TEXTBOOK: Ch. 3 - The Rhetorical Shaping of Gender: Competing Images of Women

*liberal feminism* *cultural feminism*

One ideology, *__________________________*, holds that women and men are alike and equal in most respects. Therefore, goes the reasoning, they should have equal rights, role, and opportunities. A second, quite different ideology, *__________________________*, holds that women and men are fundamentally different and, therefore, should have different rights, roles, and opportunities. These 2 ideologies coexist, reflecting different views of women and their rights.

*Riot Grrrl*

*_________________* was an underground feminist movement that began in the late 1980s and was aligned with punk music, radical politics, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethics. Angered to find that the lessons of second-wave struggles had not been fully absorbed by U.S. culture, Riot Grrrls formed feminist collectives across the country. They created and self-published music, art, and magazines ("zines") in order to tell women's stories and build a "Revolution, Girl Style Now." Zines such as "Girl Germs," "Jigsaw," and "Bamboo Girl" tackled a range of feminist issues, from rape culture and eating disorders to homophobia and racism. Riot Grrrl bands like "Bikini Kill" and "Bratmobile" wrote songs to rage against sexism and celebrate grrrls' independence and sexuality. Many scholars consider Riot Grrrl to signal the beginning of third-wave feminism as a whole.

*Power feminism*

*______________________* emerged in the early 90s. Power feminists assume that society does not oppress women because women have the power to control what happens to them. Naomi Wolf (1993) tells women that the only thing holding them back from equality is their own belief that they are victims. Similarly, power feminists Katie Roiphe (1993) claimed that Take Back the Night marches, annual nonviolent protests to speak out against rape, are self-defeating because "proclaiming victim-hood" does not project strength.

*Revalorism*

*________________________* highlights women's traditional activities and contributions to society. The broad goal of revalorists is to increase the value that society places on women and their traditional roles.

*Transfeminism*

*___________________________* is a movement by and for trans and gender nonconforming people that advances an intersectional view of liberation. It is worth noting that trans and gender nonconforming people were active participants in both first- and second-wave feminism, and that transfeminist perspectives have informed intersectional feminisms for decades. However, the term "transfeminism" is more recent - coined in the early 1990s when transfeminism and transfeminists became increasingly visible.

*ecofeminism*

A final strand in liberal feminism is *______________________.* Ecofeminists assert there is a connection between the effort to control and subordinate women and the struggle to dominate nature (perhaps not coincidentally called "Mother Earth"). Rosemary Radford Reuther, a theological scholar, argues that the lust to dominate has brought the world to have a brink of a moral and ecological crisis in which there can be no winners. Ecofeminists believe that, as long as oppression is culturally valued, it will be imposed on anyone and anything that is unable or unwilling to resist.

*#BlackLivesMatter*

After the Million Woman March, many African-American women began building a movement focused on racial oppression. In 2013, 3 Black women - Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors - created *________________________*, igniting Twitter feeds and moving quickly from the Internet to the streets. Alicia Garza notes in the "herstory" of the movement: "Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and internationally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks' contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression." Inspired by the founders, 2 of whom identify as queer and one of whom comes from an immigrant family, #Black LivesMatter organizers have been diligent in ensuring that "all" black voices - including trans voices, girls' and women's voices - are heard, forging an intersectional movement against racist violence that attends to black people of all gender identities, sexualities, abilities, immigration statuses, and classes.

*womanism*

Although many liberal feminists of different races in the 1960s and 1970s grappled with issues of race, black feminism or *_______________________* is explicitly dedicated to foregrounding issues of race and class as they are related to gender. Highlighting how oppressions intersect, womanists work to shape a political movement specific to the concerns of black women. Womanists point out that, compared to white women, black women as a group are more often single, bear more children, are paid less, and assume more financial responsibility for families. In addition to focusing on race, womanists attend to ways in which class intersects race and sex to create inequality. Womanist organizations often include working-class women and address issues that keenly affect lower-class African-American women. Their goals include reforming social services to be more responsive to poor women and increasing training and job opportunities so that women of color can improve the material conditions of their lives.

