Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings

Ungrateful Daughters
Ungrateful Daughters:
Third Wave Feminist Writings
By
Justyna Wlodarczyk
Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings,

by Justyna Wlodarczyk
This book first published 2010
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright 2010 by Justyna Wlodarczyk

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
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ISBN (10): 1-4438-2369-4, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2369-2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Chapter One............................................................................................... 15
The Third Wave: Politics of Style, Aesthetics of Contradiction
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 59
First Person Singular: The Phenomenon of Third Wave Anthologies
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 95
Passing and the Fictions of Third Wave Subjectivity: Rebecca Walker,
Danzy Senna, Dorothy Allison
Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 137
Revolution Grrrl Style Now: Michelle Tea and the Post-Punk
Queer Avant-Garde
Conclusion............................................................................................... 167
Works Cited............................................................................................. 171
Index........................................................................................................ 185
INTRODUCTION
0.0. On feminism and fluoride

For our generation feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice that we
have itits simply in the water.1
Baumgardner and Richards, Manifesta
The feminism-fluoride metaphor, coined by Jennifer Baumgardner and

Amy Richards in Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future to
describe the impact of feminism on the generation born in the 1970s and
early 1980s, has become hugely popular since the publication of their book
in 2000. Judging from the number of times it has been quoted in other
publications, on the web and in popular conversations, it is the third
waves leading metaphor. Ironically, the one third wave metaphor which
has made history concerns feminisms invisibility.2 Not only is it
strikingly non-visual, fluoride being something one can hardly imagine or
draw a picture of, it is also, probably unintentionally, very contextspecific; water fluoridation, as an element of prevention of dental caries,
was implemented in the largest cities in the United States, and hardly
anywhere else in the world. Thus the effects of fluoridation are very much
like the effects of the second wave of feminism, a typically American and
urban phenomenon. The original use of this metaphor is characteristic of
the often internally contradictory character of third wave discourse
revealed upon closer analysisfluoridation is meant to stand for something
ubiquitous, which in reality it is not; it is intended as something positive
(prevents cavities), yet it has been strongly opposed on the grounds of
causing discoloration of the teeth and the weakening of bones. Third wave
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards. Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism

and the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000, 17.
2
Interestingly, another metaphor of the Third Wave which has become very
popular also refers to its invisibility. Ednie Kaeh Garrison in U.S. Feminism-Grrrl
Style! Youth Subcultures and the Technologies of the Third Wave views the
waves in third wave feminism as radio waves rather than ocean waves (Garrison
151). Radio waves are something which is invisible and yet permeates all walls
and boundaries.
Introduction
feminism proudly embraces contradiction as a strategy, yet the question of

how self-aware it is of the contradictions it contains remains open.
While the fluoride metaphor was originally used to describe the impact
of second wave feminism on younger women, it is also a useful way of
looking at the topic of this book. The reflection of third wave sensibility in
recent literature by American women writers has so far gone largely
unnoticed, even though numerous young writers openly embrace their
membership in the contemporary womens movement. Conversely, quite a
lot of academic research has been done on decoding postfeminist discourse
in fiction and popular culture, possibly because of the immense popularity
of certain forms of popular cultural productions exhibiting postfeminist
sensibilities, for example, television series like Ally McBeal, Desperate
Housewives and Sex in the City,3 the romantic comedy, girl power
cartoons and chick lit. Another possible reason for the lack of critical
interest in third wave writing is the confusion between postfeminism and
third wave feminism, and the incorporation, more or less conscious, of
postfeminist discourse into third wave ideology and writing. The aim of
this book is not to resolve this confusion, but to reveal its sources and
mechanisms; to show the third waves troubled relationship with the
second wave; its opposition to postfeminism and its simultaneous
engagement in postfeminist discourse; to present the writings of some
talented young women whose work has, so far, been largely unnoticed. To
begin with, I need to briefly analyze the differences between postfeminism
and third wave feminism.
0.1. Why not postfeminism?

