Teaching with the third wave new feminists - MailChimp

a particular narrative of captivity that Chow describes as a historical anddiscursive construct characteristic of a post-Enlightenment era. Understoodas a metaphor of a general narrative in a “modernist imaginary”, Chow thussuggests that the narratives about captivity and liberation need to be “rehistoricizedas a modernist invention”. 19However, the feminist critique of the Marxist ignorance of women’sconditions led feminists to produce a notion of a particular ‘feminist consciousness’.The feminist consciousness is described as an “anguished consciousness”,and, as explained by Sandra Bartky, characterized by victimization. The feministconsciousness involves a divided consciousness which means, according toBartky, that it involves the knowledge “that I have already sustained injury, thatI live exposed to injury, that I have been at worst mutilated, at best diminishedin my being”. But, Bartky adds, it also contains a “joyous consciousness ofone’s own power, of the possibility of unprecendented personal growth andthe release of energy long suppressed”. 20 Those elements – victimization andempowerment – were also the basic constituents in the various consciousnessraisinggroups, the bitch sessions and rap groups of the second-wave. And eventhough there is a great variety in the forms and methods used in the differentgroups, they were all characterized by the idea that all women share a commonoppression and that men are the oppressors. 21In Chicago in 1968, Kathie Sarachild presented a model forconsciousness-raising divided into seven steps: 1) Individual confession (whichwas explicitly stated as therapeutic); 2) Generalizations out from the individualstories (to gain political insight); 3) Awareness of oppression; 4) Treatmentof personal experiences together with the group; 5) Understanding anddevelopment of a radical feminist theory; 6) Training in organising other groups;7) Organisation. 22 As many know, though, the consciousness-raising groupsoften got stuck in the therapeutic phase, which meant that the discussions19Rey Chow, The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism ( Princeton: Columbia University Press, 2002), 39.20Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination. Studies in the phenomenology of oppression (New York & London:Routledge, 1990), 14-5.21Jo Freeman, “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” (paper presentation at the Southern Female Rights Union conference,in Beulah, Mississippi, May, 1970), 2, accessed at 090220.http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/jofreeman/joreen/tyranny.htm; Göran Ivarsson et al., “Basgrupper inomkvinnorörelsen” unpublished essay Dept of Gender Studies, Göteborg: Göteborg university,, 1980, 12; “We are thefeminists that (Wo)men have warned us about”, (introductory paper prepared for the Radical Feminist Day Workshopat White Lion Free School, April 8th, 1979).22Göran Ivarsson et al, “Basgrupper inom kvinnorörelsen” (paper at the Department for Gender Studies, Göteborg:Göteborg university, 1980), 15.83