Remember feminism? The 70s movement led to huge social change
but is the women’s rights movement still relevant in the era of Lady
Gaga? SHELLEY BRIDGEMAN talks to four women about the
changing face and shifting perceptions of contemporary feminismPICTURE / NATALIE SLADE
MMA JOYCE calls herself an
“under-the-radar feminist”. She
holds views on specific women’s
rights — without overt refer-
ence to the broader feminist
movement — and she hold
them quietly. It wasn’t always
so for feminists. But there is,
at least for Joyce, a good reason. “When you
think about feminists .., there's this idea that
they're all very angry women with hairy
legs. So people don’t want to hear about that
because that’s boring,” she says.
What Joyce is concerned with is gender
equality on a personal level — such as how
having a baby might affect her career — and
she laments the dearth of women around the
board table.
“The feminists back in the day told us we
could have everything and I think we've got
to realise that, no, we can’t have everything,
we do have to make decisions,’ says the 27-
year-old. “If we want to have babies then
perhaps we do have to sacrifice career. We've
got to realise that we can’t have it all”
ce W HEE if paid maternity leave
earlier feminists fought for have in fact been
doing women a disservice, if women in
the child-bearing years are now considered
“risky” candidates by prospective employers.
“Is that putting up a barrier for us in the
workplace?”
According to Joyce, ‘the main differ-
ence between post-millennial feminists and
those from the previous era boils down to
individual versus collective. “The old school
feminists, they want the sort of collective
action, whereas we're not really forming
into groups. We've been brought up to make
individual decisions and the idea of going to
a big womens consciousness-raising meeting
as they did in the 70s just fills me with
absolute horror”
Nonetheless Joyce acknowledges the
debt women today owe to the highly organ-
ised work of those early women's libbers. “T
can see what the older feminists did and how
it's actually empowered me now,’ she says.
Despite the lingering gratitude for
advances made and rights granted, there's
the strong sense that fewer and fewer young
women are calling themselves feminists
today. Formal lobbying for gender equality
has all but fallen off the social radar. Even
our universities, traditionally hot-beds of the
feminist movement, are feeling the pinch.
Last year, only around 20 women from a
22,000-strong female student population
at the University of Auckland felt suffi-
ciently inspired to participate in the Campus
Feminist Collective.
Perhaps the feminist movement has
become a victim of its own success. With
voting rights and legal rights well established
and unprecedented social freedoms, on the
surface it seems that women have never had
it so good. Yet the perceived complacency is
not universal. There are still discreet pockets
of women intent on furthering feminist goals.
But feminist is no longer a one-size-fits-all
label; rather, new breeds have emerged. A
fresh crop of women, intent on pursuing
their own particular brand of equality, who
refuse to be homogenously classified under
a single word, have taken over where their
predecessors left off.
As the University of Auckland Students’
Association’s women’s rights officer for 2009,
Caroline Fergusson was the official voice of
feminism on campus. “The forms of oppres-
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has all but fallen off the social radar. Even
our universities, traditionally hot-beds of the
feminist movement, are feeling the pinch. -
Last year, only around 20 women from a
22,000-strong female student population
at the University of Auckland felt suffi-
ciently inspired to participate in the Campus
Feminist Collective.
Perhaps the feminist movement has
become a victim of its own success. With
voting rights and legal rights well established
and unprecedented social freedoms, on the
surface it seems that women have never had
it so good. Yet the perceived complacency is
not universal. There are still discreet pockets
of women intent on furthering feminist goals.
But feminist is no longer a one-size-fits-all
label; rather, new breeds have emerged, A
fresh crop of women, intent on pursuing
their own particular brand of equality, who
refuse to be homogenously classified under
a single word, have taken over where their
predecessors left off.
As the University of Auckland Students’
Association's women’s rights officer for 2009,
Caroline Fergusson was the official voice of
feminism on campus. “The forms of oppres-
CONVICTION:
Madeleine Flannagan
believes feminism
is about the right to
decide for oneself,
not about popular —
perceptions of what :
is ‘right! . .
Far left, womens’ lib.
_ supporters march in
Auckland in 197
‘The feminists back in
the day told us we could
have everything and |
think We've got to
Tealise that, no, we
can't have every-
thing, we do have
| to make decisions:
Emma Joyce
sion that women face now, they're not overt,
‘they're very hidden and a lot of women
accept them and try to work within it — I
guess as they always have,” says the 23-year-
old. “Obviously, the word ‘feminism? is not
a popular word. Usually if I talk to a young
woman and I say ‘are you a feminist?” at first
her response will be: ‘God, no. But then, if
you actually sit down and explain what it is
youre talking about and some of the issues
that I’ve been campaigning on, they will end
up coming around.”
