Archer & Huffman The Second Wave

56 Society, Vol. 69, No.
1, January 2005, 56–91

Science&&SOCIETY
SCIENCE
The Decentering of Second Wave Feminism

and the Rise of the Third Wave*
SUSAN ARCHER MANN

DOUGLAS J. HUFFMAN
ABSTRACT: Third wave feminism is a new discourse for under-
standing and framing gender relations that arose out of a critique
of the second wave. Four major perspectives that share a common
focus on difference, deconstruction and decentering contributed
to this new discourse: intersectionality theory; postmodernism/
poststructuralism; feminist postcolonial theory; and the agenda
of young feminists. A Marxist–feminist perspective grounds this
new perspective in social and historical conditions and makes
possible a materialist analysis of the rise of the third wave.
R
ECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SOCIAL THOUGHT have
heightened our awareness of how theories of emancipation
can be blind to their own dominating, exclusive and restric-
tive tendencies and how feminism is not innocent of such tenden-
cies (Foucault, 1984; Grimshaw, 1993). Indeed, within movements
for emancipation, resistance can take the form of counter discourses
that produce new knowledges, speak new truths, and constitute new
powers. We argue that this process has occurred in the United States
over the last few decades, as witnessed by the decentering of second
wave feminism by the rise of a new discourse on gender relations:
third wave feminism.
Our analysis of the third wave is quite different from the prevail-
ing view that it refers to a new generation of young feminists who came
* The authors thank Jeanne Cashen, Linda Coleman, Sara Crawley, Martha Gimenez, and
Lise Vogel for their comments and suggestions for revising earlier drafts of this manuscript.
56
SECOND AND THIRD WAVE FEMINISM 57
of adult age in the 1980s and 1990s and who introduced a number of
novel interests, concerns and strategies for political action. Rather,
we argue that the phenomenon of third wave feminism should be
viewed as a more profound development: the rise of a new discourse
or paradigm for framing and understanding gender relations that
grew out of a critique of the inadequacies of the second wave. Our
analysis here is more akin to those scholars who view third wave femi-
nism as the visions and voices of feminists who positioned themselves
“against,” rather than necessarily “after,” the second wave (Koyama,
2002). This new discourse did not seek to undermine the feminist
movement, but rather to refigure and enhance it so as to make it more
diverse and inclusive.
We use the term discourse to refer to historically variable ways
of specifying knowledge and truth that both constrain and enable
writing, speaking and thinking. Like the second wave, the third wave
is not a uniform perspective, but rather includes a number of diverse
and analytically distinct approaches to feminism; these approaches
share general properties that have fundamentally transformed our
understanding of gender today. Common threads running through
the diverse feminisms of the third wave are their foci on difference,
deconstruction, and decentering. To date, four major perspectives
have contributed the most to this new discourse of third wave femi-
nism: intersectionality theory as developed by women of color and
ethnicity; postmodernist and poststructuralist feminist approaches;
feminist postcolonial theory, often referred to as global feminism;
and the agenda of the new generation of younger feminists.
The purpose of this article is to critically examine some of the
major contributions of each of these strands of third wave feminism.
We will highlight features of this new discourse that are compatible
with a Marxist–feminist critical theory, as well as areas that remain
contested terrain. We also ground this new discourse in changing
social, economic, and political conditions to provide a materialist
analysis of factors that influenced the rise of the third wave. This
analysis is historically specific to the United States and we do not mean
to suggest or portend that developments in feminist thought will
occur in the same way in other locales.
Before we begin, we would be remiss not to acknowledge that
serious critiques have been leveled against wave approaches to under-
standing the history of feminism (Ruth, 1998; Guy-Sheftall, 1995;
58 SCIENCE & SOCIETY
Springer, 2002). We recognize, for example, that wave approaches

too often downplay the importance of individual and small-scale
collective actions, as well as indirect and covert acts. We also agree
that there is a tendency for attention to be drawn to the common
themes that unify each wave, and this often obscures the diversity of
the competing feminisms that actually exist. This tendency is particu-
larly likely to obscure the contributions made by more radical camps
and by more marginalized members in each wave.
While we are sensitive to these issues, we think a wave approach
has merit when it is used to describe the existence of mass-based femi-
nist movements. This does not mean that there were no feminists or
feminist activism before or even after these waves, but simply that their
ideas and actions did not materialize into a mass-based, social move-
ment. Indeed, we think the wave metaphor only makes sense when it
is used to describe mass-based movements that ebb and flow, rise and
decline, and crest in some concrete, historical accomplishments or
defeats. Thus, we are not suggesting that the waves of feminism are
equivalent with the history of feminism. Rather, waves are simply those
historical eras when feminism had a mass base.
For the entire period we are examining in this article, a mass-
based feminist movement existed in the United States since the third
wave arose from within the second wave, as opposed to after it. Chro-
nologically, we argue that the initial challenges to second wave femi-
nism shared a focus on difference, but resulted in two opposing
political camps: one that embraced identity politics as the key to lib-
eration; and a second that saw freedom in resistance to identity. The
former is best illustrated by feminists of color and ethnicity, whose
identity politics and intersectionality theory critiqued the second wave
for its alleged essentialism, white solipsism, and failure to adequately
address the simultaneous and multiple oppressions they experienced.
The latter is exemplified by postmodernist and post-structuralist femi-
nists who critically questioned the notion of coherent identities and
viewed freedom as resistance to categorization or identity.
We first examine these two initial challenges to the second wave
to highlight their common ground, as well as the crossroads that led
them down divergent paths in their politics of gender. Later, we show
how the other major perspectives that contributed to third wave dis-
course — feminist postcolonial theory and the agenda of the new
generation — grew out of syntheses of these earlier challenges posed

by intersectionality theory and postmodernism/poststructuralism.
THE EARLY THIRD WAVE: INTERSECTIONALITY AND

POSTMODERNISM/POST-STRUCTURALISM
Contributions by Women of Colar and Ethnicity
While women of color and ethnicity had been notable activists

and writers throughout both the first and second waves, they were
truly the pioneers of the third wave in that they were the first to pro-
vide an extensive critique of second wave feminism from within the
feminist movement. They were also the first to use the term “third
wave” (Springer, 2002, 1063).
The crux of this new direction in feminism was a critique of the
“essentialist woman” of the second wave, which they claimed ignored
or downplayed differences among women (Spelman, 1988). Audre
Lorde captures the essence of this critique in the following quote:
By and large within the women’s movement today, white women focus upon
their oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual prefer-
ence, class, and age. There is a pretense to a homogeneity of experience
covered by the word sisterhood that does not in fact exist. (2000, 289.)
Hence, while the essentialist “we” or “sisterhood” of the second wave

was ostensibly meant to unify the women’s movement, instead it proved
to be a painful source of factionalization — what Elizabeth Spelman
called the “Trojan horse of feminist ethnocentrism” (1988, x).
A related critique by feminists of color and ethnicity centered on
the issue of how the second wave dealt with “multiple and simultaneous
oppressions” (Smith, 1983, xxxii). Here two tendencies within the sec-
ond wave were most frequently attacked. The first treated multiple
oppressions as separate and distinct or what these critics called a pop
bead or additive approach to multiple oppressions (Spelman, 1988;
King, 1988). The second hierarchized oppressions or treated one form
as more fundamental than another. Neither of these approaches ade-
quately conceptualized multiple oppressions as simultaneous, insepa-
rable, and interlocking.
One of the earliest pieces to articulate the simultaneous and non-

hierarchical nature of oppressions was the Combahee River Collective’s
“Black Feminist Statement,” published in 1978. This was followed in
the 1980s by such classics as All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are
Men, but Some of Us Are Brave (Hull, Bell-Scott and Smith, 1982); This
Bridge Called My Back: Radical Writings by Women of Color (Moraga and
Anzaldua, 1983); Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (Smith, 1983);
and Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (hooks, 1984). Viewing them-
selves as “outsiders” within the feminist movement, these pioneers of
the third wave created a feminism of their own (Lorde, 2000).
Importantly, their new feminism highlighted the need for femi-
nists not only to address external forms of oppression, but also to
examine forms of oppression and discrimination that they themselves
had internalized. This required all feminists to pay more serious at-
tention to the difficult process of building a movement connected
by difference, and to critically examine how the politics of the past
suffered from “the loss of each other” (Breines, 2002, 1127).
Deeply troubled by the failure to build a unified feminist move-
ment, a number of white, second wave feminists delved deeper into
our past history, seeking reasons for this failure. They knew that the
second wave had not ignored differences among women, even though
this view was widespread. Indeed, many second wave feminists were
acutely aware of issues of race, class and imperialism, having cut their
political teeth through their involvement in the Civil Rights Move-
ment, the New Left, and the anti–Vietnam War movement before
joining the feminist movement. Lise Vogel, for example, challenged
the consensus that had developed by the 1990s that race and class
were not of interest to feminists until the 1980s. She admonished
those who had simplified the complicated history of the second wave
and seriously questioned how participants in the second wave could
have forgotten the saliency of issues like race and class, which were
an integral part of the feminism of the 1960s and 1970s (Vogel, 1991).
Another second wave activist, Wini Breines, recently provided an
interesting answer to this question. Based on documents by and in-
terviews with socialist feminists who were active during the 1960s and
1970s, she argues that “an abstract anti-racism characterized much
of the theorizing and politics of white feminism” (2002, 1122). That
is, while many white, second wave feminists wrote about and analyzed
differences by race and class, they seldom interacted socially with
Black women. Their abstract theoretical and analytical comprehen-

