Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Readings
90. Bikini Kill Zine Cover (circa 1991) 362
91. Rebecca Walker, “Being Real: An Introduction”
from To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face
of Feminism (1995) 363
92. Susan Jane Gilman, “Klaus Barbie, and Other
Dolls I’d Like to See” from Adiós, Barbie (1998) 366
93. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, “A Day
without Feminism” from Manifesta: Young Women,
Feminism, and the Future (2000) 367
94. Cathryn Bailey, “Unpacking the Mother/Daughter
Baggage: Reassessing Second- and Third-Wave
Tensions” (2002) 370
95. Bushra Rehman and Daisy Hernández “Introduction”
from Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s
Feminism (2002) 376
96. Julie Bettie, from Women without Class (2003) 380
97. Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, “ ‘It’s All About
the Benjamins’: Economic Determinants of Third Wave
Feminism in the United States” (2004) 384
98. Astrid Henry, “Solitary Sisterhood: Individualism Meets
Collectivity in Feminism’s Third Wave” (2005) 389
Glossary 545
References 552
It is a privilege to have spent my adult life doing work that I love. It also is a privi
lege to have had the emotional, material, and intellectual support of so many dear
friends, family members, and colleagues. I am not very well as I write this, so I will
be brief. But you who are dear to me know who you are and how important our
relationships have been over the years. I have wonderful memories of the childhood
that shaped my life thanks to my family and best childhood friends, Ginny Brassel,
Ellen Hoberman, Colleen Webster, Sally Livingston, and Cam Jackson. As an
adult, I am most grateful to the women (past and present) involved in the Univer-
sity of New Orleans (UNO) Women’s and Gender Studies Program and to my
close colleagues in sociology during my sojourns in New Orleans, Toronto, and
Washington, D.C. (especially Max) who supported my intellectual and political
work for so many decades. Particular thanks to my women’s writing group—
D’Lane Compton, Rachel Luft, Renia Ehrenfeucht, Ana Croegaert, and Elizabeth
Steeby—for their gentle support. I also thank the UNO Office of Research for a
Creative Endeavor Award to work on this anthology. My graduate assistant,
Heather Horton, deserves special thanks for scanning so many of the readings
found in this anthology. Much gratitude also goes to my coauthor, Ashly Patterson,
for hanging in there with her ceaseless enthusiasm, humor, and good heart through
this rather arduous and, at times, frustrating process. To the crew at Oxford
University Press—especially Katy Albis, Cari Heicklen, and Sherith Pankratz—
please accept my appreciation for your hard work and sound advice. Heartfelt
thanks go to Bunk, Shari, Michael, and Michelle Mann who took good care of my
dear mother while I lived and worked thousands of miles away. My mother, Hannah
Grashl Mann, passed away this fall, but her love and good mothering live on in her
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Finally, my innermost thanks go
to Michael D. Grimes and Joshua Mann Sartisky, whose love kept the home-fires
burning during the trials and tribulations of my many years of writing. I know I
shall rest peacefully for raising a son of whom I am so deeply proud, for having the
love of close friends and family, and for making even a small contribution to the
women’s movement and its long, proud struggle for bread and roses.
xviii
Many people have aided and supported me during this work’s production. First
and foremost, I thank my teacher, mentor, collaborator, and friend, Susan Mann.
Early on you saw a spark in me that I had yet to recognize and you nurtured that
flickering flame with your years of experience, knowledge, and wisdom until it
became a roaring fire. I thank you for your patience and for reeling me back to
home plate every time I began to slide out-of-bounds. There are simply no
words to truly articulate my gratitude in being asked to be part of the creation
of this work. Thank you to our editors at Oxford University Press, Sherith Pankratz,
Cari Heicklen, and Katy Albis, for your painstaking hard work and perseverance
in obtaining permissions as well as your eagle-eye attention to detail. You, together,
have been the backbone to this immense project.
