
An ‘F’ Word Revival in the New Millennium
Date
3-28-2015
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.
Files
Recommended Citation
Waites, Ph.D., Kate, "An ‘F’ Word Revival in the New Millennium" (2015). TEDxNSU. 11.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tedxnsu/11