sion of racism proved insufficient. Breines writes: “Without knowing
one another, they could not make a movement together” (2002,
1123). She concludes that feminists need both a political understand-
ing of racism and a personal–political understanding of how racism
affects our everyday lives. This link between personal interaction and
political action suggests that the second wave’s notion that the per-
sonal is political has even more implications for feminist practice than
was initially understood.
Yet, the politics derived from this new feminist discourse by women
of color and ethnicity made the process of building connections based
on difference difficult. This politics is often referred to as identity
politics because it rooted politics in group identities or social loca-
tions. As Linda Alcoff puts it: “The idea here is that one’s identity is
taken (and defined) as a political point of departure, as a motivation
for action, and as a delineation of one’s politics” (1988, 412). Given
the multiplicity and diversity of oppressed groups, coalition building
is the major means for fostering effective political action (Combahee
River Collective, 1978). However, since identities placed exclusive
boundaries on group membership, these politics also embodied the
negative potential to revert to fragmentation or “tribalism” (Touraine,
1998, 131).
Identity politics not only affected political practice; it also affected
the way feminist theoretical perspectives came to be defined or dis-
tinguished. In the 1980s, it was common to see the perspective delin-
eated above called by various names such as Africana feminism, Black
feminist thought, or the women of color and ethnicity perspective.
This shift from feminist perspectives distinguished by their politics
(such as Marxist feminism or liberal feminism) to designations based
on identity was, itself, essentialist and misleading, since it lumped
together women of color or ethnicity, ignoring their own diversity of
political persuasions. Yet most feminists ignored this change, as men-
tion of it was rare (Jaggar and Rothenberg, 1993, xxii–xiv).
During the 1990s, this theory of simultaneous and multiple op-
pressions was rearticulated, largely as a result of the theoretical writ-
ings of Patricia Hill Collins. Collins moved from first calling this
perspective Black feminist thought (1990) to renaming it inter-
sectionality theory (Andersen and Collins, 1994; Collins, 1998) — a
designation that enabled its theoretical and political assumptions to
prevail over standpoint or identity. Collins also created a new femi-

nist epistemology that has had a profound effect on feminist thought.
Here she developed a social constructionist view of knowledge that
linked identities, standpoints and social locations in a matrix of domi-
nation. She writes:
The overarching matrix of domination houses multiple groups, each with

varying experiences with penalty and privilege that produce corresponding
partial perspectives [and] situated knowledges. . . . No one group has a clear
angle of vision. No one group possesses the theory or methodology that
allows it to discover the absolute “truth” or, worse yet, proclaim its theories
and methodologies as the universal norm evaluating other groups’ experi-
ences. (1990, 234–235.)
This new epistemology shared with postmodernism/poststruc-

turalism certain key assumptions that had significant implications for
the third wave’s analyses of power and knowledge. However, as the
quote above suggests, the politics embraced by intersectionality theory
focused on groups exploiting other groups and maintained an analy-
sis of oppression that was relational, oppositional and structural,
despite its multiplicity. In contrast, the critique of second wave femi-
nism leveled by postmodernists and poststructuralists used difference
to deconstruct all group categories and to reject oppositional think-
ing, as we discuss below.
Contributions of Feminist Postmodernists and Post-Structuralists
This challenge to the second wave was led by feminists who based
their analyses on the works of French social thinkers, such as Jacques
Lacan, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, who argued that all
group categories could and should be deconstructed as essentialist.
As Judith Grant noted, groups based on difference — such as the
working class or women of color — have no single voice or vision of
reality, but rather are made up of people with heterogeneous expe-
riences (Grant,1993, 94). Hence, while the advocates of identity poli-
tics had called into question the unitary category of women as having
common or essential experiences, a similar critique could be leveled
against their own group concepts based on race, ethnicity, class, and
sexual orientation. Clearly, when taking the postmodernist turn, the
focus on difference proved to be a slippery slope that led from a
politics based on identity to its negation — a politics based on non-

identity (Mann, 2000).
This deconstruction of group categories ushered in a full-scale
critique of binary or dualistic thinking that undermined oppositional
analyses of oppression. The central idea is that identity is simply a
construct of language, discourse, and cultural practices. The goal is
to dismantle these fictions and, thereby, to undermine hegemonic
regimes of discourse. To affirm identities, as identity politics does,
merely reproduces and sustains dominant discourses and regulatory
power (Foucault, 1984). To break out of these oppositional structures
and subvert them was to assert total difference.
A number of feminist theorists embraced these ideas. Rather than
viewing affirmations of identity as liberating, they refigured them as
disciplinary, restrictive and regulatory. Today, such an approach is
characteristic of performance theorists like Judith Butler (1992; 1993)
and queer theorists like Eve Sedgwick (1990). As one noted queer
theorist states: “If queer theory speaks to a serious epistemic shift, I
think it is to this refigured conceptual scheme. . . . I take as central
to queer theory its challenge to what has been the dominant founda-
tional concept of both homophobic and affirmative homosexual
theory: the assumption of a homosexual subject or identity” (Seid-
man, 2000, 440). Similarly, Butler argues that the rifts and resistance
to group identities ought to be “safeguarded and prized” as emanci-
pation from restrictive ontologies and as sites of “permanent open-
ness” to multiple significations (1992, 15–16). Viewing identities as
multiple, fluid and unstable was seen as presenting more possibili-
ties for the surfacing of differences. Here, freedom is resistance to
categorization; it consists in “the happy limbo of nonidentity” (Fou-
cault, quoted in Grant, 1993, 131).
Linda Alcoff has called this “the identity crisis in feminist theory”
(1988, 403). Indeed, in academic circles, the term “postfeminism” re-
ferred not to the smug media claims that feminism was no longer nec-
essary, but rather to a series of debates about whether feminism could
withstand the deconstructive critiques mounted by postmodernism and
post-structuralism (Siegel, 1997, 53). While integrally involving iden-
tities, the underlying issue was how feminists could retain collective
categories and simultaneously avoid essentialism. Because collective
categories are integral to structural and relational analyses of power,
they also affect how power and oppression are conceptualized.
Postmodernists and poststructuralists tend to reject structural views of

oppression and treat power as more ephemeral and ubiquitous. This
latter view is exemplified in the following quote from Foucault:
Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything but because it comes

from everywhere. . . . Power comes from below; that is there is no binary and
all-encompassing opposition between ruler and ruled at the root of power
relations and serving as a general matrix — no such duality extending from
the top down and reacting on more and more limited groups to the very
depths of the social body. (Quoted in McHoul and Grace, 1993, 39.)
A number of feminists have attacked such conceptions of power

as “robbing the terms of oppression of their critical and oppositional
importance” (Collins, 1998,136) or as the “resuscitation of an offi-
cial pluralism which ultimately denies the hierarchies associated with
difference” (Vogel, 1991, 97). With this conceptual shift, hierarchy
was “recast as flattened geographies of centers and margins” (Collins,
1998, 129), and power relations increasingly became analyzed at the
local, individual level, rather than at the level of large-scale, social
structures (Fraser and Nicholson, 1997; Gimenez, 2001).
While we concur with these critiques, we find other features of
Foucault’s analysis of power to be compelling — especially his focus
on subjection and how we internalize oppressions. In his analysis of
subjection, he exposes how the rise of democratic republics with their
new conceptions of political liberty were accompanied by a darker side:
the emergence of a new and unprecedented discipline directed against
the body. These new “surveillance” societies used more subtle disci-
plinary and regulatory practices, such as self-policing, that replaced the
need for more obvious, external forms of social control (Foucault, 1977,
217). Such insights fostered greater understanding of women’s collu-
sion in their own subordination and meshed well with feminist views
of bodies as battlefields (Ramazanoglu, 1993, 6). Feminists who applied
Foucault’s insights to an analysis of body politics have contributed
immensely to rapidly growing new areas of inquiry, such as the anthro-
pology and sociology of bodies (Bordo, 1993; Bartky, 1990).
Common Epistemological Ground
Despite much contested terrain, intersectionality theory shares

common ground with postmodernism and poststructuralism, not only
in their use of difference to deconstruct essentialism and to decenter

dominant discourses, but also in their new epistemological ap-
proaches. Both embrace the view that knowledge is socially con-
structed and socially situated, such that every knowledge producer
not only shapes knowledge, but also has a partial or limited vantage
point. No one view is inherently superior to another and any claim
to having a clearer view of the truth is simply a masternarrative — a
partial perspective that assumes dominance and privilege. In place
of such masternarratives, they call for polyvocality and more local-
ized mini-narratives to give voice to the multiple realities that arise
from diverse social locations.
This epistemological approach helps to recover and elevate the
importance of marginalized voices that had been buried or muted
by dominant groups. Accordingly, it moves these subjugated voices
from the margins to the center, thus decentering dominant dis-
courses. It also elevates types of knowledge that previously had been
treated as inadequate or lesser, such as the socially lived knowledge
of everyday life. Conversely, it demotes the privilege formerly given
to theory and science as more relativist views of truth prevail. By the
1990s, many feminist texts treated theory and empirical science with
more hesitancy and suspicion, often viewing them as masternarratives
(Jaggar and Rothenberg, 1993; Ruth, 1998; Kirk and Okazawa-Rey,
2001). Such epistemological assumptions led the third wave onto
more idealist terrain as discourse received ontological primacy and
reality became multiple and subjective.
LATER CHALLENGES TO THE SECOND WAVE
In this section, we argue that feminist postcolonial theory, as well as

the agenda of the new generation of younger feminists, grew out of
syntheses of the earlier challenges to the second wave posed by inter-
sectionality theory and postmodernism/post-structuralism. By saying
that these later challenges are synthetic derivations, we are not sug-
gesting that they lack originality. Rather, it is the complex and, at
times, curious features of these theoretical syntheses that make them
novel.
These new syntheses differ from each other in several distinct
ways. While the feminist postcolonial perspectives we are examining
draw from postmodernism/poststructuralism, they are more akin to
the intersectionality theory created by women of color and ethnicity

