Fourth Wave Feminism
PHILLIP SCOTT ANDREWS
Late in June the Internet was possessed by one of its periodic tizzies, this time over an article in The Atlantic called “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” by Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, professor of international affairs at Princeton, and, as she makes a point of insisting, mother of two sons. Slaughter drew on her privileged experience to revisit the classic problem of balancing motherhood and career, suggesting that what’s needed is a package of European-style, family-friendly workplace reforms.
Though her argument was not terribly original, the response was visceral – amassing over a million views in just a few days, the article swiftly rose to become the most-visited in the magazine’s online history. Most of the debate was mired in the shallows, ripping on the “feminist-baiting” title and back-to-the-past cover image (a coy baby peeking out of a briefcase). Other critics misconstrued Slaughter as “blaming feminism” rather than patriarchy. A few marginalized voices cried that “having it all” depends on the have-nots hired as nannies and maids.
Only four days after the piece came out, Slaughter recanted the “have it all” frame. Yet the title keenly reflects the bankruptcy of previous feminist goals in the present age of austerity … the vacancy of a political ambition expressed in the main verbs of consumerism: having, getting and giving up so as to get and have some more.
Meanwhile, the younger generation of women sidesteps Slaughter’s dilemma altogether. They mostly refuse to bear children at all – perhaps in an instinctive response to cataclysmic overpopulation – and they’re not seduced by high-powered careers. “Neoliberal capitalism is patriarchal to the core … Women are the other 99%,” wrote one anonymous fourth-wave feminist in the early days of Occupy Wall Street, presaging the Feminist General Assemblies that have since become a movement mainstay. Instead of agonizing over how to be both an ideal mother and an ideal worker, emerging feminists are worrying, as the title of breakout writer Sheila Heti’s book puts it, “How should a person be?” Heti’s novel-from-life, like the work of young filmmaker Lena Dunham, mines the personal to disclose, and then transcend, the intimate and universal degradations of life in today’s fully pornified male culture. That same spirited, self-exposing courage propels the naked activists known as Femen in Europe and the Slut Walk marches worldwide. In the public sphere, their bodies’ vulnerability transforms into adamantine solidarity.
While Slaughter and her establishment cohort rent their talent to the one percent for cheap, a counter-tide of women is redefining the direction of the next decade of feminist dreams. From the turmoil may emerge a revolutionary women’s struggle … a tidal wave concerned with how to be, not how much to have … and perhaps, one day, a landmark victory that will outshine even the suffragettes’ triumph.
68 comments on the article “Fourth Wave Feminism”
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Chris H
@ Researcher:
Well, you make those "pre-approved" models sound a little nefarious. I don't know if it's different from what you're thinking, but I tend to attribute this calcification to groupthink - something that conventional media and social media is making worse.
There are a lot more models than just "capitalism" and "communism." But if you're talking about economic change - big, widespread movements - then you have to appeal and communicate to the masses in a language they're familiar with. Nothing novel ever came out of mass movements or mass ideas. Novel thought (imho) needs small groups and individuals.
What I don't see is this flowering of islands of methods, techniques, etc., that I would expect in the modern age. I don't see new solutions to problems cropping up. That's particularly surprising given the amount of freedom we have to try new things and the number of pretty serious problems that exist.
For example, in ancient Rome there were many religions and cults. Some of these came up with new ways of living together and dealing with problems - communal living by different sets of rules, isolated living (cynicism), etc. But either I'm not exposed to people who are trying these things (which would be surprising, as I have friends at universities, the military, the business world, union members, a couple of people on welfare etc.) or people are genuinely not trying these things, these miniature social experiments.
There's the one model - nuclear family - and it's in all classes and all levels. But anyone with sense can see it's a loser model for most people other than upper middle class professional. For anyone else, it sucks pretty badly.
Researcher
Perhaps the nuclear family model is the result of capitalism and debt based monetary systems, combined with Judeo-Christian religious teachings and the legal institution of marriage. Each family is taking on separate debt, rather than through the community or village - capitalism. And multiple families aren't living under the same roof, which probably helps ensure monogamy and avoids interbreeding - religion.
