridation are very muchlike the effects of the second wave of feminism, a typically American andurban phenomenon. The original use of this metaphor is characteristic ofthe often internally contradictory character of third wave discourserevealed upon closer analysis–fluoridation is meant to stand for somethingubiquitous, which in reality it is not; it is intended as something positive(prevents cavities), yet it has been strongly opposed on the grounds ofcausing discoloration of the teeth and the weakening of bones. Third wave

    1 Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards. Manifesta: Young Women, Feminismand the Future . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000, 17.2 Interestingly, another metaphor of the Third Wave which has become verypopular also refers to its invisibility. Ednie Kaeh Garrison in “U.S. Feminism-GrrrlStyle! Youth Subcultures and the Technologies of the Third Wave” views thewaves in “third wave feminism” as radio waves rather than ocean waves (Garrison151). Radio waves are something which is invisible and yet permeates all wallsand boundaries.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    8/192

    Introduction2

    feminism proudly embraces contradiction as a strategy, yet the question ofhow self-aware it is of the contradictions it contains remains open.

    While the fluoride metaphor was originally used to describe the impactof second wave feminism on younger women, it is also a useful way oflooking at the topic of this book. The reflection of third wave sensibility inrecent literature by American women writers has so far gone largelyunnoticed, even though numerous young writers openly embrace theirmembership in the contemporary women’s movement. Conversely, quite alot of academic research has been done on decoding postfeminist discoursein fiction and popular culture, possibly because of the immense popularityof certain forms of popular cultural productions exhibiting postfeministsensibilities, for example, television series like Ally McBeal , Desperate

    Housewives and Sex in the City ,3 the romantic comedy, “girl power”cartoons and chick lit. Another possible reason for the lack of criticalinterest in third wave writing is the confusion between postfeminism andthird wave feminism, and the incorporation, more or less conscious, ofpostfeminist discourse into third wave ideology and writing. The aim ofthis book is not to resolve this confusion, but to reveal its sources andmechanisms; to show the third wave’s troubled relationship with thesecond wave; its opposition to postfeminism and its simultaneousengagement in postfeminist discourse; to present the writings of sometalented young women whose work has, so far, been largely unnoticed. Tobegin with, I need to briefly analyze the differences between postfeminismand third wave feminism.

    0.1. Why not postfeminism?

    The third wave declares itself to be steadfastly and adamantly opposed topostfeminism, as seen, for example, in my analysis of the “foundingdocuments” of the third wave presented in Chapter I. However, not mucheffort is placed by the authors of these documents on a thorough definitionof postfeminism and on explaining specifically why and how the thirdwave differs from this discourse. I would like to make the claim that thethird wave is actually informed by postfeminism at least as much as it isopposed to it, although third wavers themselves are often not aware of thisfact. This lack of awareness is a result mostly of the anti-academiccharacter of the third wave and of the confusion resulting from themultiple and somewhat contradictory uses of the term postfeminism.

    3 See, for example, Janet McCabe and Kim Akass (eds.) Reading Sex and the City ,Janet McCabe (ed.) Reading Desperate Housewives .

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    9/192

    Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings 3

    Interestingly, this very anti-academic character is also responsible for thethird wave’s unconscious incorporation of some aspects of contemporary

    cultural theories. As a result, in third wave writings and ideology we cantrace which elements of the academic understanding of postfeminism havetranspired to the general public.

    The biggest problem with defining postfeminism is the existence ofmultiple meanings of the term, all of which deserve to be presented inorder to analyze their connection to third wave feminism. The firstmeaning, or rather range of meanings, refers to the critique of feminism’srigid stance on identity politics and the need for drawing connectionsbetween feminism and other philosophical ideas. Ann Brooks, in herintroduction to Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and CulturalForms explains that “the term [postfeminism] is now understood as auseful conceptual frame of reference encompassing the intersection offeminism with a number of other anti-foundationalist movements includingpostmodernism, post-structuralism and post-colonialism” (Brooks 1). Inthis understanding postfeminism originates within 1970s feminist theoryand takes it a step further; develops some concepts, while problematizingothers.

    The most contentious concept questioned by academic postfeminism isthat of identity. Obviously, one of the basic goals of second wavefeminism was raising the consciousness of women’s identity as women ; asa group sharing certain features, problems and life experiences. Theemergence of this identity was seen as necessary in order for the conceptof sisterhood to come into being, and for feminism to be effective inachieving political change. However, while feminism was hard at work onmaking women aware of the commonalities they shared, other movements,more visible in the sphere of philosophy and cultural theory than inpolitics, were questioning the notion of stable, fixed identity andsubjecthood. The urgency of recognizing the existence of these ideas andincorporating them into feminism increased as feminism moved fartherfrom being only a political movement to a fully developed cultural theory,or set of theories. As Elizabeth Wright writes in her account of theemergence of postfeminism included in Lacan and Postfeminism : “theemphasis upon collective action soon revealed internal strains through itsneglect of difference, first of class and colour, and ultimately of identity.In part as a consequence, postfeminism began to participate in thediscourse of postmodernism since it destabilises any notion of a fixed andwhole-some subject” (Wright 6).

    In a chronological analysis of how and why this need becameacknowledged, it is vital to point out the French 1970s “difference

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    10/192

    Introduction4

    feminism” and theorists such as Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, whoseideas turned in a completely different direction from those prevalent at the

    time in the Anglo-Saxon world, that is the belief that if the “playing field”was leveled, if gender, understood as the socialization of girls intofemininity, was done away with, women and men would emerge asbasically similar, as simply human subjects. The trope of insurmountabledifferences in subjectivity introduced by French feminists was laterdeveloped by postcolonial theorists, such as, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Chela Sandoval. Other theorists, such as,Judith Butler and Donna Haraway, began an inquiry into the validity of thesex/gender distinction and carried out a radical denaturalization of thebody. Meanwhile the work of, for example, Linda Nicholson and NancyFraser, examines the relationship of postmodernism and feminism,emphasizing that each perspective can be helpful for the development ofthe other one, as “postmodernists offer sophisticated and persuasivecriticisms of foundationalism and essentialism” while “feminists offerrobust conceptions of social criticism, but they tend at times to lapse intofoundationalism and essentialism” (Fraser and Nicholson 20). Postfeminism,in this context, is understood as a successful mixing of the differentparadigms, but also, by virtue of the other “post” perspectives added to themixture, as a conceptual shift from debates about equality and ways ofachieving it to debates about difference.

    Each of the theorists mentioned above is not exclusively a postfeministtheorist and some of them would most probably object to being classifiedas such, which is yet another problem with using postfeminism as a toolfor categorizing. By using it I am not embracing it, but simply trying to fillin with names the conceptual framework sketched out by those who, likeElizabeth Wright and Ann Brooks, see postfeminism as the incorporationof other perspectives into feminism, in order not to reject feminism ingeneral but to criticize it from within. Wright observes:

    Postfeminism has begun to consider the question of what the postmodernnotion of the dispersed unstable subject might bring it. […] Postfeminismis continuously in process, transforming and changing itself. It does notcarry with it the assumption that previous feminist and colonialistdiscourses, whether modernist or patriarchal, have been overtaken, but thatpostfeminism takes a critical position in relation to them (5).

    Such a view allows for fluidity, for constant reclassification andrenegotiation, thus making it possible to classify numerous theorists aspostfeminists. However, when using Anzaldua’s and Sandoval’s ideas inChapter III to analyze writings by Rebecca Walker and Danzy Senna, I

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    11/192

    Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings 5

    prefer to refer to them as “Third World feminists,” acknowledging thecontested nature of the term postfeminism.

    Interestingly, and possibly unavoidably, this shift in feminism’s focusfrom equality to difference was accompanied by another shift: theseparation of a unique and unified social movement with a theoreticalframework into two different ones: an academic trend and a political/socialideology. From a time perspective, this split may look inevitable, but whatwas remarkable about second wave feminism was the close connectionbetween theory and activism, maintained both on the conceptual and onthe personal level. Some of the most important theorists of feminism–tomention just a few: Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Robin Morgan,Germaine Greer–were also well known as activists, appeared in the mediarepresenting feminism as a political movement, participated in andorganized some of the more radical political actions. Postfeminism, eventhough its echoes do transpire into popular culture, has never become anideology mobilizing the masses for action and its proponents have notbecome the leaders of a social movement. Meanwhile, the types of streetactivism which persisted into the 1980s and 1990s, such as pro-choicemarches organized mostly by NOW, the anti-pornography campaign andactivism in support of ERA, were ideologically stuck within second waveidentity politics and additionally tainted with the conservative discourse ofthe 1980s.