in the United States, in that they often embrace a macro-structural
and relational analysis of oppression. This common thread is not
surprising, given that these sister perspectives both arose out of his-
tories of colonialism and imperialism (Lewis and Mills, 2003, 2–6).
In contrast, the new generation focuses more heavily on micro-level
concerns, exposing how both external and internalized oppressions
place restrictions on their lives. This, coupled with their resistance
to categorization and identity, more closely mirrors the ideas of post-
modernism/post-structuralism.
Contributions of Feminist Postcolonial Theory
In the 1980s, a new category of feminist thought — global femi-

nism — was becoming a regular feature of feminist discourse in the
United States. Initially, this rather dubious category encompassed
both theories and purely descriptive accounts of how relations be-
tween local and global processes affect women in different social
locations across the globe. While these writings were worthy endeav-
ors, insufficient attention was given either to the range of political
perspectives included or to what exactly was meant by global femi-
nism. Over time, this perspective was given more theoretical coher-
ency and political potency by the influence of feminist postcolonial
theory (Minh-ha, 1989; Spivak, 1990; Lewis and Mills, 2003).
A major contribution of these writings was to transform the
macro-unit of analysis from a societal to a global level. In contrast,
many second wave feminists treated the nation–state or society as their
macro-unit of analysis. Clearly, in a world where our everyday lives
are increasingly affected by a global economy, the rapid growth of
transnational economic and political units, and an unprecedented
flow of people and information across international borders, our
levels of analyses must reflect these new realities. In turn, feminist
postcolonial theory used difference, deconstruction and decentering
to provide a number of new insights into these global developments
(Spivak, 1987; Mohanty, 2000; Narayan, 1997).
Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s critique of colonial discourses (first
published in 1991) provides a fine example of how a new theoretical
perspective that draws from postmodernism, post-structuralism and
intersectionality theory transcends dilemmas encountered in these
earlier perspectives. Like her predecessors, Mohanty begins by using

difference to deconstruct essentialism. She points to how women in
the third world often have been essentialized in Western feminist
thought:
The application of the notion of women as a homogeneous category to

women in the third world colonizes and appropriates the pluralities of the
simultaneous location of different groups of women in social class and eth-
nic frameworks; in doing so it ultimately robs them of their historical and
political agency. (2000, 349.)
Like the proponents of intersectionality theory, Mohanty de-

mands recognition of the heterogeneity of women in the third world
in terms of their multiple and diverse social locations to undermine
essentialism. She also discusses how the problem of essentialism arises:
Thus, the discursively consensual homogeneity of “women” as a group is

mistaken for the historically specific material reality of groups of women.
This results in an assumption of women as an always already constituted
group, one which has been labeled “powerless,” “exploited,” “sexually
harassed,” etc., by feminist scientific, economic, legal, and sociological
discourses. (346.)
Similarly, Uma Narayan argues that the “colonial encounter”

resulted in “problematic pictures” or “totalizations” of both Western
and non-Western cultures that concealed their diversity and made
them appear as natural givens rather than as inventions or construc-
tions (1997, 14–15). Gayatri Spivak puts it slightly differently, refer-
ring to the tendency to confuse essentialism with empiricism (1987,
68–69). To combat such discursive essentialism, these feminists call
for historical specificity, making clear that “these arguments are not
against generalization as much as they are for careful, historically
specific generalizations responsive to complex realities” (Mohanty,
2000, 349). By highlighting the potency of historical specificity, these
postcolonial theorists simultaneously rescue collective categories and
avoid essentialism.
Spivak also focuses attention on the issue of how ontological
commitments to historical agents, such as working-class or third-world
women, must be seen as structurally negotiable. There is nothing
essential about such categories or collectivities. People in these
categories must recognize themselves as agents of change rather than

simply as victims, and there is no historical necessity to the rise of such
consciousness or political action (Spivak,1987, 65). Thus, historical
specificity can also provide a more accurate analysis of political agency.
Using one of the more progressive features of postmodernism,
Mohanty draws out the implications of interrogating “alterity” or
otherness (Agger, 1998, 57). This critical inquiry reveals how binary
thinking implicitly entails “secret hierarchies” — a dominant group
and a marginalized group, where the latter is viewed not only as other,
but as lesser (Agger, 1998, 57). Examples of this include such dichoto-
mies as male/female; heterosexual/homosexual; or white/black.
Mohanty shows how women in the third world are often portrayed
not only as a singular or essentialized other, but also implicitly as lesser
— as ignorant, tradition-bound, and victimized. This portrayal is
contrasted with an equally singular representation of Western women
as educated, modern and having control of their bodies and lives
(Mohanty, 2000, 346). While such criticism is not new to feminism
(Cooper, 1892; de Beauvoir, 1952), Mohanty’s use of these ideas to
deconstruct colonial discourses offers constructive critiques of west-
ern analyses of colonialism and imperialism.
Although she demonstrates the value of postmodernist insights,
Mohanty does not call for an end to oppositional or relational analy-
ses of oppression. Rather, she is quite explicit that “colonization al-
most invariably implies a relation of structural domination” (1991,
345). Hence, a macro-structural and oppositional analysis of oppres-
sion is retained, along with the use of historically specific, collective
categories to highlight political agency. In contrast, the agenda of
the new generation of younger feminists entails a far greater focus
on micro-politics, as well as a stronger resistance to collective catego-
ries, as we discuss below.
Contributions of the Younger Generation’s Third Wave Agenda
We point in this section to key features of what has been called

the younger generation’s “third wave agenda” (Heywood and Drake,
1997). However, we do not mean to suggest that all young feminists
share a singular or uniform perspective. Rather, as we discuss below,
there are many areas of disagreement among these young feminists.
Moreover, clearly demarcating who is included in this new gen-

eration is not without problems. These young feminists have been
referred to in various ways, from using specific dates of birth to using
more collective imagery, such as “Generation X” or a “mother–daugh-
ter trope” to depict the relationship between the second and third
waves (Heywood and Drake, 1997, 47; Quinn, 1997). We prefer to
use what various writers have called a “political generation,” which is
not merely a product of chronological age and may include even more
than one chronological generation (Whittier, 1995, 15). The key to
such political generations is that they reflect the life experiences of a
particular historical moment (Henry, 2003). Hence, when we use the
term new generation, we are referring to feminists who came to adult-
hood during or after the last decades of the 20th century in an era
that many social theorists today describe as postmodernity or late
capitalism (Featherstone, 1991; Giddens, 1990; Agger, 1998).
While other members of this generation have been decried as
“the most politically disengaged generation in American history”
(Halstead, 1999, 33), these young feminists have been immensely
active. Their Third Wave Foundation is a strong national organiza-
tion with over 5,000 members. Their conferences, teach-ins and skills-
sharing workshops have cropped up across the nation, and they have
created hundreds of feminist zines, webzines, and magazines. For
example, within its first five years, Bust magazine’s distribution in-
creased from 1,000 to 32,000 — quite a feat for a publication whose
first issue was xeroxed and stapled (Karp and Stoller, 1999, xiv). Young
feminists also have significantly influenced diverse areas of music
culture, from Punk to Rock ’n’ Roll to Rap and Hip Hop (Cashen,
2002; Morgan, 1999).
While they often express their indebtedness to their predeces-
sors (Baumgardner and Richards, 2000, 3–9; Henry, 2003), rather
ubiquitous in their writings is a view of the second wave as too judg-
mental and restrictive. For example, in Listen Up: Voices of the Next
Generation (1995), Barbara Findlen describes how young women
often think that “if something or someone is appealing, fun or
popular, it or she can’t be feminist” (1995, xiv). In the anthology,
To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism (1995),
Gina Dent uses religious metaphors to argue that the second wave
was characterized by an austere “missionary feminism” that entailed
self-policing, confession through consciousness-raising groups, and

