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Feminism fourth wave

Young women are leaving the stereotypes of the past behind. Monash research is charting the changes of what might be feminism’s ‘fourth wave’, discovers KAY ANSELL

Young women are changing their world but it is a very quiet revolution.

It is not because this generation of Australian women are shy, retiring types – they just don’t want to see their ideas reduced to ‘girl power’ slogans on cute

T-shirts. And they reject confining labels, such as ‘feminist’, believing it restricts them from fulfilling their potential.

Monash University’s Dr Anita Harris, from the Centre for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, is observing the growth of a movement she has tentatively dubbed the ‘fourth wave’ – though perhaps ‘underground swell’ would be more accurate, because it is not expressed in public forums.

She is quick to point out that diversity is itself a defining trait of today’s young women and that not all are involved.

The centre, in Monash’s School of Political and Social Inquiry, has been a leading force in women’s and gender issues for many years. It maintains an international profile and has links with Asia, Europe, the US and the UK through joint research, exchange programs and international conferences.

This November, the centre will host an international conference in London, ‘A New Girl Order? Young Women and the Future of Feminist Inquiry’.

History characterises feminism’s first wave as the suffragettes and the second as the women’s liberationists of the 1960s and 1970s. The third wave of the 1990s saw women climbing the corporate ladder while juggling families and other commitments. But now younger women are questioning the choices offered by those hard-won gains, Dr Harris says.

Dr Harris, a postdoctoral research fellow, is writing two books to be published next year. Young Women Construct the Political examines the activism of young women in all their diversity, while Challenging Girlhood, co-authored with academics in the US and Finland, will include issues such as the impact of ‘girl power’ on young women.

Dr Harris’s interest has been fuelled by spot fires on many fronts. She has seen girl power start as a radical expression of punk

feminism only to become a gimmick to sell the Spice Girls and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She is concerned about a resurgence within society of a kind of moral panic trying to put the brakes on girl power. It is a fear, she says, of "girls joining gangs, girls taking drugs, teen motherhood, a whole lot of concerns about the dangers girls are exposed to nowadays".

"It’s almost a concern that girls are going to be so ‘girl-powered’ they are going to be out of control – that if girls really think they can do anything we have to remind them of the dangers lurking out there and that they really can’t ," she says.

Young women are actively concerned about many different issues, she says, ranging from the personal, such as identity, to the global, like the ‘fair wear’ campaign against clothing sweatshops.

The internet and on-line ‘fanzines’ are connecting young women across the world and giving them a forum to air these concerns. Mainstream arenas, such as the media or academic debates, are often perceived to be irrelevant and inaccessible to their world.

So, if there is a fourth wave of feminism, where is it taking young women?

Dr Harris believes young women are questioning the value of the traditional rewards of feminism. Education, careers, changes to laws and policies are not necessarily delivering what they want, she suggests.

Rather than a feminist revolution, we could be seeing another feminist redefinition.

"There is a rejection of what’s been perceived to be ‘good’ mainstream feminist outcomes, that you have everything – a good professional job, you live in the suburbs and have a partner who cares for the kids," Dr Harris says.

"These things are still important for many women but are seen as limited and unrealistic. They feel they have been sold a bit of a lie."

ACTION: For information on the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, visit www.arts.monash.edu.au/ws/

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