    The third wave’s relationship to this understanding of postfeminism isusually rather naïve, though one aspect of the “academic” understandingof postfeminism which third wavers comprehend is its impact on thefunneling of feminism into the academia and the focus on theory, even ifthey are not sure what this theory is. This explains the third wave’sadamantly anti-academic attitude and the attempt to pull feminism out ofthe academia and back into the streets. Ironically, quite often third waversbecome aware of the existence of feminism while attending women’sstudies courses, which explains the high volume of campus activism(Students Organizing Students, Take Back the Night, Voters for Choice).Even though third wavers themselves are often not aware of the existenceof the theory sometimes classified as postfeminist, they are quite ofteninformed by it, as a result of the same mechanism which makes all culturaltheory relevant to popular culture–that is theory describes culture,therefore culture reflects theory. This is one of the reasons why aspects ofpostfeminism are a useful tool in the analysis of third wave literary texts,as I demonstrate in this book, especially in Chapter III. The idea of fluidand shifting subjectivity is explored in the writings of, for example,Rebecca Walker and Danzy Senna.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    12/192

    Introduction6

    0.2. Postfeminism 2

    The second definition of postfeminism, or rather the second group ofdefinitions, is connected to the mostly media generated trend of using theword postfeminism to describe the contemporary world as one where thegoals of feminism have already been achieved and thus feminism is nolonger necessary. In Interrogating Postfeminism, an anthology exploringhow postfeminism functions as a concept in popular culture, YvonneTasker and Diane Negra provide this definition: “[p]ostfeminism broadlyencompasses a set of assumptions, widely disseminated within popularmedia forms, having to do with the ‘pastness’ of feminism, whether thatsupposed pastness is merely noted, mourned, or celebrated” (Tasker andNegra 1). Angela McRobbie’s definition, presented in her by now classicarticle “Postfeminism and Popular Culture” is a lot less positive.According to McRobbie, postfeminism is “an active process by whichfeminist gains of the 1970s and 1980s come to be undermined” (McRobbie27).

    Tasker and Negra note that the term began to be used in the popularmedia in the 1980s, and Chris Holmlund records the first use of “post-feminism” in a popular publication as a 1982 article in New York Times

    Magazine titled “Voices from the Post-Feminist Generation,” but the realpopularization of the term as a discursive phenomenon and as a buzzwordtook place in the 1990s. Most scholars evaluate postfeminism as adiscourse which is not ideologically neutral, but which, in fact, operates asa tool of the conservative right and of the corporate media, although thereare scholars who imbue postfeminist cultural projects with subversivepotentiality.

    According to postfeminist discourse, “the post-feminist generation” issupposedly the age group born during or after the second wave offeminism; the generation that has grown up with feminism and benefitedfrom its gains. As the beneficiaries of feminism, they are in a position tomake truly free lifestyle choices and to follow their individual inclinationsand talents at a time of equal opportunities for all. Angela McRobbie callsthis basic premise of postfeminism as the “taken into accountness”(McRobbie 28) of feminism and claims that in postfeminist discourse thegains of feminism can only be acknowledged, or taken into account, iffeminism is understood to have already passed. This is a basic readingenabling a positive evaluation of feminism, which simultaneously allowsfor thorough dismantling of feminist politics.

    The “taking into account” of feminism leads to its dismantling throughironic gestures signifying a simultaneous recognition of feminism (or

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    13/192

    Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings 7

    sexism) and the acknowledgment of the lack of need for employing thefeminist perspective. Postfeminist discourse seems to be saying: “yes, we

    know this could be read as sexist, but in today’s sexism-free world we canall enjoy it.” Among the many examples provided by McRobbie possiblythe strongest one is her analysis of a billboard “showing the model EvaHerzigova looking down admirably at her substantial cleavage enhancedby the lacy pyrotechnics of the Wonderbra” (32). This kind ofadvertisement would have certainly been deemed as sexist in the 1970s,but, as McRobbie claims, it is not a naïve reenactment of the sexist adsfrom days gone by, but a highly ironic performance of sexism which givesaway the creator’s familiarity with feminist critiques of advertising. Thead plays back to its knowledgeable postfeminist viewers the very conceptsthey learned about in their women’s studies classes in college. Protestingagainst the ad would be the dull, politically correct feminist response,while the postfeminist response is a recognition of the ad as ironic.McRobbie adds that such a reaction is also a signifier of generationaldifference, the older feminists would be outraged, while “the youngerfemale viewer; along with her male counterparts, educated in irony andvisually literate, is not made angry by such a repertoire. She appreciates itslayers of meaning; she ‘gets the joke’” (33). This way feminismdismantles itself as something outdated, lacking a sense of humor andirony.

    This specific strategy leads to what McRobbie calls the “ironicnormalization of pornography” (34), that is a situation in which womenconsent to being perceived as sexual objects, all the while emphasizing therole of their freedom of choice and the power they supposedly obtain fromflaunting their sexuality. McRobbie analyzes the proliferation of soft-pornographic images in contemporary visual culture from this perspective.Women consent to their presence because objecting to them would markthem as “uncool.” In this way postfeminism tricks women into surrenderingtheir subjecthood and allowing themselves to be objectified. Furthermore,the very language of feminism, with words such as liberation andempowerment, is made grotesque in its strictly sexual usage. 4

    To describe postfeminist ideology McRobbie also uses the term“double entanglement” to signify the attempt to deal with, and normalize,“the coexistence of neoconservative values in relation to gender, sexualityand family life” with the ongoing “processes of liberalization in regard tochoice and diversity in domestic, sexual and kinship relations” (28). In

    4 A similar argument is made by Ariel Levy in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Womenand the Rise of Raunch Culture .

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    14/192

    Introduction8

    other words, postfeminism is the conservatives’ attempt to hold theirground, while being aware that certain changes in the organization of

    social relations are inevitable. However, “double entanglement” alsosignifies that social theory cannot be created in a vacuum, that thesechanges have to be “taken into account” if a theory is to be useful. Thevery same term, that is “double entanglement,” could also be used todescribe how third wave feminism operates. On the one hand, it grows outof the opposition to postfeminism as championed by the media in the early1990s, but it is simultaneously a product of postfeminism, since all itsproponents are themselves products of the culture which createdpostfeminism. Some ways in which third wave feminism replicates thevery discourse it tries to undermine will be analyzed in detail in Chapter IIand Chapter IV, but a brief look at the main theoretical differencesbetween postfeminism and the third wave is due in the introduction.

    0.3. Postfeminism vs. the third wave

    The third wave defines itself in opposition to the popular understanding ofpostfeminism, 5 that is through defining what it is not and why. Theprimary difference, not surprisingly, emerges as the need for collectiveaction, required to secure the gains of feminism and to pursue new goals.Postfeminism claims to be a description of the existing status quo. Thisstatus quo is presented as an achievement in itself; one which should beenjoyed and not challenged in any way. Therefore, postfeminism can in noway be seen as a social movement, but only as a social theory. AlisonPiepmeier, best known as co-editor of Catching a Wave: ReclaimingFeminism for the 21 st Century , writes in an article contrasting postfeminismand the third wave:

    Postfeminism relies on competitive individualism and eschews collectiveaction; it obscures or makes invisible the many ways in which women areoften fearful, subjected to rape and other kinds of violence, and politicallyand economically underprivileged. The third wave, however–in texts fromThird Wave Agenda to Manifesta to Colonize This! –grapples withwomen's intersectional identities and demands an end to all the forms ofoppression that keep women from achieving their full humanity (Piepmeier1).

    5 and through links to and differences from the second wave of feminism, but thosedifferences will be examined in Chapters I and II.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    15/192

    Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings 9

    Postfeminism puts emphasis on the individual and that individual’sachievements. McRobbie calls this the process of female individualization.