salvation through political action (Dent, 1995, 64). As such, it “puts
forth its program so stridently, guards its borders so closely, and leg-
islates its behavior so fervently that many are afraid to declare its
name”(Dent, 1995, 64).
While the new generation has produced a number of question-
able stereotypes of the second wave, we do not think their disciplin-
ary view of second wave feminism is simply an imagined feminist status
quo, as others have claimed (Davis, in Walker, 1995, 281). The sec-
ond wave’s notion that the personal is political was a double-edged
sword that highlighted not only how personal issues were political,
but also how personal lifestyle choices should not undermine femi-
nist politics. Hence, it was both disciplinary and transformative in that
it required that social change was part of one’s everyday life. By con-
trast, the new generation, in its attempt to open up and broaden femi-
nism, introduced a number of less restrictive ideas, strategies and ways
of conceptualizing feminism that sparked condescension, controversy
and rather hostile critiques from their second wave sisters (Kaminer,
1995; Baumgardner and Richards, 2000, 224–234).
It is precisely such feelings of condescension and exclusion, ex-
perienced by women of color and ethnicity here and abroad, and now
felt by a new generation, that fostered the decentering of the second
wave. Perhaps this is why, when younger feminists discuss the works
of their elders, the writings by global feminists and by women of color
and ethnicity are the works they most admire (Heywood and Drake,
1997, 9; Brooks, quoted in Hernandez and Rehman, 2002, 117). Yet,
while this new generation clearly embraces the focus on difference
and multiculturalism found in these writings, we agree with those
writers who argue that their political strategies more strongly reflect
the influence of postmodernism and poststructuralism (Siegel, 1997;
Bruns and Trimble, 2001; Huffman, 2002; Dicker and Piepmeier,
2003).
One strategy that reflects the postmodernist preference for lo-
calized, mini-narratives over theory is evident in what one observer
called the new generation’s “penchant for personal narratives”
(Springer, 2002,1060). Indeed, the anthologies by these young femi-
nists include a plethora of such personal narratives about the con-
tradictions, uncertainties, and dilemmas they face in their everyday
lives. Similarly, many of their zines are personal — much like jour-
nals written to vent anger and frustration (Cashen, 2002, 17). Such
personal narratives have been denigrated as too confessional, whiny
or subjective by their critics (Pollitt, 1999). Yet, while a careful review
of this generation’s writings suggests that they use a variety of forms
ranging from the personal to the more theoretical, personal narra-
tives and what Bordo has called less abstract “embodied theory” clearly
predominate (1993, 184–185). Moreover, some of their more recent
writings have made concerted efforts to more explicitly “use personal
experience as a bridge to larger political and theoretical explorations
of the third wave” (Dicker and Piepmeier, 2003, 13).
This media-savvy generation has also used new technologies, such
as the internet, desk-top publishing, and xeroxing, to expand the ven-
ues for their voices (Alfonso and Trigilio, 1997). Zines in particular,
have provided a form of interaction where “youths are the initiators
and producers of their own social agendas and representations . . . an
underground with no center, built of paper” (Cashen, 2002, 18).
Another major strategy of these young feminists, which mirrors
certain postmodernist and post-structuralist techniques such as decon-
struction and the rejection of binary polarities, is their use of contra-
dictions to expose the social construction of reality. Cashen describes
how Riot Grrrls, a group who reclaimed space for women in punk
rock, adopted a feminine “girlie” kind of dress juxtaposed with com-
bat boots or words like “slut” written on their bodies to critique and
deflate the construction of the feminine (Cashen, 2002, 13–14). Simi-
larly, Heywood and Drake discuss how the new generation embraces
“hybridity” (1997, 7) or what they refer to in the following quote as
“the lived messiness” of the third wave:
The lived messiness characteristic of the third wave is what defines it: girls
who want to be boys, boys who want to be girls, boys and girls who insist they
are both, whites who want to be black, blacks who want to or refuse to be
white, people who are white and black, gay and straight, masculine and femi-
nine, or who are finding ways to be and name none of the above. (1997, 8.)
Indeed, many younger feminists celebrate contradictions as a

means of resistance to identity of categorization, much in the spirit
of performance theories and queer theorists. Here, embracing flu-
idity is seen as fostering diversity and exposing the categories of race,
gender or sexuality as simply social constructions.
This greater resistance to identity by younger women has been

empirically documented in a recent doctoral dissertation by Sara L.
Crawley (2002), who found distinct age differences in lesbians’ re-
sponses to butch and femme identities. In her study, younger lesbians
(those under 30) were more likely to produce the stereotypical butch
and femme appearances, but were less likely than older lesbians (those
over 30) to identify themselves as butch or femme in terms of a core
sense of self. These younger women resisted more permanent identi-
ties because they favored more fluidity or having many different ways
of being. They also frequently embraced performance politics.
The predominance of postmodernist performance politics within
the third wave has been the subject of much controversy among femi-
nists in recent years. Some older feminists of color and ethnicity have
been particularly critical of performance politics, viewing it as naive
— as playing politics and not recognizing the seriousness and dan-
ger of this political game. They also view it as a superficial and volun-
taristic form of resistance that ignores the material bases of oppression
(Collins, 1998). As June Jordan writes: “This infantile and apparently
implacable trust in mass individuality is absurd and destructive” ( Jor-
dan, quoted in Collins, 1998, 150).
Young feminists also are more likely to embrace the postmodern
politics of queer theory, especially on issues related to sexuality. As a
consequence, they promote a feminism that is more inclusive of a
profusion of gendered subjects, like butch, femme, transsexuals, and
transgendered people. They also tend to view the second wave as a
prudish feminism that “has put up more restrictions than green lights
when it comes to sexuality” (Alfonso and Trigilio, 1997, 12). There
is a good deal of truth in these accusations. For example, the radical
lesbian politics of the second wave viewed itself as woman-oriented,
womyn-born and a “profoundly female experience” that was analyti-
cally and politically distinguished from “other sexually stigmatized
existences ” (Rich, 1980, 306). These politics were often explicitly
critical of various gendered subjects and sexual practices, such as
butch/femme, “trans women,” and S&M (DeLombard, in Walker,
1995; Koyama, 2003, 246–247). While some critics continue to view
the postmodern turn to queer politics as simply another guise for
patriarchy ( Jeffreys, 2003), we find the inclusiveness of queer poli-
tics to be more compelling than its tendency to view any and all sub-
versive acts as forms of freedom.
Indeed for us, the most serious political fault line between the
second and third wave is evident when the openness and freedom
embraced by members of the younger generation include what
Rebecca Walker refers to as “anti-revolution activities” (1995, xxxviii).
In her anthology, To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of
Feminism (1995), one can find authors who engage in such acts as vigi-
lante violence, eroticizing violent rape, or being supermodels. For
Walker, such “courageous reckoning” with contradictions is part of what
she means by changing the face of feminism (1995, xxxviii). She writes:
Rather than judging them as unevolved, unfeminist, or hopelessly duped

by patriarchy, I hope you will see these writers as yet another group of pio-
neers, outlaws who demand to exist whole and intact, without cutting or
censoring parts of themselves; an instinct I consider to be the very best legacy
of feminism. These voices are important because if feminism is to continue
to be radical and alive, it must avoid reordering the world in terms of any
polarity, be it female/male, good/evil. . . .” (1995, xxxv.)
A rather benign form of this reckoning with contradictions is

exemplified by the “Girlie-girl persona” or the “Girlie feminist”
(Baumgardner and Richards, 1997, 164–165). Girlies, who should not
be confused with the more radical Riot Grrrls, reclaimed the word
“girl” to address what they saw as the anti-feminine, anti-joy features
of the second wave. For them, wearing pink, using nail polish, and
celebrating pretty power make feminism fun. Yet, as Baumgardner
and Richards point out, critics were quick to attack this new face of
feminism as “light on issues and heavy on vanity,” labeling it dispar-
agingly as “babe feminism” or “lipstick feminism” (2000, 255). In
contrast, to many in the younger generation, “what Girlie radiates is
the luxury of self expression that most Second Wavers didn’t feel they
could or should indulge in” (Baumgardner and Richards, 2000, 161).
Less benign are the politics of power feminists like Elizabeth
Wurtzel, who states: “These days putting out one’s pretty power, one’s
pussy power, one’s sexual energy for popular consumption no longer
makes you a bimbo. It makes you smart” (Wurtzel, quoted in Baum-
gardner and Richards, 2000, 141). In the writings of this new genera-
tion, it is not unusual to find celebrities, like Madonna or Missy Elliott,
who have “parlayed their sexual selves into power,” used as “positive
examples of women’s subjectification,” rather than their objectifica-
tion (Baumgardner and Richards, 2000, 103). Here, Audre Lorde’s
warning that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s
house” (2000, 292) clearly goes unheeded.
However, not all young feminists share such views of empower-
ment. For example, in a scathing critique of power feminism, Danzy
Senna describes it as “a cloak for conservatism, consumerism, and
even sexism” (Senna, in Walker, 1995, 18). Similarly, many contribu-
tors to the anthology Adios Barbie reject pretty power and obsessions
with body image (Edut, 1998). Other young feminists voice more
mixed messages. In her introduction to The Bust Guide to the New World
Order (1999), Marcelle Karp not only encourages women to reject
internalized negative body images, but also rallies them to view our
bodies — “our tits and hips and lips” — as “power tools” (1999, 7).
Indeed, it appears that many in this new generation appreciate the
rebellious desire to reclaim what has previously been used against
them, while some recognize how this can entail political dangers
(Baumgardner and Richards, 2000, 138).
What is common among these young voices is that there seems
to be a strong strain of individualism within this new generation. As
Heywood and Drake admit: “Despite our knowing better, despite our
knowing its emptiness, the ideology of individualism is still a major
motivating force in many third wave lives” (1997, 11). Other young
feminists more clearly celebrate this individualism, like Marcelle Karp,
who writes:
We’ve entered an era of DIY feminism — sistah, do-it-yourself — and we have

all kinds of names for ourselves: lipstick lesbians, do-me feminists, even
postfeminism. . . . No matter what the flava is, we’re still feminists. Your femi-
nism is what you want it to be and what you make of it. Define your agenda.
(1999, 310–311.)
To us, DIY feminism is politically regressive and presents a major

fault line between the second and the third wave. Indeed, it reverses
the second wave’s notion that the personal is political as the political
becomes totally personal. One of the best critiques by younger femi-
nists of this individualistic feminism is provided by Dicker and Piep-
meier in their anthology Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the
21st Century (2003), where they call this type of feminism a “feminist
free-for-all” that empties feminism of any core set of values and poli-
tics (2003, 17). They argue that, while it is fine to challenge percep-
tions of what feminism is or to engage the world in a playful and in-

dividualistic way, feminist engagement has to take into account the
power relations surrounding gender, race, class, and sexual orienta-
tion. Hence, feminism must entail a politics that is transformative of
both the individual and society (Dicker and Piepmeier, 2003, 19).
Other young feminists, like Baumgardner and Richards, make the
same point more playfully when they write: “Without a body of poli-
tics, the nail polish is really going to waste” (2000, 166).
Better to Polish It Red? Marxist Feminism and the Third Wave
Having discussed key features of the four major perspectives that

