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The Illusion of the Third Wave

Lauren

From the new issue of Ms. Magazine, the generation gap is an illusion:

It’s no mystery why the discourse that has developed around the waves is divisive and oppositional. Writers and theorists love oppositional categories — they make things so much easier to talk about. Similarities are much more difficult. So, naturally, much has been said and written about the disagreements, conflicts, differences and antagonisms between feminists of the second and third waves, while hardly anything is ever said about our similarities and continuities.

The rap goes something like this: Older women drained their movement of sexuality; younger women are uncritically sexualized. Older women won’t recognize the importance of pop culture; younger women are obsessed with media representation. Older women have too narrow a definition of what makes a feminist issue; younger women are scattered and don’t know what’s important.

Nothing on this list is actually true — but, because this supposedly great generational divide has been constructed out of very flimsy but readily available materials, the ideas persist in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

5 thoughts on The Illusion of the Third Wave

  1. Whew! I’m glad that’s over! I never bought into it anyway.

    I was at a breakfast not long ago, and Gloria was there doing her thing, and said, “Ellie, it’s okay if they call each other ‘girl’ as long as they use a bunch of rrrrrsssssss.” I thought “whatever.” There’s too may women suffering in the world to be agonizing over that shit.

  2. I admit as a ‘Third Waver’ I disagree with the Second Wave feminists on some things, but I won’t let that diminish my respect for them. For they are the ones who inspired me to not tolerate misogynist bigotry. I think Third Wavers and Second Wavers agree with each other more often than clashing with each other. At least I hope we do. Then again, we should be more focused on working together in order to prevent the clock from turning back on women’s rights. No social movement was ever fully unified on every little thing concerning the focal ideology. Each generation experiences things differently.

  3. I never got this whole thing of ‘waves’ anyway; feminist movement has not been a series of new starts—it’s been ongoing, and there’s always been schisms. I’m in-between the age groups of “Second” and “Third” waves, and don’t consider myself either—but it has little to do with generation, and lots to do with social class and ethnic background. I’m a feminist, but without a specific label! And hell, we are so damn under the gun right now, I think all the ‘labels’ serve our enemies’ purposes, not ours. Fuck the labels, and focus on capital “F” meat-and-potatoes (sugu and pasta?) Feminism!!

  4. I don’t even know what wave I’m in. I’m 41 – what does that make me? I do know that I have been hearing the same generalizations since I was in high school in the late seventies:

    – Those cranky middle aged ladies who called themselves feminists were so *humorless* and hated men.

    – Young women don’t call themselves feminists and don’t appreciate the things their elders did for them.

    – For a while more women were working mothers/kept their own names/considered themselves feminists, but now things are becoming more traditional again.

    I beleived all these things when I first heard them around 1975 and felt horribly out of step since I definitely was a feminist and loved the bravery of those previous generations. But then I heard exactly the same things in the eighties. And then in the nineties. And now. So I’m skeptical. I bet there aren’t really any discernable waves or backlashes among young women. I bet it just makes a good story for Time Magazine to stir up some controversy.

  5. My memory of the start of the “third wave” business was when a few women wrote books about how feminism has already accomplished all its goals, so middle class women should get on with getting rich and everyone else should stop whining and being party-poopers. It seemed to come out about the same time as the articles about Gen-X: how people in their twenties were completely apathetic, and compared to Baby Boomers were utterly worthless.

    When the Gen-X stuff first came out, by the way, I was a little too young to qualify. Within a few years, I was too old to be Gen-X. Shortly after that, there was a rush of articles claiming new titles for the next wave of young adults. I came to the conclusion that it was just middle-aged pundits mocking younger adults based on superficial characterization.

    I think the “third wave” business was originally part of the same thing, just restricted to feminists, rather than young adults in general.

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