    The empowered and liberated individual, who is aware of the ideologiessurrounding her (and including feminism), is able and expected to makedecisions. As the strength of the social structures a woman is expected tofill (marriage, childbearing, etc.) decreases, the capacity for personalagency increases. Postfeminism presents collective agency as a thing ofthe past, once necessary as a political strategy, but now obsolete andcertainly inferior to the strength of personal agency which one canexercise in the postfeminist world. While the third wave, right from itsinception, heralds the need for collective action and rekindles the secondwave concept of sisterhood, though emphasizing community based on theappreciation of difference rather than on the assumption of sameness, myanalysis of third wave texts presented in Chapter II reveals that the conceptof female individualization can easily be recognized in third wavenarratives.

    A celebration of the individual and individual achievements leads tothe postfeminist fascination with consumption, which the third wavestrongly rejects. In postfeminism consumption becomes a measure ofone’s success and, simultaneously, a tool of empowerment. The successfulpostfeminist woman can afford to buy expensive clothing and accessoriesand uses this power to improve her mood and boost her self-confidence.Postfeminist consumption is very much a tool of the capitalist economy,but in a similar way in which postfeminist irony is a tool of theconservative right. A postfeminist woman consumes in an ironic andacutely conscious way; she is aware that the Wonderbra and high heelsmay have once been signifiers of female oppression, but their significationhas now changed into that of status symbols, as a result of theirconsumption by successful women. Third wave feminists challenge thesepostfeminist ideas about consumption in several ways. Naomi Klein’sbook No Logo serves as an ideological framework for numerous thirdwavers, whose agendas include the rejection of a globalized capitalisteconomy through personal lifestyle decisions and collective action.Klein’s book, considered a manifesto of the anti-globalization movement,reveals how the choice available through consumption is in fact illusory.Before Klein and the rise of the anti-globalization movement, the RiotGrrrl movement, similarly to other youth countercultural movements,openly rebelled against conspicuous consumption and capitalism throughways of dressing and behaving, but also through the establishment ofalternative media, record distribution networks and the use of “do ityourself” technologies.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    16/192

    Introduction10

    Ironically, many of the concepts of the Riot Grrrl movement, asdescribed in Chapter IV, were later taken over by mainstream popular

    culture, commodified and sold under brand names–a key example beingthe “grrrl power” slogan itself. Of course, the commodification ofrebellion is not exclusive to the third wave, but is a phenomenon affectingpractically all countercultural movements. What makes the rebellionagainst consumption even more complicated in the case of the third waveis the fact that numerous third wave feminists are actually proponents ofthe postfeminist take on consumption. Naomi Wolf (whose ideas arediscussed in Chapter I) and Elizabeth Wurtzel openly embraceconsumption as an avenue for exercising choice, while rejecting the labelof postfeminists. In some ways their attitude towards consumption is areenactment of postfeminism’s strategy of “preemptive irony” as definedby McRobbie. They seem to be saying: “Yes, I know it’s bad, but let’s notbe square, dull, boring.” The third wave, in its opposition to the secondwave’s perceived seriousness, wants to be seen as light-hearted, fun andhaving a keen sense of humor.

    Another similarity between postfeminism and the third wave ispreoccupation with youth. In postfeminist discourse this idea is realizedsymbolically through the opposition of the “death of feminism” with thevitality and exuberance of rediscovered femininity, but it is also obviouson the literal level–postfeminism’s heroines, as described in articles inpopular magazines and presented in popular culture, are “vital, youthfuland playful” (Tasker and Negra 9). They are usually no older than in theirmid thirties and the older they are, the more attention they spend onpreserving their good looks. Postfeminism’s entanglement withconsumerism facilitates its obsession with the retention of youth; withbeauty, resulting from the ability of purchasing the right health careproducts, being one of the signifiers of professional achievement. Theseideas are interestingly subverted by third wave writers originating from theworking class. For example, Michelle Tea, whose work is discussed inChapter IV, is utterly fascinated with bad teeth which, for her, function asa badge of honor signifying working class origins.

    However, the third wave is also young, almost by definition.According to most classifications third wavers are usually women bornbetween 1961 and 1981, so the generation “easily collapsed into the largercategory of Generation X” (Henry 5). They often are, quite literally, thedaughters of second wave feminists (the relationship between the twogenerations will be discussed in Chapter I) and their rebellion against thesecond wave is often described with language usually reserved fordescribing family relationships. The young daughters are, just like

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    17/192

    Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings 11

    postfeminist heroines, “vital, youthful and playful,” which gives them theenergy required for activism. However, along with the development and

    aging of the third wave, a curious paradox can be observed. Due to theclassification of the third wave as “women under thirty”–which wassomewhat customary but also codified through some policies; for example,the Third Wave Foundation only accepted members less than thirty yearsof age–it theoretically becomes possible to “age out” of the third wave.Alternately, women over thirty proclaim their affiliation with the thirdwave as if it guaranteed eternal youth.

    0.4. The case for third wave literature

    While the very existence of the third wave of feminism, not to mention itsagenda and ideology, has been highly contested, there is no suchcontroversy regarding third wave literature. The reason is simple–there ispractically no scholarly debate on the topic. Even though there do existscholarly analyses of the works of individual writers I discuss in this book,these names are hardly ever placed alongside each other and classified asthird wave literature or third wave fiction. One of the first scholars whodared to put them together, Jennifer Drake, provides several reasons forthis lack of critical attention and media interest in the category of “thirdwave literature.” In her entry on “Third Wave Fiction” included in LeslieHeywood’s encyclopedia The Women’s Movement Today Drake explainsthat the publishing industry views the label “third wave fiction” as amarketing limitation, especially when contrasted to the highly popular“emerging writers” category. In other words, it is easier to sell a bookmarketed as ideologically neutral but with a defined target age group andfitting into an existing marketing category. Obviously, since most of thewriters whose work could be marketed as third wave are still young and donot have well-established reputations, they have not yet received fullcritical attention.

    The emergence of third wave writing has also, according to Drake,coincided with the memoir boom of the late 20 th and early 21 st century,thus books by many of the authors I write about here can be found in thememoir section of bookstores, which, again, is a common-sense marketingstrategy aimed at increasing sales and broadening the possible targetgroup. The non-fictional anthologies discussed in Chapter II, which focuson defining the goals of the movement and which offer short personalnarratives, have enjoyed relative success as college textbooks and tradebooks. Drake defines third wave fiction as:

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    18/192

    Introduction12

    writing that possesses or performs a third wave feminist sensibility in itsembrace of hybridity and contradiction over purity and either/or modes ofthinking. While third wave fiction is most often produced by emerginggeneration X or generation Y writers, the work of some established writerscan be understood as prefiguring or participating in third wave literaryproduction. While third wave fiction takes on many forms and themes, twomajor trends in third wave fiction may be delineated: postmodernmulticultural literature and punk postmodernism (Drake 145).

    I kept this very broad definition in mind while making my choices oftexts for this book and trying to provide a representative selection ofauthors. Being at liberty to make the choices myself, I decided not to

    include authors who, although they exhibit what Drake refers to as “thirdwave sensibility,” do not self-identify as “third wavers.” However, thesame strategy and Drake’s definition allowed me to include writers whodo not fit into the 1961-1981 age brackets, but who “can be understood asprefiguring or participating in third wave literary production”–whichexplains the presence of Dorothy Allison, a well established writer who,however, often self-identifies as a third wave feminist. I treated actualfeminist activism as a bonus, bearing in mind the controversiessurrounding the definition of feminist literature in general. Therefore, Iassumed that if a writer self-identified as a third wave feminist and hadbeen involved in the movement, then definitely their work qualified asmaterial for my analysis.

    Since such a huge volume of third wave writing is either non-fictionalor borders on non-fictional, I could not exclude some examples ofautobiographical writing. In the end, basically all of the works discussedhave some autobiographical content, which is proof to the strength of thememoir boom which, in turn, is analyzed in Chapter II. The concept ofthird wave theory, which I felt should be included in the book as a separatechapter, also proved to be difficult because the third wave so stronglyopposes academic theory. Therefore, I finally settled on doing what mostinstructors of women’s studies courses settle on when teaching about thirdwave feminism, and analyzed (in Chapter II) the anthologies usuallymarketed as college textbooks and containing mostly personal narrativesof feminist activists.