contributed the most to the new discourse of third wave feminism,
we now examine how Marxist feminism (MF) compares and contrasts
with this new discourse. Given that there are as many Marxisms as
there are feminisms, we should first state that the features of Marx-
ism that shape our feminism are more akin to the Marxism referred
to as Critical Theory (Agger, 1998).
Politically, the discourse of third wave feminism shares with MF
a commitment to human emancipation. Both see the past and present
as characterized by various forms of oppression, just as they see the
future as holding the possibility for greater human liberation. Both
also recognize the role of human agency in history and hold people
responsible for working toward a future that is free from oppression.
However, unlike postmodernist and post-structuralist feminisms, as
well as many spokespersons for the new generation, MF does not
equate human agency with voluntarism. Indeed, these strands of the
third wave have a facile view of resistance that assumes an almost
infinite ability to transform one’s life. They also entail a more indi-
vidualistic politics that is centered on self-making or that has a subject-
centered ethics.
By contrast, MF neither views individuals as free to make history
as they please nor equates freedom with individuals doing as they
please. Rather, MF views the relationship between human agency and
social structure as more complex. It recognizes there are structural
constraints on people transforming themselves and the world as they
please. It also recognizes that structural inequalities enable some people
to shape social reality more easily than others. In turn, while MF ac-
knowledges the tension between individual freedom and collective
politics, it rejects notions of individual freedom that take place at the

expense of others. MF sees mutuality and collectivity as crucial orga-
nizing principles of individual lives.
These political differences flow, in part, from MF’s greater focus
on social relations as opposed to atomistic individuals. Here MF shares
with postcolonial and intersectionality theories a view of power that
is based in social structural relations, rather than in individual gra-
dations of privilege and penalty. In contrast, the more individualis-
tic strands of the third wave have an unanchored view of power that
flattens hierarchies and obscures the systemic nature of oppression.
Yet, we appreciate the third wave’s greater emphasis on internalized
forms of oppression. Recognizing such internalized oppressions in
theory and in practice reveals how feminists themselves can repro-
duce relations of ruling and ignore the differences among women
that the third wave have so aptly highlighted (Hernandez and
Rehman, 2002).
The third wave’s focus on difference also calls into question MF’s
view of mass-based social movements. MF must forgo its earlier, more
universalistic notions of social movements where commonalities of
oppression were the basis for unity. We have to better understand
how acknowledging difference in theory and in everyday practice has
the potentiality to enhance, rather than to divide, a movement. In-
deed, all of the strands of third wave feminism see building connec-
tions based on difference as central to an effective politics today.
Because this new view of social movements is a more pluralist
image than we harbored in the past, Marxist feminists tend to be
suspicious of its political efficacy, and for good reason. The old plu-
ralism, often supported by political liberals, not only was prone to
tribalism, but also was vulnerable to the tyranny of the majority. Such
tyranny is far more likely if political demands simply involve demands
for polyvocality or having voice, rather than for material resources.
Hence, this new, more radical pluralist image of social movements
must generate a new, more radical politics that recognizes the mate-
rial bases of power, rather than simply locating power in discourse,
as is the tendency of postmodernists and post-structuralists.
Yet materialism seems to be passé in much of the third wave. A
critical analysis of capitalism and material life seems out of fashion
— particularly in the writings by postmodernist and post-structuralist
feminists, and only somewhat less so in the writings of the new gen-
eration. An explicit anti-capitalist politics is more evident in inter-

sectionality theory and most evident in feminist postcolonial theory.
A similar pattern is found in terms of those third wave feminisms that
ignore or downplay class differences among women. While the man-
tra of race, gender and class is frequently invoked in this new discourse
of difference, class is often the last and the least addressed in this tril-
ogy (Kandal, 1995).
We acknowledge that MF has often erred in the opposite direc-
tion by hierarchicalizing oppressions and privileging class oppression
as the most fundamental form. By contrast, we think that a critical
MF should recognize the simultaneity and multiplicity of oppressions
discussed by the third wave. However, we do not think that all forms
of oppression are equally important at any given time and place in
history. Rather, we view this as a historically specific question that must
be analyzed carefully if social change and the alliances formed to
foster social change are to be successful. As some postcolonial writ-
ers have argued: “whilst gender will always be imbricated in the ma-
trix of power . . . it is not always the predominant factor in people’s
consciousness nor is it always the most effective rallying point” (Lewis
and Mills, 2003, 20).
Indeed, MF shares with feminist postcolonial theorists an appre-
ciation for historically specific analysis. Like these contributors to the
third wave, some Marxist feminists have long argued that historical
specificity can avoid essentialism by treating collective categories not
as a priori givens, but rather as historically specific formations (Mitchell,
1966, 90, 100). We also think it can resolve some of the debates over
political strategies and issues that have divided feminists today. For
example, some political strategies, like performance politics, may
work better in certain historically specific social contexts than in oth-
ers. Even the same act can be regressive in some situations and pro-
gressive in others, as the multiple meanings and uses of female veiling
has revealed (Lewis and Mills, 2003, 14–18). In short, historical speci-
ficity is as important for political practice as it is for theory.
While we think the women’s movement is spacious enough to
incorporate a multiplicity of diverse strategies for fostering eman-
cipation, we draw the line on issues like “power feminism” or the
“anti-revolution” activities discussed by some third wavers. Here the
free-to-be-me feminisms of some spokespersons for the third wave
transgress our notion that mutuality and collective well-being are
lynchpins of an emancipatory feminism. We also think this “anything

goes” politics mirrors the “anything goes” methodologies and relativ-
ism of the epistemological assumptions of most third wave perspectives
(Rosenau, 1992, 192). Consequently, it is to the issue of epistemology
that we now turn.
Epistemologically, the third wave has done an immense service
to feminism by exposing the integral relations between discourses,
knowledge and power. Its new epistemology shares with MF the view
that knowledge is socially constructed, socially situated, and shaped
by one’s social location. These features of knowledge undermine any
claims to value neutrality and pose a serious threat to positivist forms
of knowledge and science. They also entail a reflexive view of knowl-
edge that should make us ever vigilant to the vantage point of the
knower, as well as to who may benefit or suffer from such knowledge.
Yet, while MF is anti-positivist, it is not anti-empirical. Rather, it
embraces empirical analysis in its attempt to gain ever more accurate
understandings of social reality that can be appealed to as grounds
for justice or to guide social movements. In contrast, certain strands
of third wave feminism demote the empirical as just one of many ways
of validating knowledge claims. In doing so, they move onto the more
idealist and relativist terrain of multiple realities that are subjective
and discourse-dependent. Here adjudicating among knowledge
claims is problematic because any notions of greater truth are lost in
a vicious hermeneutical circle that opens a Pandora’s box for any and
every viewpoint to claim legitimacy (Harding 1993, 61).
The third wave’s suspicion of both theory and empirical science
as master narratives or veiled attempts by dominant groups to impose
their views on others fails to make important distinctions between
positivist and non-positivist approaches to understanding the world.
These twin epistemological assumptions cripple political action, since
formulating an analysis of the structural implications of social condi-
tions to guide political action becomes a difficult, if not impossible
task (Fraser and Nicholson, 1997; Touraine, 1998; Smith, 1996).
In contrast, MF embraces theory and gives it a key role in guid-
ing political action. However, in doing so, MF often ignores how
emancipatory theories can be dominating, exclusive and disciplinary.
In this regard, MF can benefit from the insights of post-structuralists
who highlight how knowledges are also formations of power that
delineate specific inclusions and enforce overt and covert exclusions.
MF can also learn from those third wave feminists who have felt like
outsiders within the feminist movement and who have stressed how
an overly restrictive and disciplinary feminism can lead to internecine
battles.
The next section of this article grounds some of the key ideas of
third wave feminism in changing social, economic and political con-
ditions and highlights yet another major difference between MF and
the non-materialist strands of the third wave. That is, while the latter
take an idealist tack that highlights how discourse shapes social real-
ity, MF views material reality or social conditions as providing the
ground for the rise of new discourses.
Grounding the Discourse of Third Wave Feminism
When new recruits entered the women’s movement in the 1980s,

