Reclaiming the F Word: the New Feminist Movement

| Reclaiming the Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement In today’s ‘post-feminist’ society, feminism is often portrayed as unfashionable and irrelevant. But since the turn of the millennium, a revitalised feminist movement has emerged to challenge these assumptions and assert a vibrant new agenda. Reclaiming the F Word reveals the what, why and how of the new feminist movement and what it has to say about women’s lives today. From cosmetic surgery to celebrity culture and parenting to politics, from rape to religion and sex to singleness, this groundbreaking book reveals the seven vital issues at stake for today’s feminists, and calls a new generation back to action. ‘A lucid and lively examination of the state of contemporary feminism from two women who really know what they’re talking about. ’ Libby Brooks, Guardian ‘Savvy, witty and politically passionate, Reclaiming the F Word explains what today’s feminists want, and describes what they are doing to make it happen.’ F Deborah Cameron, University of Oxford Word ‘There has never been a better, more exciting time to be a feminist. This book … should be every woman’s – and many men’s – bedside companion.’ Zoe Margolis, aka Abby Lee, author of Girl With A One Track Mind ‘This is a book that celebrates feminist history and salutes the new generation of feminism that’s emerging.’ Alison Piepmeier, Women’s and Gender Studies Program, College of Charleston and Aune Redfern ‘… practical, positive, and refreshingly free from navel-gazing.’ Delilah Campbell, Trouble & Strife ‘With verve and immediacy, Reclaiming the F Word provides feisty retorts to those tired claims that feminism is dead.’ Chilla Bulbeck, University of Adelaide www.reclaimingthefword.net ZED BOOKS London & New York Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune ISBN 978 1 84813 395 2 pb ISBN 978 1 84813 394 5 hb www.zedbooks.co.uk Gender | Culture reclaiming the f word about the authors catherine redfern is founder of The F Word website. Now almost ten years old, the site is recognised as influential in sparking a revived interest in feminism among younger women and men. In 2003, Redfern was named by the Guardian as one of fifty ‘women to watch’. kristin aune is senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Derby, where she teaches courses on feminism, gender and religion. In 2002 she co-founded, with Catherine Redfern, London Third Wave, a networking group for London-based young feminists. She has published widely on gender, religion and feminism. Her most recent book is Women and Religion in the West (co-edited). reclaiming the f word The New Feminist Movement o catherine redfern & kristin aune Zed Books london & new york Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement was first published in 2010 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n1 9jf, uk and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010, usa www.zedbooks.co.uk Copyright © Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune 2010 The rights of Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 Typeset in Monotype Bulmer by illuminati, Grosmont Index by John Barker Cover designed by Kika Sroka-Miller Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn Distributed in the USA exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St Martin’s Press, llc, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010, usa All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available isbn 978 1 84813 394 5 Hb isbn 978 1 84813 395 2 Pb isbn 978 1 84813 396 9 Eb contents acknowledgements vii prologue ix Introduction 1 1 Liberated bodies 18 2 Sexual freedom and choice 48 3 An end to violence against women 76 4 Equality at work and home 106 5 Politics and religion transformed 137 6 Popular culture free from sexism 171 7 Feminism reclaimed 204 appendix Survey results 221 notes 238 further reading 266 index 270 ack nowledgements This book would not exist if it weren’t for the many hundreds of inspiring feminists who appear within it and who contributed in various ways. Gratitude is due first to our survey respondents and those who were interviewed for the research. The survey research was funded by the University of Derby, enabling Rose Holyoak to be employed as a research assistant. We are very grateful to Rose for her dedication to the project: for efficient administration of the survey, analytical skills and support on numerous research tasks. Helen Roberts also helped with data input. We would like to thank our agent, Maggie Hanbury, and Gen Carden (formerly of The Hanbury Agency) for their interest in the manuscript and help in polishing the proposal and securing