What every single one of our readings this week seems intent on selling to its readers is the idea that “postfeminism” is itself a movement, a successor to feminism, or a countermovement, a dismantler of feminism. To be sure, two out of three of our readings were written in the naughts, and even I can remember there was a brief period of years, especially reaching its zenith in the thousands, where feminism and race discussions were quieted, and there was a sense of “doneness” – everyone wanted to quit talking about it, the subject felt fatigued and unneeded. “Those things” were of the past.
However, attributing this moment in time to being the coup of postfeminism ignores some rather opposing facts – namely that even while postfeminism was being raged about in the 80s, 2nd wave feminism was turning into 3rd and continuing on through the 90s. Postfeminism has since this point seemed at best a momentary fad, or the belief of a very few. Indeed, it seems that feminism never died in the early 80s as was "feared" but instead underwent a transformation into a new movement with new goals, higher ones, readjusted to a new 80s societal construction.
What if, in fact, these moments of "postfeminism" are in actuality the "trough" between waves? The plateau moment when the zenith of the first movement has been reached, so the kinetic energy of the first wave must transfer itself into the next, setting a new zenith (goal) and as a result moving forward. I posit that this very process was repeated in the early thousands, and the apparent new proliferation of postfeminism was actually just the plateau, the moment of death of the 3rd wave, as its energy transferred onto a new goal. Rather than a moment of abandonment, this lull of fatigue and postfeminist language was a transitional period, as what we are now calling fourth wave feminism found its footing.
There is still plenty of debate on whether there is a fourth wave, or merely an extension of third ongoing, and what the periods of these waves are, and even what characteristics define them. I personally am a proponent of fourth wave, as the period since 2010 (the approximate date of its beginning) has been characterized by expanded ideas of intersectionality, equal rights, LGBTQIA and gender issues, body positivity, discussion for protection against sexual violence, and as one source from UW Tacoma notes, the rise of social media as a platform for activism and dissemination of information.
In other words, this is a different world than the one 3rd wave was founded in. As such feminism must necessarily change and redefine itself, and what comes out is hard to recognize as the feminism of previous decades.
To be fair to these authors, if this article was indeed written sometime during the 00s, hindsight truly is 20/20. No one in the United States post say (just pick a historical event since 2010) has the luxury of blindness to feminist and racial issues or to make any statement that such issues are firmly in the past, and I mention these in conjunction because this new wave of feminism, more than any other wave recognizes the connection between trans violence, racial violence, medical racism and sexism, and how politics and political figures are set to affect these concerns as a society.
But as such, I do struggle to see the benefit of entertaining the concept of postfeminism at all. Perhaps there is something I am missing, but I simply do not see a world in which individual understanding of feminist causes or interest therein has decreased. Perhaps there is something to be said for not allowing our narrative depictions onscreen to grow complacent, or allow the consolidation of formula to result in tokenism or commodified experience (insofar as such a thing is possible). However, I think there is some genuine danger in conflating commodified tokens with tokenism. That little girls have access to “girl power” t-shirts will not make or break the feminist cause, nor does it cheapen it. If we are reduced to mere symbol or if feminism (in the static definition of the moment our authors were writing in) is fragile enough to be destroyed by mimicry and meme, then perhaps it is not a movement that deserves to survive in our ever-changing, ever-brave new world.
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