they faced a world that was immensely different from the world en-
countered by their second wave sisters in the 1960s. Politically these
new recruits were confronted with a highly mobilized and vocal New
Right, which had a significant voice in national politics through the
Reagan/Bush Sr. years. Economically, they faced the worst job mar-
ket since World War II and were the first postwar generation expected
to fare worse than their parents (Sidler, in Heywood and Drake,
1997). This period of political backlash and economic recession con-
trasts sharply with the progressive social movements and post–World
War II prosperity that many second wavers encountered upon reach-
ing adulthood. Below we examine some of the major factors that trans-
formed both the women’s movement and the world in which we live
over the last few decades. This analysis highlights how changes in the
realm of ideas reflect changing social and material conditions.
One of the most important developments that heightened our
sense of difference and decentering was the rapid growth in the global
economy and its impact locally on the United States. Indeed, between
1960 and 1980, direct foreign investments by U. S. corporations in-
creased more than ten-fold, and many companies flocked across inter-
national borders to reap higher profits from cheap labor abroad
(Thurow, 1996, 42). While capital was decentered in the sense of
being relocated globally, it was not weakened, but became more
powerful and anarchic as national-level controls over economic be-
havior weakened (Touraine, 1998). This process intensified during
the 1980s and 1990s with the deregulation of the Reagan/Bush Sr.
years and the rise of transnational units, like NAFTA, which reduced
national barriers to the free flow of labor, capital and commodities.
In turn, other technological and political barriers to global capital-
ism were transcended as the growth of satellite, computer and other
electronic technologies virtually annihilated barriers of time and
space, while the fall of the Soviet Union significantly reduced politi-
cal barriers to free enterprise (Giddens, 1990; Touraine, 1998).
As a consequence of these developments, the United States ex-
perienced a period of rapid deindustrialization and declining wages.
Between 1965 and 1985, the manufacturing share of total employ-
ment dropped from 60% to 26%, while the share of employment in
lower-paying service jobs rose from 40% to 74% (Stacey, 1991, 18).
Real male wages consistently fell — a reduction that had never be-
fore occurred in U. S. history over a two-decade period when real per
capita GDP was advancing (Thurow, 1996, 24). In turn, the gender,
race, and ethnicity of the American labor force dramatically changed.
Women entered the workforce in record numbers, in large part to
buttress their households against the fall of male wages, while the
increase in service jobs opened the doors to the employment of im-
migrants and minorities. Moreover, immigration into the United
States during the 1980s and 1990s entailed much more racial diver-
sity, particularly from Asia and Latin America, than did the largely
European immigration of the 19th century.
Hence, it is not surprising that theoretical discourses during this
period placed less emphasis on social class and more on other forms
of difference, such as race, ethnicity and gender. While the former
mirrors the decentering of the first world industrial proletariat, the
latter mirrors the changing composition of the labor force at home
and the increasingly global nature of the division of labor. Since these
processes are integrally interwoven, “a full understanding of gender,
race and ethnicity in the U. S. must be related to the totality of capi-
tal accumulation on a world scale” (Kandal, 1995, 156).
Other features of globalization also fostered awareness of these
forms of difference and identity. Some observers have noted how
people tend to retreat to the micro worlds of community and iden-
tity in the face of financial and job insecurity (Touraine, 1998). Others
have discussed how the homogenizing tendencies of global capital-
ism toward cultural conformity, secularism and consumerism sparked

rediscovered ethno-histories that strove to maintain cultural and eth-
nic distinctions (Smart, 1993). Examples of this at home and abroad
range from the ongoing struggles of various racial, ethnic, and na-
tional liberation movements to the resurgence of fundamentalist
religions and white ethnicity. Hence, identity politics of numerous
political persuasions — progressive and regressive — were spawned
by these global developments.
Yet, just as marginalized identities moved to the center of the
political arena, a new politics of non-identity emerged with post-
modernism’s and post-structuralism’s call for a blurring of racial,
ethnic, and gender lines. Some critics view these new politics of non-
identity as offering a place at this historical juncture for decentered
intellectuals from dominant groups to still have a voice. For example,
Christine de Stefano argues that post-structuralism was deconstructing
the category of human agency “at the moment in Western history when
previously silenced populations have begun to speak for themselves
and on behalf of their subjectivities” (de Stefano, quoted in Messer-
Davidow, 2002, 209). Similarly, in her critique of postmodernism,
Patricia Hill Collins describes how the movement of people of color
and ethnicity into the spaces of the dominant group “shattered the
illusion of insider security” previously held by radical intellectual
voices with dominant group privilege (1998, 131). These new dis-
courses of non-identity offered safe havens for such intellectuals by
supporting the impulse to difference through their distrust of essen-
tialism and unitary thought, while remaining rather exclusive, given
their highly abstract and inaccessible language (Collins,1998, 142).
Other observers view postmodernist ideas as surfacing from the
disjunctures and uncertainty that have accompanied the global dif-
fusion of modern Western economic, political and cultural forms.
Here the complex contests, conflicts and accommodations between
the homogenizing effects of Western imperialism and the efforts by
diverse cultures to maintain their integrity have undermined the in-
ternal coherence of the Euro-American masternarratives of modernity,
and have increased awareness of how other, non-Western, civilizations
are exercising influence over global economic, political and cultural
life (Smart, 1993, 148–149). From this perspective, postmodernism
is a product of the actual decentering of the West.
Features of poststructualist thought are mirrored in the forms

of work that have come to characterize the new global economy as
work sites became more organized along post-Fordist lines. For ex-
ample, a cornerstone of post-Fordist management practice is the
belief that loose networks are more open to innovation than are the
more structured, pyramidal hierarchies that ruled the Fordist era. A
deceptive feature of this team-work is that lines of authority appear
to be flattened, even though control from the top still exists (Sennett,
1998, 43, 57). Authority is further diffused as these loosely organized
teams shift and change with the demands of work. Moreover, because
these teams are constantly breaking apart or continually being rede-
signed, they require a more flexible, elastic and chameleon-like orien-
tation to work (Sennett, 1998, 110). These features of the post-Fordist
workplace echo the blurred lines of authority and the non-hierarchical
view of power espoused by post-structuralism, as well as its more fluid
and chameleon-like views of identity.
Mass culture also has been significantly transformed through the
enormous growth in the new electronic technologies and the new
means of consumption that have characterized the last few decades.
Indeed, some observers argue that mass culture has intertwined with
consumerism to become the cognitive and moral focus of contem-
porary social life (Featherstone, 1991). Culture critics view the ide-
ologies embedded in mass culture today as far more complex and
subtle than in the past, appearing almost as “silent argument” (Agger,
1998, 125). The new electronic media dramatically quicken and in-
tensify the distribution of ideologies such that they flash by with a
speed that makes them even more difficult to unpack. In such a swirl-
ing sea of signs and symbols, it is not surprising that discourse ap-
pears to have inordinate power, or that a major device used to decode
such messages — deconstruction — has become a new buzzword in
social thought (Agger, 1998, 125). In a world where simulations in-
creasingly blur the line between artifice and reality, it also is not sur-
prising that certain strands of third wave feminism have taken a more
idealist tack that loses sight of the social and material conditions that
created a world where difference, decentering and deconstruction
became ever more prominent. Yet, as we discuss below, social and
material conditions also transformed the women’s movement dur-
ing the era that witnessed the rise of third wave feminism.
Transformations of the Women’s Movement
We focused above on how second wave feminism was challenged

from within by the voices and visions of the third wave. However,
during the 1970s and early 1980s the second wave was also challenged
from without as the fusion of Christian fundamentalism and the New
Right fueled successful conservative backlashes to both the women’s
movement and the Civil Rights movement. The success of this con-
servative backlash resounded in the defeat of the Equal Rights Amend-
ment in 1982. As Susan Martin has argued, this defeat had a serious
class component in that it reflected the second wave’s failure to gar-
ner support from working-class women. Here again, while their ab-
stract theoretical writings did not ignore class, their concrete political
practice failed to adequately address the everyday concerns of these
women. In contrast, right-wing and fundamentalist conservatives were
superior at mobilizing these women at a grass-roots level and turn-
ing the anxiety of this decentered class into a backlash against the
gains won by feminists and the Civil Rights Movement (Martin, 1989).
Although the women’s movement entered a tough period of
retrenchment after the ERA was defeated, it did not enter a period
of abeyance, as occurred after the first wave attained the vote in 1920
(Taylor, 1989). New recruits continued to enter the women’s move-
ment, despite or to spite media claims that we had entered a “post-
feminist” era (Siegel, 1997, 52). Indeed, some writers have discussed
how such postfeminist claims, as well as various caricatures of femi-
nism by “dissenting daughters” like Katie Roiphe or Rene Denfeld,
actually triggered the mobilization of younger feminists (Siegel, in
Heywood and Drake, 1997, 58). In any event, new recruits entered
a feminist movement that was under attack from opponents that
crossed the political spectrum and that included anti-feminists,
postfeminists, and feminist dissenters.
Despite this backlash, some segments of the women’s movement
actually gained ground in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the large,
formally organized, liberal feminist organizations — NOW, the Na-
tional Abortion Rights Action League and the Women’s Equity Action
League. In contrast, many community-based, feminist organizations
that had been the stronghold of the more radical wing of the second
wave feminist movement declined (Whittier, 1995, 195).
While this more radical wing embraced the social-change strate-

gies they had learned in the social movements of the 1960s, neither
the New Left nor the radical wing of the women’s movement ever
developed the infrastructures at the grassroots level attained by the
Civil Rights Movement or the New Right, such as the networks of
schools and churches that provided structure and continuity over
time. Rather, the community-based organizations of the women’s
movement that depended largely on volunteers, like rape crisis cen-
ters or battered women’s shelters, were plagued by chronic resource
deprivation. In the face of the recession of the 1980s, these organiza-
tions were forced to seek government funds to survive. This not only
mired them down in grant writing and donor solicitation, but also
transformed them from activist organizations into more professional-
ized, social service agencies (Messer-Davidow, 2002, 163).
The recession and fierce economic competition of this era also
affected other activities of the women’s movement. Movement peri-
odicals that initially flourished were unable to endure in the face of
resource shortages. Bookstores failed if they did not master the fis-
cal and marketing techniques used by their mainstream competitors.
Independent presses were swallowed up by media empires as the
publishing industry was transformed between 1970 and 1990 (Messer-
Davidow, 2002, 133, 163). Hence, commercialization and profes-
sionalization went hand-in-hand to undermine more activist-oriented
and grassroots organizations.
Women’s studies also followed this path of professionalization and
deradicalization. While the burgeoning women’s studies programs of
the early 1970s had few of the resources that exist today, they did have
a more radical vision of breaking down the boundaries that separated
scholarship from activism, the academy from the community, and vari-
ous disciplines from each other. In the 1980s and 1990s, this radical
vision was thwarted, not by outright suppression, but rather by more
subtle processes inherent in the institutionalization and intellectual-
ization of academic knowledge (Messer-Davidow, 2002, 165).
Indeed, rather than being suppressed, women’s studies grew
immensely during the last decades of the 20th century. This growth
was facilitated by the steady flow of women into higher education;
with women outnumbering men in enrollments by the 1990s (Messer-
Davidow, 2002, 79). Financially strapped universities seeking tuition
revenues upped their funding of women’s studies courses because
they attracted high enrollments. This, in turn, meant that depart-