I am also thankful for my many professors whose guidance and knowledgeable
expertise transformed me along the way: Rachel Luft, Vern Baxter, D’Lane Comp-
ton, and Nicole Farris. I credit each of you with ripping off my many blindfolds,
thereby forcing me to come to terms with and confront my world of privileged
solipsism in its many forms. To my colleagues, Kenneth Bolton, Rebecca Hensley,
and Marc Settembrino, your support and encouragement over this past year has
kept me going in more ways than you will probably ever realize.
To my mother, Dianna Giardelli Pappas, you are my rock, my constant. You
have loved me and believed in me in times when I could not do those things
myself. Thank you for never turning away from me and for always allowing me to
draw from your well of energy, strength, and wisdom even when my need depleted
your own reserves. I am grateful beyond words. To my daughter, Skylar Rains, we
have grown alongside one another during this process. Your teenage wisdom, wit,
smarts, and fierce independence have been refreshing gifts as your level of patience,
love, and understanding of my nontraditional ways are incommunicable. I stand in
awe of you, every day. To my sister, Katie Landry, you have often surprised me with
your love and kindness. Thank you for all your “good luck” phone calls and cards
over the years. They have kept me going when I thought I had nothing left to give.
To my step-father, William Pappas, thank you for your silent support, love, and
overwhelming generosity and care over the years. You are a man of few words, but
when you speak I know that there is a lesson to be learned and it is in my best
interest to stop running my mouth and listen. To my step-father, Steve Landry
(Pappa), thank you for leading by example in teaching me early on the values of
hard work, even though it took me years to appreciate the lessons. Being witness
to your current fight inspires me to strive and overcome to become all that you ever
dreamed for me. Thank you both for always loving me and believing in me.
Last, very special thanks to all of the contributors to this anthology. Your works
have inspired, captivated, enraged, soothed, and challenged me to reach deep
within as well as out to transform me into the woman I am becoming. It is through
the literature contained in this text that I came to feminism in its vast and myriad
forms. To these brilliant, eloquent minds, both past and present, I am forever
indebted.
Constructing feminist theory is a social practice and a form of labor. Just as textile
workers weave yarn and thread to create fabrics, feminist theorists weave concepts
and ideas to better understand the gendered fabric of social life. Although all
knowledge is socially constructed, doing feminist theory is a critical social practice
directed toward better understanding and improving the position of women in
diverse social locations.
Like any social theory anthology, the readings in this text ask big questions:
“What is going on just now? What is happening to us? What is this world, this
period, this precise moment in which we are living?” (Foucault quoted in Best and
Kellner, 2001: 5). To answer these questions, readers are provided with a diverse
array of readings that attempt to understand and to analyze the social world and
how it came to be. Because this is a feminist theory anthology, attention centers on
what these various social transformations mean for gender relations and for women
of different classes, races, sexualities, and global locations. These different social
locations present a multiplicity of lenses for viewing the world and each theorist
provides insights into her or his own “vanishing present” that helps us to better
understand our own (Spivak, [1999] 2006).1
xxi
a number of specific ways to make feminist thought more accessible to readers and
to help them understand its value.
The first level of organization highlights the major feminist political perspectives that
have characterized U.S. feminist thought. The importance of organizing the text in
terms of political perspectives lies in the fact that feminism is not simply a body of
thought; it is a politics directed toward social change. Here readers can see the political
differences between various feminist perspectives and their strategies for social
change. It will readily become apparent that feminism is not a monolithic theory;
that all feminists do not think alike; and that, like all other time-honored modes
of thinking, feminist thought has a past, as well as a present and a future (Tong,
1998: 1).
The second level of organization is historical in that the anthology covers feminist thought
from the late eighteenth century to the present. The advantages of this historical ap-
proach are that readers can see how theories are constructed over time and how
they often develop in response to concrete historical conditions, as well as to other
perspectives and the debates they engender. Most importantly, it illuminates how
theories are not “free floating ideas” (Morton, 2003: x) but are grounded in social,
economic, and political conditions that influence their form and content.