Then we have media and business reinforcing the idea of sequestered nuclear families, in separate housing, with separate furniture/appliances, separate cars, consuming more energy and resources, churning out more debt, leading to faster economic growth. And because of that, we now need separate jobs, rather than shared jobs, to pay for the separate consumption and extra debt.
Maybe the lack of different techniques, models and social structures, being created or even discussed might be because we're far more indoctrinated than a Roman family, so when are we given a chance to exchange ideas, when there's so much pressure (cultural, familial, economic) to conform, rather than question and experiment? School is indoctrination and we aren't taught much other than a regurgitated century old curriculum. College is preparation to enter the corporate world, learning to please your professors, in the same way you'll have to kiss up to your boss, in a corporate environment. Once we're in the work force, we're somewhat stuck in the grind of work, while taking on mortgage debt, and supporting children.
So, why would we be thinking and discussing about alternative economic models like worker owned corporations, worker shared profits, co-ops, or a shared roster of childcare, community building/housing programs, anarchic communities, community food programs or shared jobs?
Are we really so free to explore these ideas, or are we less free to discuss them and experiment, because we're exposed to the unremitting propaganda of conformity, and the the general distrust that capitalism causes, where our neighbor is permanently our potential competitor? In my opinion, capitalism creates dominant, hierarchical relationships which just aren't conducive to communal thought, let alone communal cooperation and actions.
Anonymous
God, what is you people's fixation with the Romans??
Chris H
Researcher:
I don't think I buy that capitalism feeds hierarchy and competition much more than most systems.
In Fromm's book, he points out that rigid hierarchical systems and competition are diametrically opposed forces in most cases. In a rigid caste society, why should you work hard to compete? You are born into your role and you die in that role. Capitalism supports either a dynamic hierarchy or the illusion of a dynamic hierarchy.
The Judeo-Christian model - or at least the Protestant model - has been blamed by many authors and writers for feeding the breakdown of communal identity and building and valuing the "individual." This forms a portion of Fromm's thesis in "Escape from Freedom."
But I don't buy it. Some of the few communitarian societies left in the Western world, such as the Amish, are part of the Judeo-Christian systems of religion. The early Christians and Jews were extremely communitarian, and the Hebrews had complicated systems of debt. So I don't think the "reason" has a religious foundation. In fact, the key to developing novel communitarian strategies might lie in the natural human religious impulse.
But on the issue of learning models - and not just in school, but through language and story - there I think you have something. Perhaps one reason is that people don't see families living that way on TV and so it might not occur to them that there's something pleasant about it: "When you have thus formed the chain of ideas in the heads of your citizens, you will then be able to pride yourselves on guiding them and being their masters. A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly with their own ideas... and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires." - Foucault, "Discipline and Punish," quoting Servan. (Very good book, btw.)
But I'll admit a second hypothesis, too: maybe people are just too spoiled and greedy now to cooperate voluntarily. Maybe our wealth and leisure has created a society of spoiled brats. I don't believe that all the time, but I often believe it.
Researcher
@ Chris
We're discussing the west (which is what I believed you referred to when you commented that you were surprised there's no experimentation with models other than the nuclear family) and modern day capitalism originated in the west along with fiat currencies and the debt based financial system.
Capitalism exacerbates greed and entitlement: Those attitudes aren't spawned and nurtured in a vacuum. We live in a society where the rich are lauded, not the poor and disenfranchised. In our shallow, consumerist world, the more possessions one owns, signifies success proportionally. That's a constant overt and subliminal message. How would you achieve the kind of wealth that American culture celebrates if you start a co-op and share all the profits made equally, amongst everyone? How would you achieve fame if you started a community vegetable growing program and suggested everyone within a 2 block radius contributes an equal amount of money for the purchase of a piece of land, where every household comes to do a certain number of hours of work per week, and gets an equal share of the vegetables grown, in return? And what about a company, where a group of women decide to work 4 days a week instead of 5, and each take their day off on a different day, to look after the children of the working women on a roster system, instead of paying for daycare? These ideas aren't even suggested or debated, anywhere.