ments hired more women’s studies faculty and commercial presses
competed to wring profits from this niche market in feminist publi-
cations. Ellen Messer-Davidow discusses at length how the trajectories
of both disciplinary growth and commodification worked together
to intensify the production of specializations and difference within
women’s studies discourse. She writes:
Specialization and commodification drove the proliferation of particular-

ized knowledges, which invited specialist criticisms, which sparked the meta-
discourse about how to produce more adequate knowledges, which, once
they were produced, went spinning through the same routines. (2002, 207.)
Hence, ironically, the production of difference within feminist thought

was, in part, a product of the movement of feminism from activism
to academic discourse.
One would have expected affirmative action programs to play a
large role in the production of differences. Yet, changes in the racial
and ethnic profiles of both the faculty and the student body in higher
education were meager. Between 1970 and 1990, the number of
doctorates awarded to non-whites increased by only three percent.
From 1980 to the mid-1990s, the percentage of African–American and
Hispanic–American high school students enrolling in college actually
declined, while that of whites rose (Messer-Davidow, 2002, 193). Main-
stream publication venues and feminist journals were also slow to open
their doors to marginalized voices. Only in the 1980s did they make a
serious commitment to disseminating African–American women’s
scholarship and criticism (Messer-Davidow 2002, 197). These slow
developments in changing the racial and ethnic profile of women’s
studies may also go some way toward explaining the widespread view
that race and ethnicity were ignored before the 1980s.
One of the few areas of the women’s movement that both flour-
ished and remained true to its radical roots during this period of re-
trenchment was women’s culture. National cultural events proliferated,
as did more local concerts, festivals, and artist’s/writer’s workshops. It
has been argued that women’s culture maintained its radical roots to
the past, largely because it was organized by lesbian feminists who, of
necessity, had built their own communities and who were less likely to
trust liberal feminist organizations that had eschewed them in the
past. These lesbian feminists continued to build on the strategies

of the 1970s radical women’s movement and their cultural events
reflected this, whether they were aimed at lesbian-only or broader
audiences (Whittier, 1995, 212). Given the paucity of radical sec-
tors of the women’s movement, it is understandable why culture and
sexuality became major sites of struggle for many young recruits to
the women’s movements in the 1980s and 1990s (Heywood and Drake,
1997, 4).
Other arenas of growth in the 1980s and 1990s were self-help
groups, feminist therapies, and feminist spirituality. While these
activities existed during the second wave, they became larger sectors
of the women’s movement in these later decades (Whittier, 1995,
196). Their growth suggests an increasing focus on personal trans-
formation as a means of social change and may help explain why
many strands of the third wave focused more on internalized op-
pressions and why some appeared primarily as a “revolution of the
self ” (Pineros, 2002).
Overall, during the last decades of the 20th century, the women’s
movement in the United States became more mainstream, more
professionalized, more commercialized, and less radical. Liberal femi-
nist organizations on the national level grew, while more radical,
grassroots feminist organizations declined or became more profes-
sionalized and service-oriented. Women’s studies witnessed immense
growth both in its size and in its production of difference, but it too
became more institutionalized and less activist-oriented. The women’s
movement also experienced a turn inward to focus on self-growth and
transformation. It maintained its radicalism primarily through the
efforts of lesbian feminists in the realm of women’s culture. Given
these transformations, it is not surprising that the foci of the new
generation of recruits, who entered the women’s movement in the1980s
and 1990s, differed from their second wave sisters on several impor-
tant dimensions. They focused more on the individual than society;
more on internalized than external oppression; and more on culture
than on material life.
CONCLUSION
We began this article noting how theories of emancipation are often

