The Legacy of the Personal: Generating Theory in Feminism's Third Wave

Abstract

This essay focuses on the repeated rhetorical moves through which the third wave autobiographical subject seeks to be real and to speak as part of a collective voice from the next feminist generation. Given that postmodernist, @structuralist, and multiculturalist critiques huve shaped the form and the content of third wave expressions of the personal, the study is ultimately concerned with the possibilities and limitations of such theoretical analysis for a third wave of feminist praxis.Wave (n) 2c. A forward movement of a large body of persons (chiefly invaders or immigrants overrunning a country, or soldiers advancing to an attack), who either recede and return after an interval, or are followed after a time by qnother body of persons repeating the same movement.(Oxford English Dictionary)

Rethinking the Personal and the Political: Feminist Activism and Civic Engagement

“…Bonnie Honig claims that “nothing is ontologically protected from politicization” for “nothing is necessarily or naturally or ontologically not political” (Honig 1995, 147). Ontologically justified or not, once the personal life of women is open to politicization, there is in practice no easy way to say, “Stop, this is going too far!” Indeed, current trends of the women's movement point to more, rather than less, politicization of the personal by accentuating the politics of difference (Siegal 1997).…”

Black Feminist Theory in Prehistory

“…Wylie 1993) of academic anthropology for minority scholars, often in their own words. The importance of personal experiences and fiction has long been associated with feminism, and this is certainly true of Black feminism (Arya 2012;Collins 2000;Harris and González 2012;hooks 1981;King 1990;Moraga and Anzaldú a 1983;Siegel 1997;Walker 1983). Collins (2000) describes this as stressing the particular rather than the abstract.…”

Mainstream Sexualization and the Potential for Nordic New Feminism

“…Whereas popular sexual representations in mainstream culture often are defined 184 W. Mühleisen as anti-feminist expressions of a backlash, academic post-feminism is often defined as progressive. See Siegel (1997) for an analysis of these two versions, Brooks (1997) for an analysis of theoretical postfeminism, Whelehan (2000) for an analysis of popular media post-feminism, and Genz (2006) for an analysis of the political implications of post-feminism. 5 The politics of equality which do, to a large degree, favour the hetero-relational family, for instance, is reflected in the fact that Norway is on top among European countries when it comes to childbirth, as well as women's high level of participation in the labour force, the length of maternity/paternity leave, childcare coverage, and the flexibility of working life.…”