    Of course, certain exclusions had to be made and this is why a generaloverview of the writers whom I do not analyze in detail but who could beclassified as third wave is needed. Drake writes about two main trendswithin third wave fiction, the first one being postmodern multiculturalliterature, which according to Drake, begins with Edwidge Danticat’sfictions, Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), Krik? Krak! (1995), The Farming

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    19/192

    Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings 13

    of the Bones (1998), and Behind the Mountains (2002) and continues withZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2003) and Gish Jen’s Mona inthe Promised Land

    (1996). As Drake writes, these writers “are in dialoguewith the work of established authors such as Toni Morrison, BharatiMukherjee, and Leslie Marmon Silko. Perhaps these three writers could becalled first sightings of the third wave in their insistence on exploring thesometimes violent messiness of individual, communal, and nationalidentities in the context of globalization” (146).

    Drake lists four distinct features of third wave multicultural literature:“[f]irstly, third wave fiction often begins with the assumption that so-called marginal identities are normative, or, conversely, that the normativeis marginal” (146). Not only are third wave narrators simply representativesof ethnic minorities, their identities are often much more complex, as willbe evident from my analysis of Walker and Senna’s works. Thiscomplexity and marginality is for third wave writers something obvious, agiven, it does not require explanation. Secondly, “third wave fictions oftenemphasize the humor in cultural hybridity and cross-cultural exchange”(147). As examples of this sense of humor Drake lists Gish Jen’s andZadie Smith’s books. Thirdly, “characters in third wave fiction often resistidentity categories in favor of embracing the fluidity of identity” (147). Iexamine this resistance of identity categories in Chapter III, analyzing theconcept of passing in Danzy Senna’s novel Caucasia and RebeccaWalker’s memoir Black, White and Jewish . And lastly, “third wave fictionwriters engage popular culture critically and with pleasure” (147) just likethird wave feminism in general, third wave writers are highly literate inpopular culture.

    Drake lists the other significant trend within third wave fiction as punkpostmodernism, which she defines as “autobiographical fictions […] set incontemporary urban subcultures, usually lesbian, and [which] variouslyexplore sex, drugs, violence, music, low-wage work, gender identity,travel, and friendship” (278). Representatives of this trend include LynnBreedlove with her novel Godspeed (2003) and the semi-autobiographicalworks by Michelle Tea. Drake traces third wave punk fiction back to thewritings of Sarah Schulman (co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers), whowas in turn clearly inspired by the beatniks and whose stories are setamong New York City’s lesbian bohemia of the 1980s, and to KathyAcker’s Blood and Guts in High School (1984) and Don Quijote (1986). InChapter IV I analyze Michelle Tea’s Passionate Mistakes and IntricateCorruption of One Girl in America and The Chelsea Whistle as inspired bypost-punk aesthetics and providing an insider’s view of late 1980s pre-third wave feminist/queer communities.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    20/192

    Introduction14

    There are several writers whose work does not neatly fit into either oneof these categories, but who deserve to be mentioned as third wave writers

    of fiction on the basis of their aesthetic sensibilities and ideology. Drakelists Aimee Bender, an extremely talented short story author, as someonewho has a talent for “creating quirky and difficult characters and exploringthe nooks and crannies of contemporary life” (148) while avoidingswerving too much in the direction of postfeminism. Aimee Bender haspublished three short story collections: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998), An Invisible Sign of My Own (2001) and Willful Creatures (2005).

    Drake also mentions “chick lit,” a hugely popular new literaryphenomenon, placing it on the border of postfeminism and the ThirdWave. I briefly look at chick lit, along with other new genres of popularliterature such as “hip-hop lit” in Chapter I, which analyzes the aestheticsand politics of the third wave.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    21/192

    CHAPTER ONE

    THE THIRD WAVE : POLITICS OF STYLE ,

    AESTHETICS OF CONTRADICTION

    1.0. Introduction

    This chapter outlines the emergence of the third wave of feminism in theUnited Stated and the various strands within it, in order to provide ageneral view of how politics and aesthetics intermingle in third wavediscourse. In “U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth Subcultures and theTechnologies of the Third Wave” Ednie Kaeh Garrison calls these strands“nodes” 1 (Garrison 151) arguing that this metaphor, taken over from the

    world of computer technologies, where nodes are critical elements of asystem and points in a network where lines intersect or branch, betterreflects the technologics of the third wave. The various strands withinsecond wave feminism are usually presented in opposition to each otherand the language used to describe them encourages contrasting, thusoverviews of second wave feminism explain how radical feminismdiffered from liberal feminism, etc. Added up, these strands form a self-contained structure, described synchronically at a specific point in time. Anode is a connection point or a redistribution point, thus the term puts

    emphasis on connectedness and cooperation rather than on divisions. Italso allows for a more diachronic description and for abandoning the ideaof a structure, in exchange for that of a network. Indeed, the nodes of thirdwave feminism do not simply add up to form a complete picture of themovement, but often overlap and interconnect. Hip-hop feminism ispredominantly an African American phenomenon, while the Riot Grrrlwas overwhelmingly white, but the node metaphor makes it easier to seehow they both draw inspiration from the same source: popular music (hip-

    1 Full quotation from Garrison: “I want to argue that this ‘movement’ called theThird Wave is a network built on specific technologics, and Riot Grrrl is one node,or series of nodes, that marks points of networking or clustering” (151).

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    22/192

    Chapter One16

    hop and punk, respectively). This chapter will also briefly describe thepopular literary genres which are in some way connected to third wave

    feminism.

    1.1. The emergence of third wave feminism

    Third wave feminism, despite its relatively young age, already has anextensive historiography with several different “emergence narratives.” 2 These stories of how the third wave came into existence differ withregards to which event they view as the founding moment of the thirdwave, yet what they all share is a narrative structure which assumes a

    waning of interest in feminism throughout the 1980s and what can bedefined as an explosion of writings about feminism and feminist activismin the 1990s. While this structure itself can be easily problematized, thepersistence of the re-birth metaphor deserves to be analyzed as do thechoices of the founding moments. 3

    However, it should be mentioned as a word of caution, that it isimpossible to look at the third wave purely in terms of chronologicaldevelopments. Firstly, the third wave is not and has never been amonolithic construct in terms of a main political or ideological “party

    2 Historical accounts of third wave feminism include the Introduction to TheWomen’s Movement Today, an Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism , edited byLeslie Heywood, Chapter I “Daughterhood is Powerful” of Astrid Henry’s Not My

    Mother’s Sister and Chapter II, “What is Feminism?” in Amy Richards andJennifer Baumgardner’s Manifesta .3 In Not My Mother’s Sister Astrid Henry quotes a New York Times article“Coming of Age, Seeking an Identity” dated March 8, 2000 according to whichmore women identified as feminists in the 1980s than in the 1990s. Henry alsowrites that “the notion that the 1980s can be dismissed as a post-feminist decade is,in great part, a fiction that has helped to propagate the conservatives’ view offeminism” (Henry 21). The late 1970s and early 1980s were a period of theinfamous sex wars (see: Lisa Duggan and Nan D. Hunter . Sex Wars: Sexual

    Dissent and Political Culture , New York: Routledge, 1995 and Emma Healey, Lesbian Sex Wars , London: Virago, 1995), but the 1980s were also a decade of thesolidification of Women’s/Gender Studies in academia and a period when some ofthe most important feminist theory was published, for example, Judith Butler’sGender Trouble . The metaphor of “rebirth” requires the preceding “death” offeminism, always eagerly announced by the media (Baumgardner and Richards in

    Manifesta quote Erica Jong’s calculations according to which the media announcedthe death of feminism a staggering 169 times since 1969). The 1980s function as adecade of the “death of feminism” both in feminist historiography relying on thewave metaphor and in popular sources.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    23/192

    The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction 17

    line”. In this way the third wave is similar–and of course based on–thevarious ideological strands within the second wave, which included the

    liberal feminism of Betty Friedan and the radical anti-establishment ideasof Valerie Solanas. Secondly, and even more importantly, the third wave iscomposed of multiple aesthetic nodes, originating within various aspectsof American pop culture, which have existed and still exist alongside oneanother, evolving internally, but not necessarily transforming from oneinto another. Arguably, the two pop cultural communities which have beenthe most influential for third wave feminism have been hip-hop and punk.

