US in Search of New Kind of Feminism

“I’m very proud of this work.* But more than the music — I’m proud of myself as a woman.” Beyoncé just shook the music industry with the presentation of her last album via the Internet and without intermediaries. Months before, Yahoo President Marissa Mayer declared in a documentary that she did not consider herself a “feminist,” and that during her time at Google she never saw herself as a woman in the company, but rather as just another computer technician.

The assertions of each represent the challenge of actual feminism in the United States. Mayer, Beyoncé and Sheryl Sandberg, the No. 2 of Facebook, who has launched a campaign to incorporate women in the most relevant business positions, are heirs of the advances one of the most important social movements of the last decades has achieved. Through their reach of the greatest heights, we can infer that the equality of opportunity — or possibility — [that allows] a woman to occupy a coveted position over a man has already been achieved.

However, almost as rapidly as the voices that celebrate this achievement emerge, there awakes a call to renew feminism. The success of this minority should not bury the movement, while American women continue earning 77 cents for each dollar that men earn. The equilibrium between these two positions implies that there are various generations and many more diverse and complex points of view than those that defined the movement in its beginnings, and with an incipient risk that did not exist before: the sensation that, perhaps, it is now not necessary.

“Today we can identify two groups of young people in regards to feminism,” asserts Kate Farrar, director of leadership programs for the American Association of University Women. “One of them has barely suffered nor has been a witness to sexist discrimination. They have arrived at universities without barriers,” she says.

“The other is clearly conscious that there still exists sexual violence, exploitation, discrimination and the trafficking of women, but neither group wants the label of ‘feminist.'”*

In both cases, entrance to the working world puts millions of young people in contact with discrimination. “They detect it when they begin to work, when they see how they are treated, how they are addressed in the meetings,” explains Farrar.*

“Women must still deal with various cultural aspects. They feel that they must learn to reconcile the feminine image with ambition or the capacity to work.”*

To remove themselves from such labels, and without expecting to pertain to a specific movement, others have opted to raise their own voice — feminist or not —and make their career a personal cause, such as the case of Lena Dunham, actress, screenwriter and director of the series “Girls.” The writer Chimamanda Adichie, who argued in a famous speech at a TED conference, “We should all be feminists,” is another example.

“I increasingly find myself talking about feminist ideas without actually using the word ‘feminism,'” Abigail Rine reflects for The Atlantic. “Why?”

Because “it is exhausting to preface every conversation about combating misogyny with winsome, disarming anecdotes about how I actually do like men … and how I actually haven’t burned any bras. The conversation often goes more smoothly if I just avoid the ‘F-word’ entirely.”

The magazine Elle awakened many critics this past October by inviting various advertising agencies to help them “re-brand a term that many feel has become burdened with complications and negativity.” For some, it was ironic that a magazine that defends impossible standards of beauty for millions of women applied itself to re-inventing a movement of equality. For others, there is no cause that can advance itself if it is covered in makeup to the point where it ceases to be a threat.

Rine proposes that this is the moment to find another term that includes all of that, [the moment at which we choose] to continue fighting against discrimination in culture and language, sexual violence or human trafficking. “There is much work to be done, which is why I am concerned that feminists are too preoccupied with making our brand more palatable,” she concludes.

The attempt by ELLE reflects the variety of arguments that need to be reconciled in the reality of feminism in order to maintain all women — and men — united in favor of equality. Advances have allowed millions of women to attend universities and live in an independent manner, thanks to jobs previously inaccessible to them. However, when a high professional like Mayer, CEO of Yahoo and former vice president of Google, decides to add a room for her baby next to her office, some women feel betrayed by her posing as an example of equal opportunity that is nonexistent for millions of women.

For others, the betrayal is in the decision of First Lady Michelle Obama to become “mom-in-chief” during her time in the White House, instead of defending policies that favor women. Her role has been classified as a “feminist nightmare,” in reference to the disappointment caused in some sectors because the most qualified first lady in history puts her role as a mother first. Others interpret the freedom to make these decisions as an indication of the true triumph of the movement.

“Some will say the movement is receding because it has achieved its essential goals … That is an understandable but mistaken conclusion,” Christina Hoff Sommers, author of books such as “The War Against Boys,” asserts in The Atlantic.

“Though the major battles for equality and opportunity in the United States have been fought and largely won, the work of feminism remains unfinished. Across the globe … women’s groups struggle to survive in the face of … violent repression … [and] popular culture contains strong elements of misogyny … Despite women’s immense progress, poverty rolls are disproportionally filled with women with children.”

President Obama recognized this past December that “inequality is the greatest challenge of this century” for the United States. Inequality especially affects women. In a recent State of the Union speech, he reminded us: “Women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns … It’s an embarrassment.”

More than two-thirds of workers in the U.S. who earn minimum wage are women, according to the National Women’s Law Center. The National Office of Statistics established that in 2012, 70 percent of those employees also did not have the right to paid sick leave, and 40 percent of homes with children under 18 years of age are headed by women who earn the main income — or the only income — for the whole family, according to research by the Pew Center.

Far from universities and corporations like Facebook and Yahoo, millions of American women hold positions at the minimum wage. A paper by Maria Shriver, former first lady of California, in collaboration with the Center for American Progress (CAP), could become the latest feminist “manifesto.” Her X-ray of poverty is the antithesis to the smiles of Mayer and Sandberg and a reminder of why Obama’a option to be “mother-in-chief” continues to be revolutionary for millions of women who do not have the option to raise their children.

“These are not women trying to ‘have it all,'” writes Shriver. “These are women who are already doing it all — working hard, providing, parenting, and care-giving. They’re doing it all, yet they and their families can’t prosper, and that’s weighing the U.S. economy down. For too many American women, the dream of ‘having it all’ has morphed into ‘just hanging on.’ Look where they may, on the covers of magazines, in television shows and online they are told that they should feel like they have more power than ever before, but that is not the truth.”*

The CAP study denounces that close to 100 million Americans, almost one-third of the population, live on the margin that separates the middle class from poverty — separated merely by the loss of a job, an accident or serious illness. Of this percentage of citizens, 70 million are women and the children who depend on them. Shriver calls to unite all Americans behind a movement to end the gap between these families and the privileged position of Mayer or Sandberg, Beyoncé or Obama.

Michael Kaufman, an expert on programs to involve men in feminist values, recognizes that this division is in part because the sense of urgency from decades past has been lost. Like so many other activists and experts, the author advises that it would be a great error to assume that a “long road” does not still remain: “while violence against women still remains, while there is not equal pay the barriers do not disappear.”*

Shriver’s paper includes the signatures of the likes of Clinton and the NBA basketball star Lebron James, with a plea in favor of single mothers, like his, and the implication of a call for men [to take part] in the future of feminism. For the singer Beyoncé, “men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers and sisters earn more — commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender.”

Kaufman welcomes these types of messages:

“What’s most important is that there is a healthy effort to redefine the role of men and of fathers. And that is one of the principal reasons why we still need feminism.”*

The advice of the historian Sommers, who advocates for re-inventing feminism, is simple:

“Reform feminism … Make common cause with women across the globe who are struggling for their basic freedoms. Supporting truly oppressed women would give … Western feminism something it has lacked for many years: a contemporary purpose worthy of its illustrious past.”

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.