Issues Fergusson dealt with include
having student magazine Craccum held to
account for publishing degrading porno-
graphic images as well as responding to
cuts to sexual abuse counselling. Sexual
harassment and violence against women
are perennial feminist concerns. “I think
the statistic is one in four New Zealand
women will be physically assaulted or sexu-
ally assaulted by a partner in their lifetime,’
says Fergusson, who worries, too, about
the sexual objectification of women, “which
ranges from really sexualised young girls and
their Bratz dolls and sexualised toys, right up
to the effects that has on women when they
are entering the workforce”.
Making the university more “female-
friendly” was also a priority. Muslim women
and those of Asian and Pacific Island descent
are high users of the university's dedicated
women only zone, Womenspace. Fergusson
thinks that “middle-class Pakeha girls are
more used to or more willing to accept” the
dominant culture on campus. “It’s like the
rest of the campus is a men’s space so males
have got the run of things,” she says, adding
that there's an annual bloke-led campaign
against the “no boys allowed” area.
“They say its discriminatory and the
fact that we don't have a men’s rights officer
is discriminatory. And then I have to spend
a huge amount of my time explaining why
men aren't structurally disadvantaged and
don't require a space or a rights officer”
Fergusson subscribes to a grass-roots
feminism that is fundamentally unchanged
from that of a generation ago. “I think ...
being pro-choice would be a key requisite
of being a feminist and just the ideas that
women are the moral equals of men and
deserve the same opportunities and richness
of life experience” :
Gender equality and abortion rights are
core tenets that have long formed the basis
of the feminist movement. Yet, as with any
movement, particular brands of feminism
begin to gain traction in certain quarters,
raising alarm among more traditional adher-
ents, “Part of third-wave feminism ended
up with what is sometimes called ‘Spice
Girl feminism? says Fergusson, The time-
honoured technique of women overtly using
their femininity and sexuality to have power
over men.has been masquerading as a type
of women’ lib since the 1990s, It’s a flawed,
faux feminism Fergusson dismisses as a
“stripping-is-empowering kind of attitude”
United States feminist Ariel Levy coined
the term “female chauvinist pigs” to describewomen who embrace a “porn star” stereo-
type of what constitutes attractiveness and
behave raunchily, even promiscuously. “How
is resurrecting every stereotype of female
sexuality that feminism endeavoured to
banish good for women?” asks Levy.
“fs that whole thing about: the system
of oppression is at its most powerful when
the oppressed believe in that system,” says
Fergusson. “That’s quite a big theme in
modern feminism, to address the way that
other women have been drawn into the
cultural oppression of women. The thing
against which we're fighting now is so inte-
grated into bigger systems and so difficult to
draw out and to bring people's attention to.”
Unsurprisingly the power of the internet
has been harnessed to spread the feminist
message. The US has the feministing.com
website; Britain has The F Word. In New
Zealand The Hand Mirror is the online
forum for feminist debate and the sharing
of a diverse range of feminist theories and
perspectives.
Julie Fairey, 32, a regular blogger on the
local site, names pay equity and violence
against women as two key feminist concerns.
She rejects the notion that feminism may be
an Gutdated movement with diminishing
relevance. “How can we possibly be in a
post-feminist world when we still have most
women changing their name when they
marry — and that’s just an accepted thing?
And where women are still paid 88 per cent
of what men are paid?” she says. “To me
feminism is about making sure that women
have a place in society that is safe, that they're
not threatened because of their gender — or
other things that go with their gender, like
looks — and that we can participate actively
in society in the same way that men can’
“It can sometimes get really depressing
but if we look back 50 years, we didn’t have
ready access to contraception, you couldn't
get a bank loan without your husband,’
says Fairey. “But then I look at [the doll]
Strawberry Shortcake. She's been all rein-
vented and she’s really skinny compared to
the Strawberry Shortcake when I was a kid.
‘And stuff like that says to me our work is
not done.”
Madeleine Flannagan is a self-described .
feminist and conservative Christian. Its a
combination that. many people would
consider incompatible but this 36-year-old
blogger sees no conflict, despite the fact she
considers abortion “a form of homicide” and
disapproves of “shoving your kids in full-
time daycare when they're 2 months old”.
“To me feminism is the concept that
men and women are equal.” She maintains
that equality means freedom for women to
make choices even if they're not approved
of by mainstream feminists. Flannagan has
faced criticism for staying at home to care
for her four children and for taking her
husband’s name upon marriage. “To me, if
we're really equal and we're really free then
UNDER THE RADAR:
Emma Joyce says
feminism these
days is more about
being able to
make personal
decisions than
forming angry
collective action
groups.
