MANIFESTA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. - Review - book review

Washington Monthly, Dec, 2000 by Patricia Simon

MANIFESTA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15.00

IMAGINE A DAY WITHOUT FEMINISM. That's what Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards ask readers to do in the opening of their book ManifestA. They sketch out a chilling portrait of brides at the altar promising to obey their husbands, girls taking home economics, and women uninformed about the side effects of birth control pills.

Of course, I rarely ever think about feminism. Why should I? I'm perfectly free to indulge in my taste for makeup and fun clothes while pursuing a career. Does this mean I take the feminist movement for granted? Probably, and that's just what Baumgardner and Richards, one a former, and the other a current, editor at Ms. magazine, are concerned about.

To help ensure that Generation X doesn't forget what the women's movement has accomplished, they've written ManifestA, a book designed to help women today consciously embrace feminism. They want to allow a generation that has grown up with Nike jingles like "I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman," to understand what it took to get to this point. By constructing a historical foundation and weaving popular culture into it, Manifest A serves as a guide for young women rather than a rant about what's holding back females. In Manifest A, Baumgardner and Richards lay out why women today need to understand history to realize that they are feminists, whether they know it or not.

They write: "After 30 years of feminism, the world we inhabit barely resembles the world we were born into. And there's still a lot left to do."

The authors trace feminism's evolution starting with the suffragette movement and women getting the right to vote--the First Wave of feminism. The Second Wave came when abortion rights, equal pay, and sexism became the focus of feminist reform in the late 1960s. The authors end up with the current Third Wave involving managing the choices women now face thanks to their mothers' and grandmothers' hard work.

They've included a timeline of important moments for feminism, and a lexicon for those who are unfamiliar with words like "out," meaning that a homosexual openly dates members of the same sex--making the book seem a little like Feminism for Dummies. But Baumgardner and Richards also cover a broad swath of cultural ground, from the effects of Judy Blume novels on girls to why Katie Rophie's work is antagonistic to feminism. It's a useful digestion, framed by the larger point that vigilance is still necessary if women are to sustain and build on the gains of the past.

Unlike other Third Wave stalwarts like Naomi Wolf and Susan Faludi, Baumgardner and Richards have aimed their book at young women, even girls in high school, using a friendly, older sister approach to their tutorial rather than a serious intellectual investigation of policy and politics. But for a book designed as an accessible primer on feminism for the masses, it seems disproportionately focused on an elite bunch of women, which, of course, is the longtime criticism of mainstream feminism.

Baumgardner and Richards start with a chapter dedicated to a dinner party with some of their feminist buddies, including Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Bitch and Prozac Nation, Amaryllis Leon, a former Ms. coworker, and Farai Chideya, a correspondent for "Good Morning America." The only time the writers talk about women who live outside of major cities, specifically New York, is when they discuss Sarah Reid, who lives in a commune in Amherst, Massachusetts where she was trying to put together a coming-of-age ritual for menstruating gifts--not exactly a model the Everywoman can identify with.

I wondered how the 20-year-old woman in the middle of Kansas who spends weekends cruising Main Street perceives feminism. After all, she, not the big-city college sophomore, is probably the one who thinks "feminist" means "lesbian." The book's last chapter, "A Day With Feminism," is also a ridiculous description of a utopia where "The media are accountable to their constituency," "Women walking through a park at night can feel just as safe as they do during the day," and "Environmentally sound menstrual products are government subsidized." Whatever.

Still, Manifest A serves as a useful reminder of how far we've come and the challenges that remain.