Women behind feminist 'manifesta' speak out

"Can I wear a thong and be a feminist?"

According to Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner, the answer is yes.

The two women, who wrote Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, addressed this question -- along with more serious ones -- Thursday night in Houston Hall. The event was this year's Jane S. Pollack Memorial Lecture, and was co-sponsored by the Women's Studies department and the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women and Gender.

Unlike in their mother's generation, feminism "is like fluoride -- it's in the water," Richards said.

"All of the women we've talked to have identified as feminists -- 'I guess,'" Baumgardner said, to illustrate how many modern women are feminists, even if they don't use the term.

The two then stated that modern feminism revolves around preserving a range of lifestyle choices and maintaining those options from inside social institutions. Unlike the previous feminist generation, the focus is not on challenging the institutions externally.

Richards and Baumgardner then put the definition in a historical context by explaining feminism's history.

The "first wave" began during the abolition movement and continued through the Progressive Era until women gained the right to vote in 1920. It was characterized with a concern to make women citizens, they said.

Alice Paul helped usher in the "second wave" when she wrote the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923. The women argued that this second movement consisted of an attention to legal rights, ending around 1970.

The "third wave" -- or modern feminism -- is primarily concerned with "consciousness change," or changing the perception of women in individuals' minds instead of exclusively focusing on legislation.

They described the third wave of feminism by answering common questions, such as "Can I be a Catholic and be a feminist?" Both women maintained that if you analyze issues such as this one closely, resolutions are possible.

With religion, Richards said, many feminists believe the problem is not with the religion itself, but with its interpretation.

A question-and-answer session followed. When asked about the younger generation's lack of direct action, a tangential remark by Baumgardner turned into a lively debate over Title IX. The law, which forces universities to give as much money to women's sports as men's, sparked a debate between the older women in attendance, who fiercely defended it, and Baumgardner, who thought that both the law and feminists' reaction to it may be misguided.

But, despite the debate, most enjoyed the experience.

"I think it's great that they came," said Melissa Rosenstein, a first-year Med student who established the group Medical Students for Choice at Penn. "It's terrifying to me that we could learn [to perform abortions], but it could be taken away again with one vote."

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