    Nonetheless, several “historic moments” are described as key events,or key publications, for third wave feminism, each one pointing to whatlater became an important issue on the agenda of third wave feminism. Iwould like to discuss the “primary documents” anthologized in the secondvolume of Leslie Heywood’s The Women’s Movement Today: An

    Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism . The publication, even through itsname, assumes an aura of authority. Therefore, the history it narrates canbe called an almost “official” history of the third wave. As in any thematicanthology, the editor-historian’s choices are most certainly based on thedesire to draw the most representative picture of the movement possible.Yet, as anyone familiar with Hayden White’s work on metahistory and theconcept of emplotment knows, such a goal necessarily entails selectivity–itis worthwhile to compare which of the feminist publishing boompublications of the early nineties made it into the Encyclopedia and whichones did not, in order to decipher what kind of story “alternative” historycan be created from the publications which were omitted.

    Heywood and Drake track down one of the earliest uses of the termthird wave in the title of an anthology of writings about racism, The ThirdWave: Feminist Perspectives on Racism (Heywood and Drake 1), whichhad been stalled in publication due to financial problems of itsindependent publisher. 4 However, the two women who were instrumentalin bringing the term to public attention, although their visions of whatthird wave feminism should be like differed substantially, were RebeccaWalker, an activist and author whose work I analyze in Chapter III of thisbook, and Naomi Wolf, another popular and prolific writer. Both Walker’sand Wolf’s writings from the “emergence period” of the third wave, which

    4 The book was due to be published in 1991 by Kitchen Table, Women of ColorPress, but, in the end, was released in 1998. It is also important to note that AstridHenry records the first use of the term “third wave” in a 1987 article “SecondThoughts on the Second Wave” by Deborah Rosenfelt and Judith Stacey.However, as Henry notes, in the 1987 article the term is not used with agenerational meaning (Henry 23).

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    24/192

    Chapter One18

    I roughly define as 1991-1995, that is before the publication of the firstthird wave anthologies, are included in Heywood’s encyclopedia. 5

    In a 1992 essay in Ms

    . magazine titled “Becoming the Third Wave,”Walker expressed her outrage at the Senate Judiciary Committee’sresponse to Anita Hill’s testimony during the hearings preceding ClarenceThomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court. 6 In 1991, Thomas was tobecome the second African American Supreme Court justice. At that timeAnita Hill, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and Thomas’sformer colleague, accused Thomas of past sexual harassment. 7 After theCommittee reluctantly held formal hearings, the US Senate chose tobelieve Thomas, discrediting Hill’s testimony.

    The case began to be viewed as a confrontation between women’srights and the political gains of the African American community. Hill,also an African American, was viewed by many as a race traitor trying toobstruct Thomas’s political career for personal reasons. Walker, thentwenty-two years of age, was outraged that such accusations were metedagainst a woman who had been a victim of sexual harassment. In her Ms .article she claimed the hearings were not meant to establish Thomas’sguilt or innocence. They turned into a spectacle of public humiliationwhich Hill was forced to engage in, and became a lesson about “checkingand redefining the extent of women’s credibility and power” (Walker inHeywood 3). Walker explains how the experience of watching Hill’shearings helped her understand that “the fight is far from over” (5) andissues a plea to “all women, especially women of my generation” to joinher in the fight. She ends the article with the statement “I am not apostfeminist feminist. I am the Third Wave,” which marks the firstoccurrence of the term “third wave” in a popular publication.

    What makes Walker’s essay and the ill-fated Third Wave Perspectiveson Racism anthology significant as founding documents of third wavefeminism is the foregrounding of racial issues as central to the newgeneration of feminists. The absence of African American theorists andactivists from the second wave of American feminism is a frequent

    5 The second chapter of this book is devoted exclusively to third wave anthologiespublished in the period 1996-2006.6 Walker’s article was originally published in Ms. Jan/Feb 1992 and later reprintedseveral times in various publications.7 Anita Hill published an account of her story in 1998 in book form - SpeakingTruth to Power , New York: Anchor Books. Her testimony is included in MiriamSchneir’s Feminism In Our Time: The Essential Historical Writings, World War IIto the Present . New York: Vintage, 1994. 469-477.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    25/192

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    26/192

    Chapter One20

    political strategy, but it often seems they are unable to fulfill this need.This contradiction is developed further in Chapter II, which analyzes the

    discourse of third wave anthologies.Returning to the “myth of origin” of third wave feminism, theplacement of Walker’s article as the opening of the third wave byHeywood is not necessarily justified by historical circumstances. Therewere numerous other texts, often full-length books as opposed to Walker’sshort article, appearing at more or less the same time, which also used theterm third wave, also signaled the coming of age of a new generation offeminists and which generated a much greater media stir than a short piecein Ms . I am referring, specifically, to two books by Naomi Wolf: The

    Beauty Myth and Fire with Fire . Rene Denfield’s The New Victorians , acase against the anti-pornography feminists of the 1980s which, forDenfield, symbolized the entire second wave, and Katie Roiphe’s The

    Morning After are two more books published in the early nineties, which,although written from a feminist perspective–the authors self-identified asfeminists–were meant to attack the “old ways” of feminist thinking.

    Wolf, who it should be added was actually a short-lived mediacelebrity and hailed as the next Gloria Steinem, published several books,served as Bill Clinton’s campaign advisor and then reappeared on thepublic scene in 2004 when she accused her former Yale professor HaroldBloom of “sexual misconduct”–an accusation with a striking and strangeresemblance to the Hill/Thomas harassment case. Yet, Heywood includesonly a short piece from her book Fire with Fire , with the stipulation that itis a “controversial” text. Rene Denfield is omitted altogether, although her“pro-sex” attitude has become a trademark of third wave sensibility and isrepresented in the Encyclopedia by several essays from Lisa Jervis’santhology Jane Sexes it Up . What Wolf, Denfield and Roiphe share iscertainly skin color, class affiliation and sexual orientation. They are allvery white, very middle class (verging on upper middle class), veryeducated and very heterosexual. In many situations this must havecertainly been an advantage, but in this one the combination of thesefactors may have contributed to their omission from the annals of thirdwave history.

    The racial and cultural diversity of the movement is embraced by alland strongly emphasized by white third wavers, who not only seemgenuinely proud of the inclusive character of the third wave, but alsorepeatedly refuse to take-on leadership roles which the media attempt toimpose on them. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, authors of

    Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Futu re (2000) a book whichbecame hugely successful as a long-awaited and unique compilation of the

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    27/192

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    28/192

    Chapter One22

    presented in the major anthologies edited by third wavers, and all theeditors but Walker have so far been white, is a lot less white than it would

    seem from the examination of the third wave’s early history. Thisphenomenon can be seen as an internalized form of political correctness,but that term already connotes something negative, while it seems that theneed to create an inclusive movement, even if it means underplaying one’srole in it, is a genuine need of the white third wavers.

    Furthermore, as Astrid Henry notices, while a lot of mainstreamsecond wave ideas are scorned as racist and classist, the theory producedby second wave women of color is foundational for third wave feminism.This fascination especially with African American thought and cultureexpressed by white Americans is of course not limited to third wavefeminists, but can be viewed as part of a larger phenomenon which CornelWest describes as the “Afro-Americanization” of American popularculture. 13 This shorthand phrase refers to the fascination with AfricanAmerican culture, especially in the realms of sport and music, and doesmake sense when one bears in mind that even white third wavers havegrown up listening to hip-hop and cheering for Michael Jordan.

    Yet, Henry claims that the phenomenon is much deeper. Her overallargument in Not My Mother’s Sister is that the emergence of the thirdwave of feminism required the symbolic matricide of the second wave.This differed significantly from the relationship between the first- andsecond wavers, for whom the passage of several decades created asituation in which the first-wavers were literally dead by the time thesecond wave emerged. The passage of time created a relaxed situation inwhich second wavers could acknowledge their debt to “the greatforemothers” without the need to engage in dialogue with them.Meanwhile, second wavers often are the actual mothers of third wavers,

    13 West talks about this phenomenon in multiple essays and book chapters, mostsignificantly in Race Matters . The phrase refers to the disproportionately largepresence of African Americans (mostly males) in popular music and athletics.West notices that even though this presence will not force young white consumersof popular culture to question their preconceived notions of race, it does create “ashared cultural space where some humane interaction takes place” ( Race Matters 84). This fascination with black athletes and rappers among white suburbanteenagers leads to the imitation of black styles of dressing, behavior in speech.Cornel West notices the ironic character of this phenomenon: “just as young blackmen are murdered, maimed and imprisoned in record numbers, their styles havebecome disproportionately influential in shaping popular culture” ( RM 88). For adiscussion of the African-Americanization of popular music see, for example, “OnAfro-American Music: From Bebop to Rap,” originally published in Semiotexte in1982.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    29/192

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    30/192

    Chapter One24

    wave expressed by white third wavers as an unconscious attempt to denythe existence of the mother/mammy division. At the same time it would

    also explain the reluctance of feminists of color to identify as third waveas unconscious (or perhaps conscious?) recognition of the existence of thisfamilial triangle and their fear of being used. I have, however, noted thatthe presence of women of color activists and theorists within the thirdwave is a fact, which would seem to counter the claim that I have justmade. Yet, with the exception of Walker, basically all minority womenwithin the third wave tend to present themselves in ways which emphasizethe complexity of their identities, not simply as third wavers. RebeccaHurdis identifies as “adopted-Asian-American-woman-of-color-feminist.”One of the root causes of such hyphenated identities is the perception of“the movement” as white, which results in the need to emphasize one’snon-whiteness.