Many histories of U.S. feminism employ a linear “wave approach.” There are
debates over the actual timing of different waves, but there is general consensus
that the first wave designates the surge of women’s rights activism beginning in
the 1830s and culminating around the campaign for women’s suffrage that ended
or at least went into abeyance in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amend-
ment to the U.S. Constitution (Taylor, 1989). The second wave denotes the resur-
gence of women’s organizing in the 1960s that suffered major setbacks with the
defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1982. The third wave refers to
the resurgence of feminist activism in the 1990s by younger feminists who came of
adult age after the second wave (Siegel, 1997). Although women’s rights advocates
of the first wave rarely used the term “feminist” (Cott, 1987: 13–14), we will take
the liberty of using this term throughout the text.
At times, we will refer to these different waves. However, we chose not to fore-
ground this oceanography of feminism for a number of reasons. First, wave ap-
proaches too often ignore feminist writings and activism before and between the
different waves. Second, such approaches generally draw attention to the common
themes that unify each wave and focus on the largest and most hegemonic feminist
organizations. By doing so, they obscure the diversity of competing feminisms
within each wave, as well as the contributions of more politically radical feminists
and of women activists and theorists marginalized within each wave. Third, his-
tory itself does not develop in a cumulative, progressive, or linear fashion. Conse-
quently, feminist writings are included that suggest alternative ways of viewing
history where the uneven and contingent nature of societal development and the
development of social thought are revealed. Fourth, “waves of feminism” are not
synonymous with the history of feminism. Rather, just as ocean waves crest and
subside, waves of feminism simply refer to those historical eras when the U.S.
women’s movement sufficiently crested to have an activist mass-base. Consequently,
this anthology includes feminist writings prior to, during these crests, and in the
periods of subsidence between the various waves.
The third level of organization focuses on theory applications or how feminist theorists
have addressed specific topics over historical time. This is done in two different ways.
First, rather than having a separate chapter on ecofeminism, ecofeminist writings
are threaded throughout the text to show how different feminist political perspec-
tives address the links between the domination of women and the domination of
nature. Although the term ecofeminism was not coined until 1974, this text dem-
onstrates how environmental concerns were addressed by diverse feminisms
throughout the history of the U.S. women’s movement.
Second, we focus on how feminists from the first through the third waves ad-
dressed the topics of colonialism, imperialism, and globalization. The choice of
these topics and the space devoted to them reflect the importance of using a global
perspective. Globalization is ubiquitous today. As the world economic system be-
comes increasingly integrated, the privileges and oppressions of women in the
United States are tied increasingly to the privileges and oppressions of women
across the globe; thus, it becomes ever more important to recognize the links be-
tween the global and the local.
NOTE
1. Toward a History of the Vanishing Present is the subtitle of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s
Critique of Postcolonial Reason ([1999] 2006).
— Isä! Isä!
Nenne tuli ja poika juosta könötti tyttöä kädestä pitäen pihan poikki
luvattua maatansa kohti. Puutarhassa oli takaportti, joka vei suurelle
niitylle. Se heloitti alkukesästä voikukkia täynnänsä ja ruskeahkon
joen rannalla oli miltei läpitunkematon leppien, pajujen ja pihlajien
viidakko, joka kurkisti yli samean veden. Mutta se niitty oli merkillinen
siitä, että sen halki kulkivat kapearaiteiset kiskot, joita pitkin juna
porhalsi edes takaisin kahden tehtaan väliä.
*****
6.
— Vai ei oma! Pidä nyt kitas, sanon minä! Kenen hän sitten olis?
Kenen mahtavat omat kakaras olla — oletkos pitänyt lukua — ja
oletkos ne itse mestaroinut itsellesi oman halusi ja kaavasi mukaan?
Niinkuin eivät olisi kaikki penikat yhtä paljon Jumalan luomia ja
Jumalan lahjoja — omat itsellesi könistettäviksi, koska vissiin sen
ansaitsevat — ja tämä näille kauniisti kasvatettavaksi, koska on kuin
paratiisilintunen tai kuin kuninkaan poika — sokeainkin nähdä.