There's $US 21 trillion in offshore tax havens. That's a direct result of people wanting to hide their ill gotten gains and avoid taxes. I've lived in several English speaking nations as well as the East, and it seems self evident that capitalism is the driving force behind greed and selfishness. So, wanting to squirrel that wealth away in tax havens, blind trusts or the stock market, is just a natural extension of capitalism, where people are attempting to preserve that wealth for their nuclear family. The Judeo/Christian part was just to explain why people are living in separate families rather than multi family homes under one roof and not experimenting with polyamory etc. I wasn't excluding other religions in regards to lack of experimentation, but we live in the west where Judeo/Christian beliefs have not only shaped our attitudes towards single family units, but they've also led to many of our legal constructs, which also shape our behavior and trust, communally and individually.
Chris H
@ Researcher:
Those are definite problems - tax havens and a corporate culture where it's never "enough," there always must be "more."
But I disagree that it's purely Western or that Western and Judeo-Christian societies are particularly infested with the problems.
First, it isn't just modern Western. Most empires, from the Romans to the Greeks to the North Africans, Chinese, Japanese, the empires of the Americas and so on, worshiped wealth and prestige, often far more literally than we do. In many societies the caste you were born into was determined by the gods and you deserved it through karma or it was mandated by fate. Many were far more brutal than our own.
But even in modern Western society, there seems to be a shift. I was raised by my grandparents, who also played a big role in caring for my cousins. Our families needed help in the sense that someone had to watch the kids; my grandparents took that role. Even more so for me than my cousins because they literally cared for me every day growing up.
You speak of organized co-opts; I was thinking smaller and more practical. Due to the way my life is complicated, my spouse and I live separately, so I live with a member of my in-laws. At first, people were worried, but she had no job and it helped to have me there help with the house payments. I was also there to spend part of each week babysitting my nephews, which means that childcare costs for my in-laws was reduced. I could do that because my job had flexibility that most family members did not have in their jobs.
But when I wanted to take it to the next step - such as shopping collectively at something like Sam's Club so we'd all save money and have better access to fresh foods and vegetables - I was shot down. People didn't want to make the effort - even though they all complain about money. I babysit, but many of my in-laws refuse to help out with the nephews saying it's "not their job."
"Just get a sitter..." I don't think that's good for kids. I don't think that people were meant to be raised by servants who could leave or be fired rather than loved ones.
You say Judeo-Christian is a problem. The only people I see volunteering collectively to accomplish tasks and fulfilling those responsibilities are Christians. Even there, however, it's a problem: small church membership is down, volunteer work is down and there's this perception that just handing the church money gives the church what it needs. Who, I wonder, do they think handles things like organizing these big food drives or even basic things like lighting and sound on service days?
So, I don't view it as Western or Judeo-Christian and from my standpoint it seems a recent cultural change.
Chris H
^^^
Okay, that's one slight variation on the theory, but that could be part of it. In other words, I think we largely agree.
Anonymous
Also, science is one of those areas where the majority of published, peer reviewed papers are nonsense. Scientists might be the new whited coated priests, but real science should be pure research, and rarely do they strike gold. There's more fraud and error in science than the banking sector. Take the example of the two GSK whistleblowers, Thorpe and Hamrick. They're the tiny droplet on the tip of the iceberg. Remember, it takes fraudulent science and massaged data, before you ever get a chance to bribe the FDA and con the entire medical community. As an aside, Vioxx has killed more Americans than the Vietnam war.
Anonymous
I wonder how those who are dependent on work as nannies and maids feel about those who never ever have to take either job (too privileged) recommending those jobs begone. Note you don't see any suggestions that would replace that work.
Chiara Ricciardone won't have to work of course that's why she claims women who do "Rent their talent to the one percent for cheap". Women like her won't have children and won't work, they'll simply live off of the...off of the...well I'm sure you get the idea.
Anonymous
Any work done for the 1% is done too cheap.
Your comment shows the sorry state of feminism. Are there no more radical feminists left?
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