    1.2. The conservative trio: Roiphe, Denfield, Wolf

    Returning to the official history of the third wave, another early (1993)text represented in most, though not all, accounts of the history of the thirdwave is Naomi Wolf’s Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How ItWill Change the 21 st Century . Wolf’s first book, The Beauty Myth: How

    Images of Beauty Are Used against Women , published two years earlier, 14 garnered even more popular media attention. It was rather immodestlypraised by Germaine Greer, the author of The Female Eunuch , as “[t]hemost important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch. ”15 Australian-born Greer is known as the “sexy” feminist, with the main ideaof The Female Eunuch being that contemporary society has made womenfeel ashamed about their bodies, which results in decreasing their sense ofself-worth and thus their autonomy. The solution is free sexualexperimentation and denouncing monogamy.

    At the time of the publication of Wolf’s first two books–she haspublished several more since that time–her classification as a feministwriter was questionable. In their 1996 Third Wave Agenda: BeingFeminist, Doing Feminism , Heywood and Drake dismiss Wolf as post-feminist, along with Christina Hoff Summers and Katie Roiphe (Heywood

    14 The first US edition was published in 1991, the original edition was published inCanada in 1990.15 On the book jacket of the Canadian 1990 edition. Interestingly, The Female

    Eunuch was reissued in 2002. The reissuing of the book was initiated by JenniferBaumgardner, who also wrote the foreword to the 2002 edition. In other words,Germaine Greer certainly is the third wave’s favorite second wave feminist.

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    31/192

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    32/192

    Chapter One26

    feminism] evolved out of the aversion to power of the radical left” (143)with frequent references to the 1970s.

    When the characteristics of “victim feminism” listed by Wolf one byone in the chapter “Two Traditions” (135-142) are scrutinized, it is easy tosee that Wolf lumps under this designation multiple and competing strandswithin contemporary feminism, usually grossly simplifying their tenets.The accusation “[victim feminism] is sexually judgmental, even antisexual”is a reference to the anti-pornography stand taken in the 1980s by writerslike Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, but it ignores theexistence of the strong anti-censorship strand within 1980s feministactivism. 16 Wolf’s claim that victim feminism “exalts intuition, ‘women’sspeech’ and ‘women’s ways of knowing” and “idealizes women’schildbearing capacity as proof that women are better than men” attacksviews expressed by cultural feminists like Mary Belenky and CarolGilligan, who studied the different learning patterns of males andfemales 17–without, it must be added, exalting those exhibited by women orclaiming that they were inborn. Wolf completely misreads AdrienneRich’s Of Woman Born as a treatise on the natural joys of motherhood,while the book is in reality an analysis of how motherhood functions as aculturally produced institution. Rich is branded a “bad feminist” for twocontradictory reasons–that is, claiming that all women are lesbians (122-123) and for “idealizing women’s childbearing capacity” (135). Wolf’s listof characteristics of “victim feminism” includes statements such as “[s]eeswomen as closer to nature than men are,” an obvious reference toecofeminism and writers like Vandana Shiva, without any form of analysis.

    Summing up, it would seem that Wolf singles out a “pop version” ofdifference/cultural feminism as the main culprit in the propagation of“victim feminism,” but radical feminists also receive their share of scornfrom her, as can be deduced from arguments such as “[victim feminism]denigrates leadership and values anonymity” and “sees money ascontaminating.” These accusations could refer to the late 1960s and early1970s experiments in alternative forms of organization, as practiced bygroups such as The Feminists, 18 Redstockings, New York Radical Women

    16 as represented by, among others, popular Village Voice columnist Pat Califia.Califia’s collected articles were published in Public Sex: The Culture of RadicalSex in 1994.17 See Mary Belenky’s Women’s Ways of Knowing and Carol Gilligan’s In A

    Different Voice .18 The manifesto of The Feminists states the group’s organizational principles as“The Feminists is an organization without officers which divides work accordingto the principle of participation by lot. […] Traditionally official posts such as the

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    33/192

    The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction 27

    and numerous feminist collectives. Wolf does not mention the continuousexistence of liberal groups, like NOW chapters, which diligently followed

    Robert’s Rules of Order or the heated debate within radical feminism onthe issue of leadership and organizational structure. 19 All in all, Wolf’s “victim feminism” is a grotesque version of second

    wave feminism. She creates a monolithic structure, instead of representingthe manifold currents present within feminism. The monolith she createscan by no means appeal to young American women–it sounds prude,antisexual, self-righteous and out of touch with young women’s concerns.Exactly, as Astrid Henry phrases it in Not My Mother’s Sister . In fact,“victim feminism” as presented by Wolf resembles the negative mediaportrayals of feminism prevalent in the media coverage of the women’smovement. 20 Wolf suggests making feminism more appealing to theyounger generation and calls this facelift “power feminism.” Wolf’s newversion of feminism addresses, simultaneously, all the problems which shesees in the monolith of second wave feminism and solves them. Instead ofbeing antisexual, her vision of the feminism of the new generation is“unapologetically sexual.” Instead of being “manhating,” it extends aninvitation for men to join the women. Instead of promoting “groupthink”and denigrating leadership, it focuses on the individual and “encourages awoman to claim her individual voice rather than merging in a collectiveidentity.” Instead of being “obsessed with purity and perfection” and being“self-righteous,” it is “always skeptical and open.” Instead of “seeingmoney as contaminating,” it “knows that poverty is not glamorous” and“wants women to acquire money.” Victim feminism is rooted in theacademia and thus automatically out of touch with reality, while Wolf’s

    chair of the meeting and the secretary are determined by lot and change with eachmeeting. […] Assignments may be menial or beyond the experience of a member”(Koedt, Levine, Rapone 371). For a closer look at the organizational structure ofradical feminist groups in the 60s/70s see Alice Echols’s Daring to be Bad:

    Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 .19 See, for example, Joreen’s (Jo Freeman’s) “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” inKoedt, Rapone and Levine’s Radical Feminism .20 For more on the relationship between the second wave and the media see, forexample, Patricia Bradley’s Mass Media and the Shaping of American Feminism,1963-1975 . Bradley’s main argument is that the media interest which radicalfeminists tried to capture from the very beginning (through events such as the 1968Miss America Protest) in order to allow more women to learn about themovement’s ideas, became a double-edged sword because mainstream media, inorder to increase “viewer appeal” of the news items created and promoteddetrimental stereotypes about feminism–feminists became “bra burners” and “manhaters.”

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    34/192

    Chapter One28

    version of third wave feminism keeps in touch with the real world. The listgoes on, but the main changes concern attitudes towards sex, money,

    individuality, inclusiveness and diversity which, according to “powerfeminism,” should all be embraced and encouraged.In Not My Mother’s Sister Astrid Henry argues that the reason why

    Heywood and Drake claimed in 1996 that Naomi Wolf, Katie Roiphe andRene Denfield, were post-feminists rather than third wave feminists was to“distinguish their own version of third wave feminism from that of thisconservative trio” (Henry 31). Henry does not agree with that stance andanalyzes works by the three writers as opening the third wave of feminism.Apparently, the argument was well-received and Wolf’s Fire with Fire made it into Heywood’s Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism . However,I would argue that the rejection of Wolf’s version of the third wave by theeditors of Third Wave Agenda was rooted in the belief that in 1996 thethird wave still had the possibility of developing in a completely differentdirection–one which would make Wolf’s ideas long forgotten a decadelater. The inclusion of Wolf’s work in the third wave canon in 2006 is arecognition of the fact that Wolf’s views did in fact shape a large segmentof third wave thought and largely shaped public perception of what thethird wave is about, even if such a turn of events had not been considered adesirable possibility by other third wavers in 1996.

