Lynn Chancer, author of After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism, on American feminism and moving the gender revolution forward
Feminist consciousness has grown so rapidly in the last decade that it is hard to keep up with the fast pace of unfolding developments in popular culture, academic writing, law and feminist-influenced blogging. More and more people are willing to embrace the term ‘feminism’ as representative of a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional movement. Feminism is experiencing a cultural renaissance even amidst concurrent backlash. In terms of progress, perhaps no example is clearer than what happened in American politics before and immediately following the mid-term elections of November 2018, when a record number of women were elected to the now Democratically- controlled US House of Representatives. Media coverage of their January 2019 swearing in referred to the ‘year of the woman1,’ and projected a new era of greater participation and gender-related political consciousness as dawning.
In some ways, new energies have indeed been activated. Perhaps never before has the desire for an American President who is a woman been stronger: hopes for this historical ‘first’ were raised but not fulfilled by Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote though not the Electoral College. Eagerness for women to enter politics has also been catalyzed by a sense of threat that hovers, somewhat ominously, over the security of feminist gains made over the last half century since the second wave. There is good reason to fear that reproductive options encompassing abortion rights could be turned back if President Donald Trump is able to appoint more conservative justices to the Supreme Court who are committed to overturning 1973’s iconic Roe v. Wade.
Source: Feminist Revival and the Year of the Woman – Stanford University Press Blog
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