An ‘F’ Word Revival in the New Millennium

An ‘F’ Word Revival in the New Millennium

Date

3-28-2015

Author Bio(s)

Kate Waites, Ph.D., is a professor at NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, where her teaching focuses on English and gender studies. A benefactor of the gains won by feminism as a young woman, she proudly embraces the label of “feminist.” Waites has made it the subject of inquiry in her scholarly writing on popular culture and on women’s texts, and its themes and concerns have found their way into her gender studies classes, including the Honors seminar called The “F” Word: Feminism and Culture. The social revolutions of the 1960s–70s—feminism, the Civil Rights Movement, the Gay Rights Movement—reshaped a nation to be closer to the American ideal of equality. Waites’ memoir, Particular Friendships: A Convent Memoir, is set in mid-20th century America and explores the journey of a young woman’s self-identity against the backdrop of second-wave feminism—a story that resonates in the new millennium.

Talk Description

Declared dead on Time magazine’s June 1998 cover, feminism has been standing on wobbly legs since the 1980s, thanks to public misperception and media-spin. In 1968, a Miss America Beauty Pageant protest in Atlantic City dubbed feminists as radicals and gave feminism a longstanding black eye. However, today’s social-justice-oriented and media-savvy generation, led by millennial celebrities—including Emma Watson, Lena Dunham, and Beyonce—is creating a more feminism-positive environment. If second-wave feminism rode the coattails of the Civil Rights and Peace movements, today’s surprising feminist revival may well be riding the wave of the gay rights and same-sex marriage movement. Feminism remains a controversial term, inspiring vitriol as well as celebration. But millennials, having outed the media-produced bogeyman, recognize that women’s rights are human rights, that men have a place in the movement, and that there is still much collective work to be done to realize the goal of sex and gender equality.

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An ‘F’ Word Revival in the New Millennium

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