post to the ENGRAD listserv about post-post-feminism article

Thanks for this "post." Nice to see some discussions of feminism on the English listserv. Of course, it's the same old historically inaccurate feminist narrative: one (white women's) movement happened in the 60s, another (um, white women's movement) in the 70s, and now it's fun (for white women) to talk about (white British)cross-dressing comics! We've come so far...

(which is to say: if anyone knows Eddie Izzard, please give him my number.)

It's as silly to talk about "feminism" as a singular movement as it isto talk about "English" as a singular language. If not for the injustice all around us the term would be totally vacant. Lucky for us, there's still a rich history of cross-racial, cross-class,strategically effective social and cultural movements.

Feminism has been declared post and passe pretty much only in the upper to middle-classes and white communities, where our shared investment in systems of power provokes us to keep a close watch on one another's business.

I'd rather get to work on things that matter, like battling the symptoms of intersectionality and training the students of privilege to shift their power. Racial and gendered pay equity issues, body ownership and reproductive justice, sexual and domestic violence, and rape as a war crime, not to mention crises of economic injustice and good old-fashioned ogling... There is something of value in the past, after all: I'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy.

Susannah