Word: feminist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Call them the "No, but . . . " generation. No, they are not feminists, or so they say, but they do take certain rights for granted. "I reject the feminist label, but I guess I'd call myself an egalitarian," says Leslie Sandberg, 27, a political-campaign worker in Boston, whose attitude seems typical of her generation. "I'm feminine, not a feminist," insists Linn Thomas, an Auburn University senior, in another variation on the theme. Adds Thomas: "I picture a feminist as someone who is masculine and who doesn't shave her legs and is doing everything she can to deny that...
Hairy legs haunt the feminist movement, as do images of being strident and lesbian. Feminine clothing is back; breasts are back; motherhood is in again. To the young, the movement that loudly rejected female stereotypes seems hopelessly dated. The long, ill-fated battle for the Equal Rights Amendment means nothing to young women who already assume they will be treated as equals...
...Feminist leaders like Gloria Steinem and Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women, are dismissed as out of touch. NOW's call last summer for a third political party that would represent women's concerns seemed laughable to young women who do not want to isolate themselves by gender but prefer to work with men. When Sarah Calian, a senior at Brown University, went to hear Yard lecture on campus, she could not connect. Though Calian brims with ambitions for a major career and her first child by 35, she says, "I never felt so not a part...
Sometimes even the women who participated in the feminist revolution, who shaped their lives according to its ideals, shake their heads and wonder. Call them the "Yes, but . . . " generation. Yes, these women in their 30s and 40s are feminists, but things have not worked out as expected. It is hard for them not to feel resentful: toward society for not coming to the aid of women in their new roles, toward the movement for not anticipating the difficulties. "We were promised that we could do it all and we would be as successful as men," says Carolyn Lo Galbo Goodfriend...
...their primary concerns -- access to education, health care and safe neighborhoods for their children -- were not priorities for the women's movement. As for getting out into the workplace, well, poor women have always been there, mopping floors, slinging hash, raising other people's children. "I never saw the feminist movement as liberating me from the home," says L. Clarissa Chandler, a black social worker and feminist who directs the Alcoholism Center for Women in Los Angeles...