*Mainstream second wave feminism*

Another branch of second-wave feminism emerged from the U.S. middle-class suburbs in the early 1960s. *_________________________________________*, which advocates women's social, economic, educational, and political equality, was ignited in 1963 with publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. The book's title was Friedan's way of naming "the problem that has no name," which was the discontent that many white, middle-class American women felt because they had limited opportunities beyond home and family. Echoing radical feminists, Friedan declared that this seemingly personal problem was actually also a political issue. She pointed out that women were not able to pursue personal and professional development because American institutions, especially laws, kept many women confined to domestic roles. Although most suburban stay-at-home moms loved their families and homes, they also longed for an identity outside of home, particularly in the 30 to 50 years of life after children left home. Liberal feminism is embodied in NOW, the National Organization for Women. Founded in 1966, NOW works to secure social, political, professional, and educational equality for women and has become one of the most influential public voices for women's rights.

*backlash* *Antifeminism* *antisuffrage movement*

Beginning with the first wave, there have been intense antifeminist efforts, also called the *______________* against feminism. *___________________________* opposes changes in women's roles, status, rights, or opportunities. The first example of antifeminism was the *_______________________________*, which argues that women's rights to vote, pursue education, or hold property conflicted with women's natural roles as wives and mothers, and that women's suffrage would weaken the nation. Antisuffrage activism reached its apex between 1911 and 1916 and disbanded after women won the right to vote. Antifeminist activism resurged in the 1970s in books that advocated women's return to traditional attitudes, values, and roles and the STOP ERA movement, which opposed the 1972-1973 campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The most proponent of STOP ERA, Phyllis Schlafly, traveled around the nation announcing that feminism was destroying femininity by encouraging women to leave traditional roles. Ironically, although Schlafly argued that women's place was in the home, her speaking schedule kept her away from her own home and family. The STOP ERA movement was successful in blocking passage of the bill. To this day, the U.S. has not passed the ERA.

*postfeminist era*

Claiming we live in a *___________________________* assumes that feminism is no longer relevant or needed because sexism has been fully eradicated. Postfeminism adopts the language of feminism - using words such as choice and empowerment - to advance an agenda that undermines feminist commitments to gender justice. Postfeminism's emphasis on individual choice confuses personal decision-making with freedom and gender equality. Consider the way pursuing an education is often thought of as a "choice" that individuals freely pursue. Although personal choice is important, it alone doesn't lead to an education. The decision to attend a university or college is often determined by finances. Full merit scholarships are hard to come by, and financial aid is difficult to secure if you or your parent(s) do not have credit. If you are a parent, the decision to pursue education is made more complex by limited childcare options. And class status often determines the quality of k-12 education and thus whether an individual can get into a good college. Placing emphasis on personal choices above all else, postfeminism depoliticizes women's lives and struggles - reducing structural conditions such as lack of societal support for child care and unequal pay to individual challenges, which individual women are personally responsible for resolving.

*Separatism*

Cultural Ideology: Just as in the first wave, the second wave also includes groups that believe that women and men are different in important ways and, thus, should have different rights and roles. *_____________________* was developed to provide communities for women to live independently of men. Finding that feminine values of life, equality, harmony, nurturance, and peace gain little hearing in a patriarchal, capitalist society, separatists formed all-women communities in which feminine values can flourish without the aggressive, individualistic, oppressive values these women associate with Western masculinity. Because separatists did not assume a public voice to critique the values they found objectionable, they exercised little political influence. Yet, their very existence defines an alternative vision of how we might live - one that speaks of harmony, cooperation, and peaceful coexistence of all life forms.

*cult of domesticity*

Cultural Ideology: The Cult of Domesticity: Although the Women's Rights Movement is often assumed to represent the interests of most white women in the 1800s, many women of the time did not believe that women and men were fundamentally alike and equal. Instead, they thought that women were suited to the domestic sphere because they were more moral and nurturing than men. These women belonged to what has been called the *_____________________________*. Yet some women who were devoted to domestic life felt a need to represent their views in public. They worked for abolition because slavery destroyed families, lobbied for temperance because alcohol contributed to violence against women and children, and fought for labor laws to protect children. Their advocacy required a public voice and the right to vote. Thus, for quite different reasons than those motivating women's rights activists, some women in the cult of domesticity also worked for women's enfranchisement.

*multiracial feminism*

In 1981, Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua edited and published the groundbreaking book, "This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color." This marked the entrance of *________________________* - a liberation movement characterized by global perspective, coalition-building, and emphasis on multiple systems of domination that shape women's lives. Drawing on the work of earlier radical women of color, as well as womanism's focus on black women's lives, multiracial feminists work to dismantle the various forms of oppression that impact women's lives. Although race is especially important in multiracial feminism, race is understood to be intertwined with other systems of domination. Multiracial feminists insist that gender does not have universal meaning - instead, what gender means and how it affects our lives varies as a result of race, economic class, sexual orientation, gender identity, and so forth. While some feminist historians cite a decline in feminist activism in the early 1980s, the 80s and 90s were decades in which multiracial feminism flourished. Also, feminism during the 1980s and 1990s was increasingly attentive to sexual orientation and gender identity, issues that provided the foundation for grappling with the gender binary.