PICTURE / NATALIE SLADE
why can't we choose to do that?” she says.
“J think they need to get out of the mindset
of the ‘sisterhood. If they really believe that
women should be able to determine their
own lives and are free to make their own
decisions then they shouldn't object when
women make decisions to do stereotypical
female things, if they want to go and become
nurses or they want to stay at home and be
mums.”
She sees contradictions, too, within the
principles of classic feminism. “On the one
hand, if a woman poses naked in an ad, its
[considered] exploitative of women but the
next minute they're saying: ‘My body, my
choice? And I'm going: ‘What? Is it or not?’
Or is it only your body when you're making a
choice that [those particular] feminists want
you to make? There’s a sense in which the
left-wing feminists say ‘you're free to make
those decisions but only within a certain
context?”
Interestingly Flannagan once held the
position of women’s rights officer at the
University of Waikato. mainly because she
didn’t believe in the role and thought it
was safer in her hands than in those of a
textbook feminist. She views such gender
based roles, along with agencies such as the
Ministry of Women’s Affairs, as a form of
tokenism. “All those sorts of things suggest
that women are inferior, that women are a
minority, that women can’t help themselves,”
she says. “Dumping things like that would
be good. They're just like: “women need a
leg up, women are weak, women need the
handicapped entrance ..”
AUCKLAND REGIONAL Councillor Sandra
Coney has long been considered something
of a radical feminist. A veteran women's
rights activist, the 65-year-old edited the
feminist magazine Broadsheet from 1972 to
1985, was a counsellor at a private Remuera
abortion clinic, protested on Queen St, about
a rape trial, helped set up the first university
creche and fought for equal pay for women.Thanks, in no small part, to the work of such
campaigners, the Equal Pay Act 1972 was
introduced, making it unlawful to pay men
more than women as had been common
practice. The Human Rights Commission
Act 1977 made gender and age discrimi-
nation in the workforce unlawful; sexist
job advertisements specifying, for example,
women aged between 20 and 25 were no
longer permitted.
Despite the enormous strides made in
her era, Coney still sees room for improve-
ment. “I think women get a particularly
rough deal around childbirth. They're meant
to just drop a baby and keep going — a bit
like Chinese on the side of the paddy fields.
We werent fighting for that,’ she says. “And,
actually we wanted the workplace to be
much more family friendly than it is. The
' idea that you go off and you have three or
six months to have a baby and then you're
back at work, was not what we were fighting
for. Basically women have fitted in to a
kind of male workplace and male workforce
arrangements rather than [the workplace]
changing to accommodate women”
And what does she make of the fact that
since Helen Clark, Margaret Wilson, Silvia
Cartwright and Theresa Gattung vacated
their respective positions of Prime Minister,
Attorney-General, | Governor-General
and Telecom chief executive, women no
longer occupy these top jobs? “I think that
particular cohort of women came out of
Lihimk
women get
a particularly!
rough deal
around
childbirth.
Theyre meant to
just drop a baby
and keep going’
sandra Coney
the feminist movement and were
deeply influenced by it and those
are women who are now in their
50s and 60s and now were not doing
so well with the next cohort down
perhaps”
It was recently reported that only
8.6 per cent of NZSX Top 100 direc-
tors are female, Moves to improve
this figure have met with warnings that this
sort of gender positive discrimination could
backfire and leave women open to accusa-
tions they have not achieved their positions
VETERAN ACTIVIST: Sandra Coney is
glad to have lived through the 1970s
movement. Inset, Coney as editor of the
feminist Broadsheet publication, in 1974.
PICTURE / NATALIE SLADE
through merit. “There was a wonderful
answer to that: ‘mediocre men can get to the
_ top; when mediocre women can get to the
top we'll have proper equality?’ says Coney.
Echoing Levy and Fergusson, she
expresses concern about the “sexuality and
body images” of contemporary women who
are “presenting themselves like tarts .. and
wanting to be very casual in their sexual
"behaviour. It’s totally about male approval and
attracting men and doing it by your body and
your sexuality. So what's new about that?”
Coney says feminism has long been
considered a confronting word and acknowl-
edges the cringe factor often associated with
it. “T think women are very worried about
being identified and seen as a feminist and so
they shut up. You're not winning the popu-
larity poll to proclaim that you're a feminist,”
she says. “I'm very glad I was able to live
through that time. because at least I can look
back and think ‘there was a lot of meaning
in my life, contributing to that social change’.
I don't know what young women, when
they're my age, will look back and think.
That they made a lot of money? They had
a successful career? That they had 10 sets of
breast implants in their life?” @