activism

There's a very thoughtful piece by Courtney E. Martin over at the American Prospect today called "The End of the Women's Movement." In it, Martin argues that the possibility of renewing a single, unified women's movement is over, and that this is a good thing. Instead, women of all ages have the communication tools at their disposal to engage in gender-based activism. Being a feminist in her 30s, I'm inclined to agree. But at the end of Martin's article, she writes,

Instead of pining over days far gone or talking about how we might resurrect them, we could put our energy into supporting the good work on the ground going on right now -- the Young Women's Empowerment Project in Chicago, the Student Action with Farmworkers in Durham, Exhale after-abortion counseling in Oakland, Domestic Workers United in New York, and more. [...] Call me cynical, but I don't think there will ever be a global, or even national, uprising of women focused on one singular goal. There will be no singular feminist agenda.

Martin may be right about the multitude of political action taking place on the ground in a variety of settings, but it is still important to remember the inter-relatedness of these actions. Moreover, it's crucial to keep our own regional blinders in check. Sure, this article is written for The American Prospect, but it's published on the global web--so the examples of actions from Chicago, Oakland, Durham and New York rankled me (a Canadian) a bit. It suggests that there are, in fact, feminist concerns of a national nature (if not a national American feminist agenda); as feminists, we just need to be honest with ourselves about those concerns as we pursue them. Update: This is really timely: over at Shakesville, they're soliciting comments on the question, "What was the last encouraging sign (outside the blogosphere) you saw that womanism/feminism is still on the march?" It's yielding some lovely answers.

Tagged as: activism, Canada, feminism

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