*Million Woman March*

In 1997, African-American women held a *______________________________* in Philadelphia. Powered by grassroots volunteers who built support in their localities, the steering committee of the Million Woman March was made up not of celebrities but of average women who worked at unglamorous jobs and lived outside the spotlight.

*Hip-hop feminism*

In the late 1990s, another branch of younger feminist activism announced itself. *_______________________________* is a movement rooted in black feminism and responsive to the concerns of the post-civil rights or hip-hop generation. Not unlike other branches of third-wave, hip-hop feminists "recognize culture as a pivotal site for political intervention to challenge, resist, and mobilize collectives to dismantle systems of exploitation."

*radical feminism*; *women's liberation movement*

Liberal Ideology: The second wave of U.S. feminism included many groups that endorsed a liberal ideology. The first feminist activism to emerge during the second wave was *______________________* also called the *__________________________________*. Not surprisingly, college campuses provided fertile ground for the emergence of radical feminism. It grew out of New Left politics that protested the Vietnam War and fought for cvil rights. Women in the New Left movement did the same work as their male peers - including risking arrest and physical assault - men in the New Left treated women as subordinates, telling them to make coffee, type new releases, and be ever available for sex. Outraged by men's refusal to treat women in the movement as equals, many women withdrew from the New Left and formed their own organizations.

*women's rights movement*

Liberal Ideology: The Women's Rights Movement: The most well-known women's activism during the first wave endorsed a decisively liberal ideology. The *___________________________* arose to gain basic civil rights for women. Scholars date the start of this movement as 1840, when Lucretia Coffin Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met at an international antislavery convention and were both denied entry based on their sex. Mott and Stanton realized that they could not work to end slavery if they were denied political voice as women. Thus, they helped organize the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention, held in New York in 1848. The keynote address, entitled "Declaration of Sentiments," was ingeniously modeled on the Declaration go Independence. It began with these words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The Declaration of Sentiments cataloged specific grievances women had suffered, including not being allowed to vote, exclusion from most forms of higher education, restrictions on employment, and loss of property rights upon marriage. At Seneca Falls, 32 men and 68 women signed a petition supporting women's rights. Instrumental to passage of the petition was the support of the former slave Frederick Douglass. Douglass' support of women's rights does not signify widespread participation of black men and women in the women's rights movement. Initially, there were strong links between abolitionist, or antislavery, efforts and women's rights. However, this alliance was strained when the U.S. Constitution was amended, in 1874, to extend suffrage to black men, but not women. Additionally, many black women were disenchanted with the women's rights movement's focus on white women's circumstance and its lack of attention to grievous differences caused by race. Thus, the early women's rights movement became predominantly white in its membership and interests. Women of different sexual orientations and gender expressions and identities were involved in the early women's rights movement. A number of first-wave feminists, including Susan B. Anthony and Alice Stone Blackwell, were in "Boston marriages" - committed, long-term, intimate relationships with other women. Frances Willard, the founder of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, was remarkably gender fluid - publicly lauded for embodying "true womanhood" - but in intimate relationships with women, was referred to as "frank," and adopted masculine behavior and dress. According to historian Lillian Faderman (1999), lesbians' involvement in first-wave women's rights struggles is due to 2 significant factors. First, women who did not rely on men for protection were particularly vulnerable to the many gendered inequalities of that era, including the inability to vote and to pursue education and most careers. Thus, obtaining political rights was linked to survival for these women. Second, women who did not have intimate relationships with men were less constrained by marriage and child rearing and therefore had more time to commit to the women's rights movement. Women's rights activists marched and spoke at rallies and engaged in peaceful nonviolent protests and hunger strikes. They were jailed, assaulted, and violently force fed. Their struggles are dramatically chronicled in the HBO film Iron Jawed Angels. A long 72 years after the Seneca Falls Convention, women won the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

*mainstream third-wave feminism*

Mainstream Third-Wave Feminism: Emerging from Riot Grrrl and influenced by multiple branches of second-wave feminism, especially radical and multiracial feminism, *______________________________* includes orientations, and gender identities. Although third wavers draw on earlier movements, third-wave feminism is not simply an extension of the second wave.