On young feminists and the internets

On the most recent episode of PBS’s “To the Contrary,” the panelists discuss, “Feminism Interrupted: The new push to get more Generation Y women involved in feminism.”

Host Bonnie Erbe: Jane, is the internet now the primary tool that’s drawing young women into feminism?
Jane Hamsher (of Firedoglake): Oh I believe that it is. And I believe that’s largely due to the failure of many feminist institutions to reach out to young women in a real way. Organizations like NARAL have become insider and cliquish, and are making insider mistakes like endorsing Joe Lieberman, who said it was OK for a woman who had been raped to have to go across town to get emergency contraception.

I certainly agree that the online feminist community has stepped into a void that the older feminist organizations have been unwilling (in some cases) or unable (in other cases) to fill. But it’s funny she would single out NARAL, which in my opinion does a pretty damn good job with online outreach. That’s definitely not where I would start pointing fingers.
Later on, there’s this:

Eleanor Holmes Norton: … This generation is not a movement generation. I believe the feminist organizations are indeed attacking exactly the issues these young women are interested in, for example abortion — these young women would be 100 percent there — and homosexual discrimination. That’s not the problem. The problem is they don’t identify — they do their own thing. They have the underlying values of the feminist movement. We don’t have a right to say, look, if you have our values, you must also take our name. Let them do their thing, their way. Be happy they have adopted your values.

I think if the online feminist community has proved anything, it’s that we are a movement generation. I participated in feminist actions on my college campus, but that felt more like a club than a movement. I worked for a women’s rights nonprofit, but that felt more like a day job than a movement. I went to rallies and marches, but they felt more like one-off events than a movement. It took blogging here, and being part of a community of feminist bloggers, for me to really feel like part of a feminist movement. To feel I was part of a group of people, committed to a set of ideals, who are working day in and day out to advance those ideals.
I really wish Bonnie Erbe had had a young feminist on her show to articulate that, because I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Overall, I was really disappointed by the show. How hard would it have been to have one woman in her 20s be part of the panel?
There’s a lot more discussion fodder in this segment, but I’ll stop there for now. Transcript and video are after the jump.

Host Bonnie Erbe: Jane, is the internet now the primary tool that’s drawing young women into feminism?
Jane Hamsher (of Firedoglake): Oh I believe that it is. And I believe that’s largely due to the failure of many feminist institutions to reach out to young women in a real way. Organizations like NARAL have become insider and cliquish, and are making insider mistakes like endorsing Joe Lieberman, who said it was OK for a woman who had been raped to have to go across town to get emergency contraception.
Erbe: But Ellie Smeal of the Feminist Majority has done this show many times, I know for example that they have a huge campus outreach section. Is it not working?
Hamsher: I think there’s also a temperamental difference in generations, where younger women didn’t experience, until they get out into the workplace and find out what the real world is like, what their mothers went through. I think that’s just a process of maturation. But they also have a sense of real ownership of their bodies and their personal space that I think is sometimes kind of shocking to another generation.
Erbe:What’s the most successful example on the web of getting young women, who obviously are as a rule “techier” than their mothers and grandmothers, involved in feminism?
Hamsher: I think it comes from addressing women’s issues.There are 20 million unmarried women who are not registered to vote in this country. Women’s Voices Women’s Vote has been really successful in trying to reach these people, to find out why it is they don’t register and don’t vote. Trying to get contraception in rural areas where pharmacists won’t dispense it. Addressing the issues that they care about. And that’s largely happening on the web, where people can be responsive to what the concerns are in an immediate way.
Tara Setmeyer (conservative commentator): I think the feminist movement is going through what the civil rights movement is going through. There’s been an evolution in what seems to be important and what’s going on in the generation now, Gen Y, versus the elder. I found it fascinating that the woman in the clip said the older feminists feel as if the younger generation don’t appreciate the foundation they’ve laid for them. There’s a similar dynamic going on within the civil rights community, too, where there are certain issues we’re fighting for now that weren’t the same back then. So how do we draw the young generation into the civil rights movement that makes it relevant and applicable to today’s issues? And I think that’s a challenge. I don’t think there’s a lack of interest, or a lack of enthusiasm for the issues that are important to us, but there may be a disconnect…
Eleanor Holmes Norton: … This generation is not a movement generation. I believe the feminist organizations are indeed attacking exactly the issues these young women are interested in, for example abortion — these young women would be 100 percent there — and homosexual discrimination. That’s not the problem. The problem is they don’t identify — they do their own thing. They have the underlying values of the feminist movement. We don’t have a right to say, look, if you have our values, you must also take our name. Let them do their thing, their way. Be happy they have adopted your values. They’re doing it a whole lot more than you’re doing it. They’re in the workplace a lot more. They’re reaching for things you never would have reached for as a 1960s and 1970s feminist.
Michelle Bernard (IWF): I love what you just said, because if everybody in the feminist movement, whether they call themselves feminists or not, would share a similar philosophy, we might not see the same dichotomy. To me the big question today is, what is feminism? There’s a whole organization of young women that call themselves “third-wave feminist” and they fight the word, because they feel that second-wave feminists fought for them to enjoy a certain amount of rights, and they do that, and then they hear from another generation, “well how dare you opt out and stay home to raise your kids? You’re a traitor to the feminist movement.” Well if somebody’s going to tell you that, why would you want to take that badge on?
[CUTS OFF]

Here’s the video. The “young feminist” talk starts about halfway through:

And an audio version is here.