    The majority of third wavers have unquestioningly accepted Wolf’sconcept of victim feminism and the monolithic view of the second wave.This acceptance was most certainly aided by the media portrayal of thefeminist movement, especially in the 1980s. This monolithic perception offeminism is often connected with a dismissal of the need to actually learnabout the second–not to mention the first–wave of feminism. It sometimesseems as if third wavers know about the second wave only from writerslike Wolf or from the popular media. In many popular third wavepublications, especially third wave anthologies of personal essays, thecontributors half-jokingly refer to the second wave’s feminist politicalcorrectness police or the feminist “Commandments of PoliticalCorrectness” (Sheryl Wong in Piepmeier and Dicker 295) all the whilerejoicing in the possibilities offered by the new third wave feminism,which enables “embracing individual experience and making personalstories political” (Wong 295).

    In fact, Wolf’s call for encouraging “a woman to claim her individualvoice rather than merging her voice in a collective identity” and the ideathat “women have the right to tell the truth about their experiences”foreshadowed, or maybe even sparked, the development of one of thefavorite genres of third wave writing–the personal essay. Interestingly, the

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    35/192

    The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction 29

    narratives produced by the women “claiming their individual voice” areoften stories of abuse and victimization, a discourse which would seem at

    odds with Wolf’s call for “power feminism.” Feminist anthologies ofpersonal essays and the problems inherent to the genre are discussed inmore detail in the next chapter, but for now it will suffice to say that somecritics suggest that the third wave’s emphasis on personal experience hasweakened its power as a movement for political and social change.

    Wolf’s ideas about “power feminism” have also shaped some strandswithin third wave feminism. The embrace of sexuality as a site of powerand pleasure has become one of the key issues for third wave agenda, asdocumented by the numerous third wave books and articles on sexuality.The anthology Jane Sexes it Up explores young women’s sexual fantasiesand very real unorthodox sexual practices, from S/M to prostitution, in anon-judgmental fashion, while popular third wave magazines like Bust and

    Bitch offer advice on vibrators and dildos. However, pro-sex feminism, asdescribed by Wolf, has been attacked by numerous critics (see Angela McRobbie’s argument summarized in the “Introduction”) as blurring theboundary between third wave feminism and postfeminism. Wolf’spreoccupation with good sex as a major feminist issue has brought aboutridicule expressed in terms like “bimbo feminism” and “do-mefeminism.” 21 The idea that flaunting one’s sexuality as an identifying andunique characteristic of a feminist has also been attacked from within themovement, by numerous writers analyzing the watering down of the thirdwave feminist message to the Spice Girl motto of “girl power.” 22

    Furthermore, Wolf herself has come to represent a certain type of thirdwave feminist, opposed to Rebecca Walker. In the mythology of the thirdwave, Walker stands for its multicultural, multiracial, multisexual andinternally contradictory character. In contrast, Wolf is white, middle-class,

    21 In the “Bimbo Feminism” chapter of her book True Love Waits , Wendy Kaminerdescribes bimbo feminism as a sexual rebellion against parental prohibitions onsex confused with a political revolution. She claims that the personal discourse of“bimbo feminism” could be “a productive developmental stage for young womenwho need to address personal conflicts before they can take on political ones”(Kaminer 27).22 See, for example, Jennifer L. Pozner’s article in Feminista 2.1 “Makes MeWanna Grrrowl.” Pozner writes: “It's probably a fair assumption to say that‘zizazig-ha’ is not Spice shorthand for ‘subvert the dominant paradigm.’ Of course,that's precisely why the tough talking, Spandex clad, Svengali-molded demi-divashave been hyped so thoroughly as girl power spokemodels. It is hardly threateningwhen a group of jiggling, giggling girlie-girls bounce across a stage singingnonsense words, or even when, in interviews, they preach Wonderbra power toappeal to the young women who long to look like their favorite Spice Girl.”

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    36/192

    Chapter One30

    well-educated–she is a Yale graduate and a Rhodes scholar–unapologeticallyand joyfully heterosexual, pretty, high-heeled and designer-clothed. With

    the exception of the “unapologetically sexual and pretty” part of thedescription, she is in fact the 1990s embodiment of Betty Friedan, thefounder of the second wave’s liberal wing. Wolf’s first book, The Beauty

    Myth , amazingly different in tone and style from the second one, analyzeshow media images of beauty affect the self-esteem of young women. Bothin its method and in its general idea–the belief that there is one broad issueresponsible for the woes of middle-class American women– The Beauty

    Myth resembles Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique .Astrid Henry’s use of the adjective conservative in describing the trio

    of Wolf, Roiphe and Denfield does not refer to their social conservatism,as all three accuse the second wave of sexual conservatism. It does refer totheir economic liberalism and to their target audience of middle-class,educated women. In fact, many third wave writers who focus on sexualityin their writings are white, Anglo, educated, middle-class women, forexample, Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women and The Bitch Rules, 23 and Lisa Miya-Jervis. Post-feminist or not, Wolfhad to be included in the 2006 account of the history of feminism, becauseeven if she herself had in fact been an impostor using feminism as aspringboard for her writing/media career, she still influenced a significantpart of third wave thought. Yet, if Wolf is the conservative, bland andvapid wing of the movement who made a huge media splash with her sexappeal and good looks, where are the real radicals?

    One possible answer is: they simply did not produce significantwritings. Wendy Kaminer phrases the relationship between feminism andthe publishing industry like this: “If it ultimately fails as a liberationmovement, feminism will at least have achieved considerable literarysuccess” (Kaminer 22). Indeed, all the waves of feminism are now viewedas a discussion about the published views of activists and theorists and allcompilations of primary documents require the actual existence of suchtexts. The radical wing of the second wave produced a number ofmanifestos or statements of purpose, which were later collected inanthologies of historical writings, like the one edited by Miriam Schneir.Many of the individual members of the various radical groups went on topublish books of their own.

    The third wave never produced group manifestos, a significantcomment on the third wave attitude to “groupthink.” In fact, the only type

    23 A spoof on Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider’s dating advice books - The Rules:Time-Tested Secrets to Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right .

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    37/192

    The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction 31

    of third wave text bearing the word manifesto (or rather manifesta ;feminist wordplay on the word) in its title is a publication written and

    signed by two individuals–Amy Richards’s and Jennifer Baumgardner’s Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future . However, asignificant–and radical in its definite countercultural character, thoughvery homogenously white in its racial composition–node of the third wavefeminism, the Riot Grrrl movement and accompanying women’s musicscene never entered the mainstream publishing market. As a result, it ishard to expect a reflection of the movement’s early years in publicationslike the Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism , although Heywood doesinclude later (dated 2000 and later) accounts of riot grrrl’s origins andideas. The Riot Grrrl movement has been so influential that is deservesclose analysis. Chapter IV of this book is devoted to the history and ideasof riot grrrl and the literature originating from within that movement.

    Any historical account, almost by definition, focuses on events andideas which were visible, controversial and attracted public interest,capturing the attention of the media. Thus, some of the early third waveideas which were deemed unsuitable for broadcast by the media, neverbecame hot topics and have been omitted even from insider’s account ofthird wave ideas. A case in point is a story related to the already discussedHill/Thomas hearings. In an article titled “The Invisible Ones” in

    Bulletproof Diva Lisa Jones draws the silhouette of Clarence Thomas’ssister–Emma Mae Martin. Martin never became a public figure, thoughher name was used by her conservative politician brother in order topersonalize his opposition to welfare recipients and to emphasize his statusas a “self-made man.” Jones recalls that Thomas used his sister “as anexample of all-gone-wrong with liberal handouts and civil rightsleadership” and was specifically quoted as saying “She gets mad when themailman is late with her welfare check” (Jones 117-118).

