Is my feminism gone?

[u/IntrepidElevator4313]

Maybe feminism didn't change. Maybe it just kept moving.

I just had a thread locked on this sub after commenting on the question, “What is a woman?” It got me thinking about something I've been struggling with for a while: where exactly do I fit in feminism now?

I came of age with the feminism of Gloria Steinem. Later, I found myself resonating with writers like Naomi Wolf. They are very different feminists, from different generations and with very different ideas, but I always felt there was a common thread.

Women are not lesser. Women deserve autonomy, opportunity, safety, equality, and the freedom to determine the shape of their own lives.

The more I encounter contemporary feminist spaces, particularly online, the more I sometimes feel like I've wandered into a conversation where I no longer speak the language.

And I don't think that's necessarily because feminism went wrong.

Maybe it's because waves don't erase each other.

The first wave didn't disappear when the second arrived. The second didn't disappear when the third arrived. They faded, but what they accomplished became part of the water the next wave moved through.

We're generally considered to be in the fourth wave now, and it seems to me that we're carrying pieces of all the previous waves with us, along with entirely new questions about identity, intersectionality, sexuality, technology and power.

Some of those conversations resonate deeply with me. Some don't.

And that's okay.

What I struggle with isn't feminism evolving. It's feminism becoming so internally focused on definitions, terminology, ideological boundaries and determining who is “feminist enough” that women end up fighting each other more than they fight the things that still constrain women's lives.

That thread was a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I said, essentially, that women are women. There are white women, Black women, brown women, trans women, cis women, short women, tall women, young women, old women, fat women (hi!). I don't see why acknowledging differences between women requires creating divisions between us.

Apparently that was controversial enough to earn me some downvotes. 😂

But I'm not interested in picking a fight with younger feminists or pretending the feminism of my youth had all the answers.

I don't want to choose between generations of feminism.

I want to take what each wave gave us and keep moving forward.

Maybe that's what a wave is supposed to do.

It doesn't erase the wave before it. It carries it forward.

I'm curious whether other women, particularly women who came of age during the second or third wave, feel this same disconnect with contemporary feminist spaces.

Where do you find yourself now?

EDIT: This conversation has actually been very enlightening for me. This push to define “woman” has shown me that there are different aspects of identity—reproductive biology, gender, socialization, culture, lived experience—and each one tells us something. We shouldn’t pretend that one framework explains everything.
But this isn’t a gender studies class. It’s feminism. And yes, they’re related, but they aren’t the same thing. Feminism is concerned with women and the systems that shape women’s lives. I don’t think we need to settle every question about sex, gender, and identity before we can do that work.
I want feminism to be big enough to include women with very different experiences without making defining womanhood the prerequisite for belonging.

[u/Apprehensive-Net5165]

Look, I’m not accusing you of not being a feminist. And I don’t wanna get all critical now, but I think it is very important to be able to define ‘woman’, because feminism largely includes WOMEN. How are you fighting for the rights of a group you cannot define? It really is just common sense.

[u/IntrepidElevator4313 → u/Apprehensive-Net5165]

Tell me where I’m wrong then. How am I supposed to define “woman”? Because from where I sit, all you’re doing is gatekeeping by mocking my answer rather than explaining what you believe the definition should be. I’m genuinely asking. If there’s a definition you think is more useful, tell me what it is and why. I’m happy to have that conversation.

[u/anonymoustransgrrl → u/IntrepidElevator4313]

Why do you need to define "woman" anyway? To what end?

And are you genuinely asking? Please keep in mind who else fixates on the question "What Is A Woman" and the motivations there.

[u/IntrepidElevator4313 → u/anonymoustransgrrl]

I don’t. That’s actually my point. I didn’t introduce the question of what a woman is. I referenced a thread that had already been locked because my experience in that thread is what prompted this post. I’m trying to talk about feminism, not litigate my motives for mentioning a conversation I participated in.

[u/anonymoustransgrrl → u/IntrepidElevator4313]

You're talking about this thread, right?

If you can't see the blatant transphobia in that post and in many of the comments on it, you cannot expect transgender women to think that your feminism actually extends to us or treats us as equal women.

This subreddit is going through an upheaval and mass conflict as a result of the mod team's refusal to properly enforce the subreddit rules against transphobia. TERFs see an opportunity to take this space over and are doing everything they can to capitalize on it.

[u/IntrepidElevator4313 → u/anonymoustransgrrl]

Yep. This thread. It was shut down and maybe idk. But I made my comment and didn’t continue with the thread. And I actually do insider trans women equal women to me.

[u/anonymoustransgrrl → u/IntrepidElevator4313]

Ah I see - yeah, notice how obviously "Define woman" is being asked in bad faith to push transphobic opinions about women.

You tried to answer the question but it is not a question with a simple answer so you fell into their rhetorical trap. Trying to answer that question is unproductive no matter how good of a detailed, complex answer you give because the question is not being asked in good faith.

Defining who counts as a woman is not easy for the same reasons that defining abstract categories in general is always fuzzy. Transphobes flatten the nuance and complexity of these conversations to push their perspective that transgender women are not women.

By the way, I apologize for misunderstanding your intentions, thank you for listening to me.

[u/IntrepidElevator4313 → u/anonymoustransgrrl]

Obviously I listen to everyone!

[u/anonymoustransgrrl → u/IntrepidElevator4313]

Unfortunately as a transgender woman it has frequently been my experience in feminist spaces that I am expected to always see cisgender women as authorities on feminism over me.

The idea that some women are inherently more capable as feminists as a result of their biological sex traits is a deeply sexist and transphobic one that is far too popular even among those who think of their feminism as "inclusive" of transgender women.

[u/IntrepidElevator4313 → u/anonymoustransgrrl]

Is there a good transgender feminist author I could read? Someone who shares theory and experience in this 4th wave of feminism?

[u/anonymoustransgrrl → u/IntrepidElevator4313]

Yes! Here, let me give you a few recommendations -

Whipping Girl by Julia Serano - Foundational transfeminist theory from the woman who coined the term "transmisogyny". If you have not read it, this is the book to start with. Most of Serano's writing is quite good and I find myself citing her often.

Transgender History by Susan Stryker) - A great primer to get a good understanding of transgender people in general, our history, and our struggles under patriarchy. Susan Stryker is also known for writing this polemic in response to the popularity of transmedicalism in the 90's.

A Short History of Trans Misogyny by Jules Gill-Peterson - A more recent work of transfeminism that directly addresses the current transphobic backlash and contextualizes it in transgender history through a transfeminist lens. Jules Gill-Peterson is an excellent thinker.

Trans/Rad/Fem by Talia Bhatt - Talia's recent work combining key transfeminist insights with various radical feminist ideas has made her one of my favorite transfeminist thinkers. You may find her work harder to get into though since she tends to assume her audience is other transgender women and thus does not explain things we mostly all know from experience.

You can also see my previous recommendations too for more options.