by Olivia Ralston
heila Tobias,
academic, activist, and author of Faces of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections
on the Women's Movement, recalls that when women of her generation were
coming of age in the '40s, the memory of the suffragists' struggles had
all but faded: "We thought that the right to vote was a gift from an
enlightened Congress." She sees the same phenomenon now, as the rising
generation of women by and large gives feminism the cold shoulder.
Americans
now consider non-discriminatory practices the norm and expect as much, but
Tobias wants to remind us of the history of discrimination against women.
In her preface, Tobias writes, "A terrible staple in the history of
feminism in this country is that every 75 years or so we have to start over
from scratch." Tobias fears that as feminist history is buried along
with feminist activism, our society is in danger of losing ground that the
women's movement fought so hard to gain. Faces of Feminism, a historical
analysis colored with personal comments, opinions, and asides, is an attempt
to break that cycle characteristic of feminism, to woo the masses (men included)
back to her cause.
The book reads like a grandmother telling her own life story, narrated in full detail, pausing only to knead the details into the bigger retrospective picture. The book is fundamentally academic, footnoted and pretty much chronological; however, it is also topical, as some chapters are devoted to aspects of the movement Tobias feels are of special import, such as "Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique" and "Feminism and Sexual Preference: Lesbians and Lesbian Rights." What results is an easily digestible primer on the women's movement.
In a recent interview, Tobias cited a two-fold threat to feminism: hostility due to misinformation and a certain "smugness" among young women -- their taking for granted the strides of their foremothers. She knows that young women today are distancing themselves from feminism, calling it "the f-word." She says, "There's a presumption or an impression that young women get that feminism is extremely radical, that it involves exclusively lesbian sexual preferences, that it isn't really as mainstream as people of my generation know it to have been." Tobias wants to "tell the story in full and in a readable fashion and accurately and in a balanced way" to prevent any "negative associations with the movement based on ignorance."
Tobias also wants to warn her younger counterparts that the battle is not over. Instead of taking feminism for a movement that has run its course, she believes that "feminism is part of mainstream American politics." Despite huge successes in the women's movement, Tobias emphasizes the need for an "infrastructure" -- funding, commissions, organizations devoted to the cause of gender equality -- to ensure that women's rights continue to be an object of society's attention and concern.
Of course, feminism is not currently as visible as it has been in the past, but there are certainly feminist groups around that are as concerned and vocal as ever. She points to existing organizations, such as the National Organization for Women, which is holding its annual conference on the weekend of July 4th in Memphis, and newer groups like the Third Wave (the so-called new phase of the movement) and FURY (Feminists United to Represent Youth), among others. Of the latter, she notes that "while these young women are no less feminist in their orientation, they have different priorities from the earlier strands of the movement," such as parental-consent laws, sexual abuse and violence against girls, date rape, and eating disorders.
Despite the seeming unpopularity of feminism among young women today, Tobias is hopeful. She says, for example, that many of the young men she has met share a "double ambition" to be good fathers and have good careers. It is this sort of support for motherhood and families that will lead to more fluidity in sex roles and ultimately to the elevation of women's status in society, the erosion of male dominance -- to equality between the sexes. Tobias warns, "If these mainstream kind of people don't rejoin feminism or don't recreate a feminism, then the only people who will remain in feminism will be radical," and that would only hurt the movement. Tobias' optimism, though, is tempered by realism that comes from a long history in an erratic movement: "I have a lot of respect for change; I realize how hard change is."