gills_et_all-third_wave_feminism_a_critical_exploration

Stacy Gillis et al. 3
emergence of third wave feminism, and its generational account of feminist
histories, mean for second wave feminists? In order to more fully understand
feminist histories and responsibilities, we need to enable, and allow, a constructive
dialogue between feminists that is not mired by mother–daughter
conflict – and not owned by any one generation. Indeed, such a dialogue
may lead to a revision of the schematic history outlined earlier.
In addition to the body of scholarly and popular work, which openly
identifies as third wave feminist, there has also been a recent surge of revisionary
feminist scholarship, as evidenced in collections such as Elisabeth Bronfen
and Misha Kavka’s Feminist Consequences: Theory for the New Century and
Ann Oakley and Juliet Mitchell’s Who’s Afraid of Feminism? Seeing Through
the Backlash. These works are more cautious about the ‘branding’ of a third
wave; rather, they synthesise the feminist debates concerning the body and
identity that took place in the 1990s. This collection is the bridge between
the cultural economies of third wave feminism, as represented by Heywood
and Drake, Dicker and Piepmeier, and Baumgardner and Richards, and the
epistemologies of contemporary academic feminism, as represented by
Kavka and Bronfen, and Oakley and Mitchell. We have chosen to entitle
this collection Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration in order to reflect
both these strands. The chapters collected here explore the possibilities, as
well as the limitations, of both third wave feminism and the wave metaphor.
As a result, this collection is the first to bring the critical eye of the academy
to bear upon third wave feminism rather than it belonging to those who
identify as ‘third wavers.’ 2 The historical narrative, underlying the generational
account of stages within feminist theory and practice, overly simplifies the
range of debates and arguments preceding the stipulated ‘era,’ and appears
to be enmeshed in a sororal anxiety relating to inheritance.
At the same time, the ‘municipalisation’ of feminism – its incorporation
into the academy – has coincided with conservative practice and what has
become known as a media ‘backlash.’ The appropriation of feminism by the
academy has a long tradition in the discipline’s history and has resulted in
an antagonism by those on the streets to the intellectualising, rather than
activating, of feminist discourse (not that the two are necessarily different). 3
Third wave feminism threatens to repeat this divisive model as there are
increasing tensions over its ‘ownership’: ‘new’ feminism must belong to new
(for which read: ‘young’) feminists. 4 Because young women outside of the
academy are ‘doing’ third wave feminism, does that mean that young
women (and, for that matter, ‘not-so-young’ women) inside the academy
cannot? Anger between those who regard themselves as excluded and
included has – for too long – inf(l)ected feminist history. Feminisms can be
multiple and polyphonous without withdrawing behind lines of engagement.
Theresa Ann Sears distinguishes between political and intellectual feminism
without necessarily regarding them as antithetical: ‘Political feminism is activist
and ideological and strives to position women favorably within society and its