blind to their own dominating, exclusive and restrictive tendencies.
The second wave of American feminism was often blind to the ways
its theories and political praxis failed to adequately address the every-
day concerns of women of color and ethnicity in the United States
and abroad. It was also blind to how it appeared to many in the
younger generation as an austere and disciplinary feminism. As a
consequence of such blind spots, it bred counter discourses that even-
tually undermined its hegemony. By contrast, the new discourse of
the third wave embraced a more diverse and polyvocal feminism that
appealed to those who felt marginalized or restricted within the sec-
ond wave. Built on difference, this new discourse deconstructed and
decentered the ideas of the second wave, producing new ways of
understanding and framing gender relations.
We used a materialist analysis to ground the key ideas of this new
discourse in changing social conditions. Here we discussed how the
third wave’s common foci on difference, deconstruction and decen-
tering, as well as their analyses of power and identity, were mirrored
in macro-level processes like globalization, the changing composition
of the U. S. labor force, new post-Fordist forms of work, and the more
complex and pervasive nature of mass culture. We also examined how
transformations of the U. S. women’s movement, such as its deradicali-
zation and the rise and demise of certain of its sectors, help explain
the major sites of struggle of the new generation of third wave feminists.
We pointed to a number of new insights and political strategies
developed by the third wave that we think are compatible with a criti-
cal Marxist feminism and that should be taken seriously by all femi-
nists who want to be engaged in ongoing developments in feminism
today. There are both progressive and regressive paths within the
third wave and we must navigate them with a greater openness to
difference and to the various strategies that may prove fruitful to
fostering emancipatory goals.
Susan Archer Mann:
Department of Sociology
University of New Orleans
New Orleans, LA 70148
samann@uno.edu
Douglas J. Huffman:
1549 Placentia Ave. #221
Newport Beach, CA 92663
dougman74@yahoo.com
REFERENCES
Agger, Ben. 1998. Critical Social Theories: An Introduction. New York: Westview Press.
Alcoff, Linda. 1988. “Cultural Feminism Versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity
Crisis in Feminist Theory.” Pp. 403–414 in Kolmar and Bartkowski, eds.
Alfonso, Rita, and Jo Trigilio. 1997. “Surfing the Third Wave: A Dialogue Between
Two Third Wave Feminists.” Hypatia, 12:3 (Summer), 8–16.
Andersen, Margaret, and Patricia Hill Collins, eds. 1994. Race, Class and Gender: An
Anthology. New York: Wadsworth.
Bartky, Sandra. 1990. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Op-
pression. New York: Routledge.
Baumgardner, Jennifer, and Amy Richards. 2000. ManifestA: Young Women, Femi-
nism, and the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berke-
ley, California: University of California Press.
Breines, Wini. 2002. “What’s Love Got to Do with It? White Women, Black Women,
and Feminism in the Movement Years.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society, 27:4, 1096–1133.
Bruns, Cindy M., and Collen Trimble. 2001. “Rising Tide: Taking Our Place as Young
Feminist Psychologists.” Pp. 19–36 in The Newest Generation: Third Wave Psycho-
therapy, ed. Ellen Kaschak. Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press.
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter. New York: Routledge.
———. 1992. “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Post-
modernism.” Pp. 3–21 in Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. Judith Butler and
Joan W. Scott. New York: Routledge.
Cashen, Jeanne. 2002. “The Revolution Is Mine: Grrrl Resistance in a Commodity
Culture.” Unpublished manuscript, University of New Orleans.
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice.
Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
———. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment. Boston, Massachusetts: Unwin, Hyman.
Combahee River Collective. 1978. “A Black Feminist Statement.” Pp.121–124 in
Jagger and Rothenberg, eds.
Cooper, Anna Julia. 1982 (1892). A Voice from the South. Boston, Massachusetts:
Unwin, Hyman.
Crawley, Sara L. 2002. Narrating and Negotiating Butch and Femme: Storying Lesbian
Selves in a Heteronormative World. Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Sociol-
ogy, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
De Beauvoir, Simone. 1952. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Dent, Gina. 1995. “Missionary Position.” Pp. 61–76 in To Be Real: Telling the Truth
and Changing the Face of Feminism, ed. Rebecca Walker. New York: Anchor Books.
Dicker, Rory, and Alison Piepmeier. 2003. Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for
the 21st Century. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern University Press.
Edut, Ophira, ed. 1998. Adios Barbie: Young Women Write about Body Image and Iden-
tity. Seattle, Washington: Seal Press.
Featherstone, Mike. 1991. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage.
Findlen, Barbara, ed. 1995. Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation. Seattle,
Washington: Seal Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1984. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. London:
Penguin.
———. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane.
Fraser, Nancy, and Linda Nicholson. 1997. “Social Criticism Without Philosophy:
An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernism.” Pp. 131–146 in Femi-
nist Social Thought: A Reader, ed. Diana Tietjens Meyers. New York: Routledge.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press.
Gimenez, Martha E. 2001. “Marxism, and Class, Gender, and Race: Rethinking the
Trilogy.” Race, Gender & Class, 8:2, 23–33.
Grant, Judith. 1993. Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist
Theory. New York: Routledge.
Grimshaw, Jean. 1993. “Practices of Freedom.” Pp. 51–72 in Ramazanoglu, ed.
Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. 1995. Words of Fire: An Anthology of African–American Feminist
Thought. New York: New Press.
Halstead, Ted. 1999. “A Politics for Generation X.” Atlantic Monthly, 284:2 (August),
33–42.
Harding, Sandra. 1993. “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is Strong
Objectivity?” Pp. 49–82 in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. L. Alcoff and E. Potter.
New York: Routledge.
Henry, Astrid. 2003. “Feminism’s Family Problem: Feminist Generations and the
Mother–Daughter Trope.” Pp. 209–231 in Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism
for the 21st Century, ed. Rory Dicker and Alison Piepmeier. Boston, Massachu-
setts: Northeastern University Press.
Hernandez, Daisy, and Bushra Rehman. 2002. Colonize This! Young Women of Color
on Today’s Feminism. New York: Seal Press.
Heywood, Leslie, and Jennifer Drake, eds. 1997. Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist,
Doing Feminism. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
hooks, bell. 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston, Massachusetts: South
End Press.
Huffman, D. J. 2002. “Making Sense of Third Wave Feminism.” MA Thesis, Univer-
sity of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Hull, Gloria, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds. 1982. All the Women Are
White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave. New York: Old Westbury.
Jaggar, Alison, and Paula Rothenberg, eds. 1993. Feminist Frameworks: Alternative
Theoretical Accounts of the Relations Between Women and Men. 3rd ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Jeffreys, Sheila. 2003. Unpacking Queer Politics. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
Kaminer, Wendy. 1995. “Feminism’s Third Wave: What Do Young Women Want?”
New York Times Book Review, June 4, 8–9.
Kandal, Terry. 1995. “Gender, Race and Ethnicity: Let’s Not Forget Class.” Race,
Gender & Class, 2:2, 139–162.
Karp, Marcelle, and Debbie Stoller, eds. 1999. The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order.
New York: Penguin.
King, Deborah. 1988. “Multiple Jeopardy: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideol-
ogy.” Pp. 220–236 in Jaggar and Rothenberg, eds.
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. 2001. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives.
2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kolmar, Wendy, and Frances Bartkowski, eds. 2000. Feminist Theory: A Reader. Moun-
tain View, California: Mayfield.
Koyama, Emi. 2003. “The Transfeminist Manifesto.” Pp. 244–259 in Dicker and
Piepmeier.
———. 2002. Discussion of “third wave” on Women’s Studies Listserv WMST-L@listserv.
umd.edu, June 7.
Lewis, Reina, and Sara Mills, eds. 2003. Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. New
York: Routledge.
Lorde, Audre. 2000. “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Women.”
Pp. 288–293 in Wendy Komar and Frances Bartkowski, eds., Feminist Theory: A
Reader. Mountain View, California: Mayfield.
Mann, Susan A. 2000. “The Scholarship of Difference: A Scholarship of Liberation?”
Sociological Inquiry, 70:4, 475–498.
Martin, Susan. 1989. “Keep Us on the Pedestal: Women Against Feminism in
Twentieth-Century America.” Pp. 547–560 in Women: A Feminist Perspective, ed.
Jo Freeman. Mountain View, California: Mayfield.
McHoul, Alec, and Wendy Grace. 1993. A Foucault Primer: Discourse, Power and the
Subject. New York: New York University Press.
Messer-Davidow, Ellen. 2002. Disciplining Feminism: From Social Activism to Academic
Discourse. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
Minh-ha, T. T. 1989. Women Native Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloom-
ington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Mitchell, Juliet. 1966. Woman’s Estate. New York: Pantheon.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2000 (1991). “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholar-
ship and Colonial Discourses.” Pp. 344–351 in Kolmar and Bartkowski, eds.
Moraga, Cherrie, and Gloria Anzaldua, eds. 1983. This Bridge Called My Back: Writ-
ings by Radical Women of Color. Latham, New York: Kitchen Table Press.
Morgan, Joan. 1999. When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip Hop
Feminist. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Narayan, Uma. 1997. Dislocating Cultures/Identities, Traditions, and Third-World Femi-
nism. New York: Routledge.
Pineros, Marcela. 2001. “The Art of Being Third Wave: Coloring Outside the Lines.”
Unpublished paper, Florida International University.
Pollitt, Katha. 1999. “Solipsisters,” The New York Times Book Review, April 18, 25–29.
Quinn, Rebecca. 1997. “An Open Letter to Institutional Mothers.” Pp. 174–182 in
Generations: Academic Feminists in Dialogue, ed. Devoney Looser and Ann Kaplan.
Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Ramazanoglu, Caroline, ed. 1993. Up Against Foucault: Explorations of Some Tensions
Between Foucault and Feminism. New York: Routledge.
Rich, Adrienne. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”
Pp. 304–312 in Kolmar and Bartkowski, eds.
Rosenau, Pauline Marie. 1992. Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads,
and Intrusions. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Ruth, Sheila. 1998. Issues in Feminism: An Introduction to Women’s Studies. Mountain
View, California: Mayfield.
Sedgwick, Eve. 1990. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley, California: University of
California Press.
Seidman, Stevan. 2000. “Queer-ing Sociology, Sociologizing Queer Theory.”
Pp. 434–455 in Social Theory: Roots and Branches, ed. Peter Kivisto. Los Angeles,
California: Roxbury.
Sennett, Richard. 1998. The Corrosion of Work: The Personal Consequences of Work in
the New Capitalism. New York: W. W. Norton.
Siegel, Deborah L. 1997. “The Legacy of the Personal: Generating Theory in Feminism’s
Third Wave.” Hypatia, 12:3, 46–75.
Smart, Barry. 1993. Postmodernity: Key Ideas. New York: Routledge.
Smith, Barbara, ed. 1983. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New York: Kitchen
Table/Women of Color Press.
Smith, Dorothy. 1996. “Telling the Truth after Postmodernism.” Symbolic Interac-
tion, 19:3, 171–202.
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1988. Inessential Woman. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.
Spivak, Gayatri. 1990. The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. London:
Routledge.
———. 1987. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. London: Methuen.
Springer, Kimberly. 2002. “Third Wave Black Feminism?” Signs: Journal of Women
in Culture and Society, 27:4, 1059–1082.
Stacey, Judith. 1991. Brave New Families. New York: Basic Books.
Taylor, Verta. 1989. “Social Movement Continuity: The Women’s Movement in
Abeyance.” American Sociological Review, 54, 761–775.
Thurow, Lester. 1996. The Future of Capitalism. New York: W. Morrow.
Touraine, Alain. 1998. “Sociology Without Society.” Current Sociology, 46:2 (April),
119–143.
Vogel, Lise. 1991. “Telling Tales: Historians of Our Own Lives.” Journal of Women’s
History, 2 (Winter), 89–101.
Walker, Rebecca, ed. 1995. To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Femi-
nism. New York: Anchor Books.
Whittier, Nancy. 1995. Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women’s
Movement. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press.
Wurtzel, Elizabeth. 1998. Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. New York: Doubleday.

Archer & Huffman The Second Wave

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Archer & Huffman The Second Wave

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

56 Society, Vol. 69, No.

1, January 2005, 56–91

The Decentering of Second Wave Feminism

SUSAN ARCHER MANN

Springer, 2002). We recognize, for example, that wave approaches

generation — grew out of syntheses of these earlier challenges posed

THE EARLY THIRD WAVE: INTERSECTIONALITY AND

Contributions by Women of Colar and Ethnicity

While women of color and ethnicity had been notable activists

Hence, while the essentialist “we” or “sisterhood” of the second wave

One of the earliest pieces to articulate the simultaneous and non-

Black women. Their abstract theoretical and analytical comprehen-

prevail over standpoint or identity. Collins also created a new femi-

The overarching matrix of domination houses multiple groups, each with

This new epistemology shared with postmodernism/poststruc-

Contributions of Feminist Postmodernists and Post-Structuralists

politics based on identity to its negation — a politics based on non-

Postmodernists and poststructuralists tend to reject structural views of

Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything but because it comes

A number of feminists have attacked such conceptions of power

Common Epistemological Ground

Despite much contested terrain, intersectionality theory shares

in their use of difference to deconstruct essentialism and to decenter

LATER CHALLENGES TO THE SECOND WAVE

In this section, we argue that feminist postcolonial theory, as well as

the intersectionality theory created by women of color and ethnicity

Contributions of Feminist Postcolonial Theory

In the 1980s, a new category of feminist thought — global femi-

earlier perspectives. Like her predecessors, Mohanty begins by using

The application of the notion of women as a homogeneous category to

Like the proponents of intersectionality theory, Mohanty de-

Thus, the discursively consensual homogeneity of “women” as a group is

Similarly, Uma Narayan argues that the “colonial encounter”

categories must recognize themselves as agents of change rather than

Contributions of the Younger Generation’s Third Wave Agenda

We point in this section to key features of what has been called

Moreover, clearly demarcating who is included in this new gen-

self-policing, confession through consciousness-raising groups, and

Indeed, many younger feminists celebrate contradictions as a

This greater resistance to identity by younger women has been

Rather than judging them as unevolved, unfeminist, or hopelessly duped

A rather benign form of this reckoning with contradictions is

We’ve entered an era of DIY feminism — sistah, do-it-yourself — and we have

To us, DIY feminism is politically regressive and presents a major

tions of what feminism is or to engage the world in a playful and in-

Better to Polish It Red? Marxist Feminism and the Third Wave

Having discussed key features of the four major perspectives that

politics, it rejects notions of individual freedom that take place at the

eration. An explicit anti-capitalist politics is more evident in inter-

lynchpins of an emancipatory feminism. We also think this “anything

Grounding the Discourse of Third Wave Feminism

When new recruits entered the women’s movement in the 1980s,

ism toward cultural conformity, secularism and consumerism sparked

Features of poststructualist thought are mirrored in the forms

Transformations of the Women’s Movement

We focused above on how second wave feminism was challenged

While this more radical wing embraced the social-change strate-

they attracted high enrollments. This, in turn, meant that depart-

Specialization and commodification drove the proliferation of particular-

Hence, ironically, the production of difference within feminist thought

past. These lesbian feminists continued to build on the strategies

We began this article noting how theories of emancipation are often

You might also like