Abstract
With the rise of #MeToo and recent Women’s Marches, feminism is experiencing a resurgence in the United States. At the same time, progress has stalled on feminist goals, and many people still refuse to call themselves feminist, evoking the familiar phrase “I’m not a feminist, but…” This is where Lynn Chancer begins her analysis of the feminist movement, taking stock of what feminism has accomplished since the “second wave,” why the movement has experienced setbacks since the second wave 50 years ago, and what remains to be accomplished. In After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism: Taking Back a Revolution, she asks why, despite the feminist movement’s successes, our culture and institutions remain white-male-dominated. In her thorough examination of the tensions within the movement and the backlash the movement has faced, she argues that feminists need to focus on balancing women’s commonalities and differences.
Chancer begins by taking stock of second-wave feminism, arguing that we must learn from the past in order not to repeat those same mistakes in the future and offering solutions informed by scholarship. For example, she argues that the second wave of the women’s movement is often misremembered as solely made up of white middle-class women, reminding readers of the rise of Black women organizing against sexism in the Civil Rights movement. She traces the shifts from liberal and radical second-wave feminists to intersectional third-wave feminism. As the movement’s successes have not been experienced equally by all women, Chancer argues that the movement needs to learn from the mistakes of the second wave, which “veered away from cross-class and cross-race organizing” (p. xiii), and use an intersectional approach to organizing in the future.
In the standout chapter, “Debating the ‘F’ Word,” she reviews the recent history of feminism in the United States, pointing out traps feminist organizing has fallen into. Among these are competitions over who is a “good feminist,” framing the movement as binary when issues are more complex, and making feminism too “rigid” a structure, at the expense of women’s agency. She calls for feminists to reemphasize the successful second wave concept that “the personal is political.” In the following chapters she argues that feminists can continue to make progress by linking individual lives with the social world. To avoid divisiveness in the movement, she recommends feminists stress the commonalities across women, while also attending to the real differences among women.
The remainder of the book’s chapters each focus on a common feminist goal. The first is that women must have full and equal access to the public sphere. In this chapter, Chancer argues that although women have reached some parity with men in educational attainment, political participation, and workforce engagement, barriers to full, equal access remain. Linking women’s private lives with their public ones, she posits that the lack of universal daycare is a remaining obstacle to women’s participation in the public sphere. This lack of universal daycare disproportionately affects poor and minority women. Using an intersectional lens, she asserts that the problem feminists must address is not only one of men dominating every place from the boardroom to the political sphere, but the fact that those men are white. To highlight class differences, she points to the increasing number of poverty-level non-tenure-track jobs in academia that are overwhelmingly held by women and people of color. She advises the movement to center changes that will address the needs of poor and minority women, such as universal daycare, work/family benefits, and caretaking benefits.
The second common feminist goal is freedom in intimate relationships and reproductive choices. As with other chapters, Chancer begins by reviewing the movement’s successes, shortfalls, and backlash. Marriage equality, for example, was immediately met with conservative backlash (such as religious exemptions), blurring the separation of church and state. Chancer calls for a re-linking of the issues of gender and sexuality-related concerns, arguing that doing so discourages divisions in the movement. While Roe v. Wade was a triumph, the subsequent Hyde Amendment made reproductive healthcare inaccessible for many non-white and non-middle-class women. For Chancer, the separate movements need to join forces, understanding that sexuality and gender are linked. Activists must also counter the encroachment of religious ideas in policy by emphasizing America’s commitment to personal freedom and autonomy. Finally, drawing on the work of the activist organization SisterSong, she calls for a movement that takes a truly intersectional approach, understanding how race, class, and other social inequalities make women’s experiences unequal.
The third goal is ending violence against women. Again, Chancer reviews the overall decrease in violence, pointing out that sexual assault is still an issue in places like college campuses and the military. Men still commit the majority of violent acts, and violence disproportionately affects poor and minority women. Some solutions to violence, such as mandatory minimums, have fallen short and fail to affirm women’s agency. Chancer argues that the missing piece is masculinities. While masculinity scholars have developed concepts like hegemonic masculinity and compulsory masculinity, the feminist movement has yet to address how masculinity must change to decrease sexism and violence. Education is key, and Chancer suggests that feminists can develop curricula that encourage critical examination of the dynamics of gender and sexuality.
The fourth and final goal is challenging sexism in media representations. Chancer cites examples of feminist television shows and films that have pushed the boundaries of what is on the screen. But in the four venues she studies (news, film, televisions, magazines/music videos) progress has stalled. Control, ownership, and power in media still belong largely to white men. Women write fewer editorials, appear on fewer news shows, write fewer scripts, and direct fewer films. In addition, media outlets are still organized around looksism, the valuing of people considered to be beautiful and attractive. Here, Chancer brings in the intersections of race, gender, and age to discuss how looksism functions vis-à-vis the valuation of white skin over dark and the devaluation of older women (and the valuation of older men). As a solution, she suggests more large-scale campaigns like the 2017 #MeToo movement to push industries to put women in control and bring in women’s diverse voices.
In After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism, Chancer suggests concrete ways that the feminist movement can continue its unfinished revolution. Her recommendations are based on lessons gleaned from movement history (the second wave and subsequent 50 years) and informed by key research findings. Constructive criticism and constant reexamining of feminist organizing are necessary to avoid the divisiveness that threatens the movement. She makes an important call for feminists to resist divisions (often encouraged by counter-movements and backlash) by focusing on what women have in common. But she warns against focusing on commonalities alone and argues that activism must center differences and inequalities in women’s experiences. Perhaps the most valuable idea tying the book together is one Chancer keeps coming back to—that feminists would do well to assess internal problems and create solutions based on the experiences of the most vulnerable among us. The ideas for framing and focusing activism in a way that brings change to more than just privileged women make this book valuable for scholars, graduate students, and activists alike.