a publisher. We are very fortunate to have Zed Books as our publisher. Throughout the process all the staff at Zed have been as supportive, helpful and enthusiastic as any authors could wish for. In viii reclaiming the f word particular, Tamsine O’Riordan’s detailed and judicious comments on the manuscript helped us to produce a much better book; we are lucky to have worked with such a brilliant editor. Ruvani de Silva has impressed us with her boundless enthusiasm and practical help in promoting our book. Kika Sroka-Miller produced a fantastic cover. For reading and commenting on drafts of individual chapters, we are very grateful to Kim Allen, Louise Livesey, zohra moosa, Becky Barnes, Sonya Sharma and Jodie Mitchell. For help with proofreading, thanks to Rosalyn Scott and, especially, to Rachel Haynes, whose eye for detail is incredible and who gave up much time and effort proofreading chapters. For supportive and wise advice, we are grateful to Rachel Bell, Libby Brooks, Chilla Bulbeck, Deborah Cameron, Kira Cochrane, Katherine Rake, Yvonne Roberts, Katharine Viner, Natasha Walter and Imelda Whelehan. Catherine would also like to thank Andrew Bowden for exten- sive support and encouragement, Jess McCabe, and members of The F Word collective, contributors and readers. Kristin would like to thank her friends, family and current and former colleagues and students for their inspiration and backing. prologue We met back in 2002. Catherine had just set up The F Word (www.thefword.org.uk) after identifying a gap for a UK-focused feminist website, whilst Kristin had just published her first book on women in the church, and was doing her Ph.D. while teaching part-time. Brought together through a shared interest in young women’s attitudes to feminism and a passionate belief that feminism is as relevant as it ever was, in the last few years we have been excited by a vibrant feminist movement which seems to be growing exponentially. Yet at the same time, we’ve been puzzled and disappointed by how feminism has been portrayed. It’s as if we lived in a parallel universe. Article after article proclaimed that feminism was dead, and stated that young people in particular are uninterested in this once vital movement. We read columnists bemoaning women’s lack of activism. We witnessed conferences host panel sessions entitled ‘Is feminism dead?’ or ‘Do we need a new feminism?’ Feminist academics appeared to overlook young people’s involvement in feminism. We received emails telling us (hilariously) that reclaiming the f word ‘all you feminists do is sit and slag off good entertainment and cry about how gingerbread men should be called gingerbread people.’ This simply didn’t tally with what we had seen through our research and involvement with the feminist community. Our aim in this book is to provide a whistle-stop tour of activity in the UK today and further afield. We will explain why feminism is still vitally important and introduce some of today’s inspiring new feminists, describing what they want and what they are doing. We want to show feminism is liberating, diverse, challenging, exciting, relevant and inclusive, and we hope to offer inspiration for further involvement. In an increasingly global society, feminism transcends national boundaries, so we’ll also showcase examples of feminist issues and activism beyond the UK. In order to help us represent feminism fairly, over the course of a year we surveyed as many self-defined feminists in the UK as we could. We focused on the newer forms of feminist activism that had emerged since 2000 – groups, events, campaigns and individuals largely ignored by the mainstream media. We asked feminists about themselves, how they came to feminism, what issues were important to them and what activism they undertook. We asked their views on questions such as ‘Can men be feminists?’ and ‘How do you define feminism?’ The book includes quotes from people we interviewed,1 as well as the words of writers, bloggers and researchers. The voices of contemporary feminists – younger ones especially – are often ignored, so we want to redress the balance. Nearly 1,300 feminists replied, from across Britain, aged from 15 to 81. We believe it is the largest survey of feminists that has been undertaken in recent years. Whilst all surveys have their limitations, now we have evidence of what a large group of UK prologue i feminists think and want. And guess what? Gingerbread men weren’t mentioned once. Our survey shows that there are a large number of feminists active today who were not born during the heyday of 1960s’ and 1970s’ feminism, and who are working alongside older feminists.

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