Pamela Norton wrote:
>> In article <3A5F6921.11E58F33 at unm.edu>, Linnea Ista <lkista at unm.edu>
> wrote:
>> > Pam and all,
> >
> > There is an excellent resource on Third Wave feminism at
> > http://www.io.com/~wwwave/> > I know that at least two of the authors are female scientists that I have
> > interacted with on another list.
> >
> > Happy reading,
> > Linnea
> >
>> Thanks, Linnea, and also thanks to Pat for starting this thread.
> Although I've barely scratched the surface, the Third Wave site left me
> feeling a bit....confused. I like the fact that they don't feel that to
> be a feminist you need to be part of a sort of monolithic block of
> individuals who agree on every issue. On the other hand it seems that
> they are portraying the second wave/boomers as exactly that. However,
> this overgeneralization might just be a reaction to the way the second
> wave has been lumping the younger crowd together, I haven't read enough
> to know if this is the case. <snip> My impression
> is that problems arose because the issue of feminism became associated
> with a certain political agenda, which needn't be the case.
>
I think whether or not it needs to be the case is the point at
issue. According to Susan Brownmiller's memoir, second-wave
feminism at least partly began within the new left, when
female activists noticed that they were doing all the scutwork
and being valued mainly for their sexual and secretarial abilities.
(In fact, I just heard someone on Prairie Home Companion last week
reminiscing about how he went out to the protest scene in California
because one of his friends called him up and told him the hippie
girls were hot). So many of the second wave feminists began with
a radical leftist or communist ideology.
Then, they were challenging extremely fundamental assumptions of society
-- so fundamental that not even the radical left had
thought to question them. That in itself would select for a
pretty radical and rebellious group of people, I think. So it might
be the case that in the conservative American society of the 1950s and
60s, feminism could only have developed among people with a
leftist agenda.
I'm currently reading a really interesting book on feminist
organizations, which has a lot to say about the tensions between
radical and moderate women's groups, plus the claim by right-wing
feminist groups to be better representatives of the majority of
women.
But I'm thinking that this has little to do with women
in science, because I don't think the problems I see women
in science complaining about are going to be solved by either a
social justice agenda or a right wing agenda; I think they're
problems of gender roles in marriage and childrearing, and
problems with the macho work expectations of scientists and
the current tendency in the US to put the needs of the
employer above the needs of anybody else.
Pat