    In reality, as Jones explains, the actual story of Martin’s life differssignificantly from the picture painted by her brother. While ClarenceThomas attended Yale Law School, Martin worked two minimum-wage

    jobs to support the rest of the family. She was forced to seek governmentassistance when her elderly aunt suffered a stroke and, as an act ofcompassion, she offered to care for her and her children full-time. Clearly,her lawyer brother did not offer to help out in the crisis. Martin spent fouryears on public assistance and then returned to her entry-level job at ahospital, where she began her workday at 3:00 AM. Jones comments:“While Thomas was pulling himself up by the bootstraps, self -helpinghimself, Martin took care of auntie, because who else would? And for this,he calls her a welfare queen” (119). The case never became a media

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    38/192

    Chapter One32

    scandal, never garnered much public interest and in no way hinderedThomas’s road to the Supreme Court. Jones argues that Anita Hill’s sexual

    harassment case was “a more appealing ‘middle class’ women’s issue thanwelfare rights.” Of course, Jones does not question the validity of Hill’sclaims; she simply notices the reason why some valid accusations, likeMartin’s never-vocalized complaint against her brother, are neverpublicized.

    Firstly, women like Martin are “the invisible ones” in the society,having no resources and no time (two full-time jobs and a family to takecare of) to even consider raising their issues in a public forum. Secondly,unlike educated middle-class women, their access to the media or otheravenues for telling their side of the story is practically nonexistent.Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, over the years their belief in thepossibility of the system righting the wrongs which have happened to themhas probably decreased to nothing; they may feel powerless when facedwith discrimination. Although the third wave genuinely wants to representthose who do not have a voice in the society, sometimes this task proves tobe impossible because of the reality of social divisions in the US.

    1.3. Chick lit

    Some concepts related to third wave feminism have been influential forideas surfacing in popular culture. Sometimes the relationship between thethird wave and popular culture is so symbiotic that it is difficult to decidewhether it was third wave feminism which influenced pop culture orwhether it was pop culture which influenced third wave feminism. I willdiscuss both the positive aspects of this relationship, that is how the thirdwave draws from popular culture and at the same time subverts it, and thenegative aspects, that is how certain radical feminist ideas have beencommercialized and diluted in pop cultural texts, in Chapter IV. Withregards to Wolf’s concept of power feminism, it is difficult to talk aboutthe commercialization of a radical idea, as I have shown, the concept wasnot radical from the beginning, but it does bear a striking resemblance to agenre of popular fiction, interchangeably referred to as feminist andpostfeminist–namely to chick lit.

    I will not be discussing chick lit in detail, as the genre is veryformulaic, but it is important to acknowledge its existence, especially inconnection to Wolf’s idea of power feminism. The mother-book for chick-lit is without a doubt Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996),which in turns clearly refers to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and thecomedy of manners (Ferriss and Young 5, Harzewski 41, Wells 49).

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    39/192

    The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction 33

    Although Cris Mazza, the editor of a 1995 anthology titled Chick-Lit:Postfeminist Fiction, argues that her use of the term not only predates the

    Bridget Jones phenomenon but also signifies a completely different, moreserious and sophisticated, type of literature, it must be acknowledged thatthe definition which has become ingrained in the minds of countlessreaders worldwide is the one which Mazza deems a perversion of heroriginal concept: “[s]omehow chick lit has morphed into books flauntingpink, aqua and lime covers featuring cartoon figures of long-leggedwomen wearing stiletto heels” (Mazza 18).

    Although chick-lit has been on the market for only a decade, and hasbeen marketed as such for even less–the term “chick lit” did not appear inthe original Bridget Jones reviews–it has enjoyed tremendous commercialsuccess and has received an almost unbelievable amount of criticalattention, especially from feminist critics. The main line of argumentamong critics seems to be the progressive character of chick lit–thequestion of whether the genre advances the gains of feminism, pervertsthem, co-opts them for commercial use and, regardless of what the answerto any of these questions is, how feminists and feminist literary criticsshould react to the genre. In other words, is chick-lit postfeminist literatureor is it third wave feminism? In her review of three anthologies of feministcriticism devoted almost exclusively to chick lit, Jennifer Mahrer explainsthe critical attention devoted to chick lit as an expression of our, that isfeminist critics’, skill at “unearthing progressive potential in what might atfirst appear to be patently sexist or otherwise conservative depictions ofwomen” (Mahrer 194). Mahrer succinctly summarizes the main line ofcontention among critics as basically trying to answer the eternal questionof whether overt “bashing” of any type of genre written specifically by andfor women does or does not perpetuate the long tradition of disrespectingfemale writers and readers, Hawthorne’s “damned mob of scribblingwomen.”

    The genre itself quickly became highly formulaic, which probably wasa key element in its success story. Indeed, as Mazza notes, even the coversof chick lit novels exhibit the same features; bright colors with a strongpredominance of pink, fancy fonts imitating the style of women’shandwriting, cartoon-like figures of women dressed in skimpy clothing,fashion accessories such as handbags, necklaces, fancy wine glasses.Chick lit has been called an offshoot of the film genre romantic comedy(Harzewski 39) and the visual side of the novels certainly reflects that. Thebook itself has become a sort of fashion accessory and must necessarilylook chic. Harzewski notes that product placement has become commonpractice in chick lit books, with writers being paid a fee for making their

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    40/192

    Chapter One34

    heroine drive a Ford or use L’Oreal cosmetics. Avon Trade, a chick litimprint, of HarperCollins features a bag in its logo with a slogan–“because

    every great bag deserves a book” (Harzewski 35).The heroines, even though they very often have problems with theirbody image, diet, dye their hair and even undergo plastic surgery, are stillsurprisingly and uniformly pretty. They are usually in their mid to late 20sand 30s, are white, college-educated and usually work in entry-levelpositions in the media industry. They can be journalists, PR-specialists,copywriters, or work in the publishing industry. Without exception, theylive in big cities, where the plots of the novels are also set. Their hobbiesinclude shopping, which often results in credit card debt. Their interestscenter around fashion, there is a strong fixation on clothing andaccessories in almost all chick lit novels–from Bridget Jones to The DevilWears Prada . Chick lit novels are supposed to be light-hearted and funny,with the main sources of humor emerging from the heroine’s internalstruggles and anxieties, her foibles about dieting and failures with startingan exercise regimen. The heroines are usually able to reflect on their liveswith a certain dose of irony.

    The plot is always organized around the character’s (strictlyheterosexual) relationships, although, unlike the classic romance, chick litnovels do not usually end with marriage. The heroine’s professionalcareer, family issues and friends are always in the background, but whatpushes the plot forward is the possibility of finding Mr. Right. The malecharacters themselves are often underdeveloped and seem to serve asecondary role, with much of the plot revolving around the complicationswhich ensue from misinterpretation of symptoms of the man’s interest orlack thereof. The fact that most chick lit novels are narrated in the firstperson by the main heroine and utilize the confessional mode eventechnically renders these men silent. All chick lit novels contain at leastseveral sex scenes and they all exhibit a strong fixation on frequency ofsexual intercourse as evidence of one’s success in life and status, which, ofcourse, is yet another feature differentiating chick lit from the Jane Austentype comedy of manners. However, sex by itself is never enough forchick-lit heroines, they all desire a stable, long-term, monogamousrelationship, although the search for Mr. Right regularly includes sexualexperimentation with various Mr. Wrongs.

    Another difference between the classic romance and chick lit is thestatus of money. Harzewski notes that in the classic romance money,although usually the ultimate reward in the search for a good husband, wasnever an explicit reason underlying the desire for a man. In fact, stockcharacters such as the gold-digger are cast as female villains and the

  • 8/9/2019 Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

    41/192

    The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction 35

    ability to tell between the woman who wants his money and the womanwho loves him is basically the only challenge facing the male hero of a

    romance. Chick lit drastically changes this scenario; it becomes fair gamefor the heroine to be interested in rich men and this does not make thereader any less sympathetic towards her quest. Harzewski recalls a novellafrom Bushnell’s Four Blondes in which the main character, Janey fromManhattan, prides herself on being able to spend her summers in theHamptons without paying a penny; her ever-changing boyfriends are thesponsors. When questioned by a friend about the ethics of this enterprise,she responds, “I’m a feminist […] it’s about the redistribution of wealth”(Bushnell in Harzewski 40). This comment can, of course, be read asironic and self-conscious commentary on the cooptation of feminist ideas,but it does express how the attitude of entitlement has shifted from theparadigm of political rights to lifestyle choices (“I deserve to be able towear Prada and I will do anything to realize my right”)

    Ties between Wolf’s idea of “p