Main Post February 1

Rebecca Walker “Becoming the Third Wave”

Walker definitely has the pedigree to be both a forward thinker and a fantastic writer; her mother, Alice Walker, won fiction’s Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple. Rebecca Walker’s shows her own talent with words here. Her language is very personal and descriptive, like a private journal, but it very clearly cries out to the public for a response. She focuses on two events to draw a picture of her struggle as a woman and the extreme emotion that it evokes from her.

The first occasion is the promotion of Clarence Thomas after Anita Hill testified in open court that he had made sexually inappropriate comments in the office when they had worked together. I thought this was a particularly potent example to use, especially if the goal of the article is to recruit women into a third wave of feminist activity. It is controversial for Walker to use because it shows her allegiance to women’s advancement first, while many other people (particularly black Americans) were able to dismiss this issue because Thomas selection to the supreme court could be seen as a victory for the black community. In this video Anita Hill talks about the question of being black through that experience: https://www.ctforum.org/content/anita .

The second experience is slightly more personal. Walker describes an interaction she has on the train amidst a young black girl and a few men speaking loudly about degrading women. Walker is overcome by an emotional and physical response to the lack of respect and vows to dedicate her life to ending this mentality towards women. One can’t help but wonder how much the media justifies activity and conversations like this; here is a link to some clips of a T.V. show that was popular at the time Walker wrote this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH4BJ9B1lrw .

J. Baumgardner & A. Richards, “Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future”

In their thirteen point agenda Baumgardner and Richards outline what is important to the Third Wave of feminism, which helps to distinguish it from the earlier movements. The most noticeable difference might be their focus on sexual health and their generally sex-positive outlook. They emphasize that it is okay for sex to be for pleasure and accompany that sentiment with powerful encouragements to be sexually educated, healthy, and safe. This is not an unfamiliar message to our generation, which speaks to the force of this third wave. The manifesta also seems to acknowledge and embrace more openly the feminist movement’s ties with other struggles for equality, particularly for race and sexual orientation. Similar to other movements, the third wave emphasizes political activism and encourages unity among all women.

S. Douglas Enlightened Sexism

This first chapter lays out a few media case studies that reinforce the points Douglas made in her introduction. The title, “Get the Girls” summarizes the marketing strategy that television programmers, specifically at the relatively new network FOX, used to hone in on a younger, primarily female market. Douglas’ outlook on the process as a whole serves as a more in depth look at the “Fantasies of Power” that she discussed in her introduction. She breaks down, in simple language, the layered messages that programs like 90210, Melrose Place, and Murphy Brown pumped into the minds of America’s youth. Often, these programs provided superficial support for feminist ideals, but they were relentless in the value they placed on an ideal physical form and appearance for men and women alike. The result, according to Douglas, is an empowerment based on consumerism and other less-than-merit-based qualities. She mentions that Melrose is a show that “really allowed us to imagine being a young woman with power (while being reassured that such power corrupts).” The overly glamorous depiction of teenaged life provided an opportunity to escape for the viewers, all the while reinforcing the idea that wealth, success, independence, and ambition were somehow inherently tied to a vice of one sort or another. The few times a character might be seen as a feminist, it was typically in a negative light, usually depicted as dangerous or “hysterical” in the true sense of the word.

Douglas has a little more respect for the creativity and more consistent messages in shows like Murphy Brown, but this had its complications and controversies as well. Murphy was the poster child for career-oriented women that didn’t care what people thought and refused to give in to society’s expectations for her as a woman. It caught people’s attention, then, when she became pregnant on the show and decided to raise it as a single parent. Some were upset that it made being a single parent “glamorous” while others thought that it took away from Murphy’s charm as the woman that refused to give in to her biological clock or social pressures.

All of these shows were a result of the television industry discovering the female market. The same potential was noticed in music, which Douglas also explores. The complicated message changes a bit when Douglas begins talking about "Warrior Women in Thongs," but the same dualistic structure remains. The Buffy/Xena warrior type encourages a “can do” attitude for females, but the message seems drastically more applicable to females in tight clothes with perfectly smooth skin and toned bodies. The sexual gaze on the female body seems to overpower the qualities of their strength and character as women. Douglas’ overall message is that these forms of media are loaded with embedded feminism and enlightened sexism, each manifesting itself in new ways each episode.