Senkö takia olit aina niin valoisa mieleltäsi? Kuin kukka aina
aurinkoon päin käännettynä. Vai oliko se sinulle synnynnäistä? Se
saattoi johtua niin toisesta kuin toisestakin. Totuit näkemään hyvää,
eikä usko siihen sitten ennättänytkään horjua. Eikä olisi itse asiassa
horjunut, vaikka olisi ennättänytkin — sydämesi syvimmässä.
*****
7.
Äiti otti ranskankielen tunteja ja istui sipisemässä itsekseen
käsittämättömiä sanoja.
Mutta siihen aikaan äiti sai päähänsä, että pojankin olisi opittava
ruotsia. Mitä varten?
Vai oli niin merkillisiä maita. Maailma tuli yhtäkkiä niin suureksi.
Kolme lajia maita siis oli ja kolme lajia ihmisiä.
Tuli ilta, ja äiti toimitti poikansa vuoteeseen. Hän riisui, pesi kasvot,
kädet ja jalatkin. Poika polskutti vettä lattialle, ripsautti kujeillen äitiä
silmille ja retkautti itsensä selälleen vuoteeseen potkien ja riemusta
kirkuen.
— Niin, mutta eihän sinulla voisi olla ikävä, sillä eihän sinuakaan
silloin olisi olemassa.
Vai niin?! — Käännyin häneen päin. — Oliko pojallani sellaisiakin
taipumuksia — ja tuumiko hän jo elämän takaisia? Mitä vielä, se oli
vain tuollaista pientä ajattelun leikittelyä, jota hän väliin harrasti. Ja
totta oli, että hänellä oli tapana ajatella asiansa loppuun asti.
— No mikä?
8.
Siinä talossa oli avonainen piha, jonka portista näki ahdasta katua
pitkin kauppatorille asti. Sen laidassa kohosi muinaisista ajoista
jäänyt pyöreä torni, entisen kaupungin muurin jäännös. Jos poika
karkasi ensimmäisen kadun nurkkaukseen, oli hän kivitetyllä kujalla,
joka vietti alas rantaan ja jossa hän kuuli kellojen soivan vanhassa
kirkontornissa, joka muinoin oli kuulunut Kathariinan luostariin. Ja
sitä kujaa reunustivat valkoiset rakennukset, joiden välillä hintelä
koivu siellä täällä kurkotti tukevan kiviaitauksen yli nähdäkseen
nykypäivien touhuisaa elämää.
Se oli se vanha Vesiportin katu, jota myöten ennen oli vettä ajettu
Pyhän Kathariinan luostariin. Sen kirkossa oli messu muinoin
kaikunut, siellä olivat nunnat tehneet rippitunnustuksensa ja sen
avoimista ovista oli suitsutusten tuoksu tunkeutunut ulos. Musta- ja
ruskeakaapuiset munkit olivat avojaloin astuneet noita kapeita katuja
palvellen Jumalaansa ja vaalien harhaan joutuneita maailman lapsia.
Mutta kun Väinö ei aina ollut saapuvilla, olisi äiti saanut Yrjön
mielestä vaihtua milloin Väinöksi milloin muuksi. Sillä eihän sitä
voinut äidin kanssa keilojakaan heittää, hän kun vain istua nökötti
lattialla eikä ruvennut pitkälleen, niinkuin olisi pitänyt voidakseen
tähdätä paremmin. Sentakia ei leikki ollut niin jännittävä kuin se olisi
voinut olla jonkun pojan kanssa. Eikä äiti niin paljon kuin Väinö
välittänyt siitä, kumpi voitti. Jos menetti, niin ei hänen poskensa
punoittaneet eikä hän kiihkeästi vaatinut uutta peliä. Ja jos piilosilla
oltiin, niin äiti meni vain oven taakse tai painautui isän matkaturkkiin
eteisessä, mutta ei hän keksinyt niin hurmaavan vaikeita
piilopaikkoja kuin Väinö, joka kiepsahti korkealle kaapin päälle ja