The third wave declares itself to be steadfastly and adamantly opposed to
postfeminism, as seen, for example, in my analysis of the founding
documents of the third wave presented in Chapter I. However, not much
effort is placed by the authors of these documents on a thorough definition
of postfeminism and on explaining specifically why and how the third
wave differs from this discourse. I would like to make the claim that the
third wave is actually informed by postfeminism at least as much as it is
opposed to it, although third wavers themselves are often not aware of this
fact. This lack of awareness is a result mostly of the anti-academic
character of the third wave and of the confusion resulting from the
multiple and somewhat contradictory uses of the term postfeminism.
3
See, for example, Janet McCabe and Kim Akass (eds.) Reading Sex and the City,
Janet McCabe (ed.) Reading Desperate Housewives.
Ungrateful Daughters: Third Wave Feminist Writings
Interestingly, this very anti-academic character is also responsible for the

third waves unconscious incorporation of some aspects of contemporary
cultural theories. As a result, in third wave writings and ideology we can
trace which elements of the academic understanding of postfeminism have
transpired to the general public.
The biggest problem with defining postfeminism is the existence of
multiple meanings of the term, all of which deserve to be presented in
order to analyze their connection to third wave feminism. The first
meaning, or rather range of meanings, refers to the critique of feminisms
rigid stance on identity politics and the need for drawing connections
between feminism and other philosophical ideas. Ann Brooks, in her
introduction to Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and Cultural
Forms explains that the term [postfeminism] is now understood as a
useful conceptual frame of reference encompassing the intersection of
feminism with a number of other anti-foundationalist movements including
postmodernism, post-structuralism and post-colonialism (Brooks 1). In
this understanding postfeminism originates within 1970s feminist theory
and takes it a step further; develops some concepts, while problematizing
others.
The most contentious concept questioned by academic postfeminism is
that of identity. Obviously, one of the basic goals of second wave
feminism was raising the consciousness of womens identity as women; as
a group sharing certain features, problems and life experiences. The
emergence of this identity was seen as necessary in order for the concept
of sisterhood to come into being, and for feminism to be effective in
achieving political change. However, while feminism was hard at work on
making women aware of the commonalities they shared, other movements,
more visible in the sphere of philosophy and cultural theory than in
politics, were questioning the notion of stable, fixed identity and
subjecthood. The urgency of recognizing the existence of these ideas and
incorporating them into feminism increased as feminism moved farther
from being only a political movement to a fully developed cultural theory,
or set of theories. As Elizabeth Wright writes in her account of the
emergence of postfeminism included in Lacan and Postfeminism: the
emphasis upon collective action soon revealed internal strains through its
neglect of difference, first of class and colour, and ultimately of identity.
In part as a consequence, postfeminism began to participate in the
discourse of postmodernism since it destabilises any notion of a fixed and
whole-some subject (Wright 6).
In a chronological analysis of how and why this need became
acknowledged, it is vital to point out the French 1970s difference
Introduction
feminism and theorists such as Hlne Cixous and Luce Irigaray, whose
ideas turned in a completely different direction from those prevalent at the
time in the Anglo-Saxon world, that is the belief that if the playing field
was leveled, if gender, understood as the socialization of girls into
femininity, was done away with, women and men would emerge as
basically similar, as simply human subjects. The trope of insurmountable
differences in subjectivity introduced by French feminists was later
developed by postcolonial theorists, such as, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,
Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Chela Sandoval. Other theorists, such as,
Judith Butler and Donna Haraway, began an inquiry into the validity of the
sex/gender distinction and carried out a radical denaturalization of the
body. Meanwhile the work of, for example, Linda Nicholson and Nancy
Fraser, examines the relationship of postmodernism and feminism,
emphasizing that each perspective can be helpful for the development of
the other one, as postmodernists offer sophisticated and persuasive
criticisms of foundationalism and essentialism while feminists offer
robust conceptions of social criticism, but they tend at times to lapse into
foundationalism and essentialism (Fraser and Nicholson 20). Postfeminism,
in this context, is understood as a successful mixing of the different
paradigms, but also, by virtue of the other post perspectives added to the
mixture, as a conceptual shift from debates about equality and ways of
achieving it to debates about difference.
Each of the theorists mentioned above is not exclusively a postfeminist
theorist and some of them would most probably object to being classified
as such, which is yet another problem with using postfeminism as a tool
for categorizing. By using it I am not embracing it, but simply trying to fill
in with names the conceptual framework sketched out by those who, like
Elizabeth Wright and Ann Brooks, see postfeminism as the incorporation
of other perspectives into feminism, in order not to reject feminism in
general but to criticize it from within. Wright observes:
Postfeminism has begun to consider the question of what the postmodern
notion of the dispersed unstable subject might bring it. [] Postfeminism
is continuously in process, transforming and changing itself. It does not
carry with it the assumption that previous feminist and colonialist
discourses, whether modernist or patriarchal, have been overtaken, but that
postfeminism takes a critical position in relation to them (5).
Such a view allows for fluidity, for constant reclassification and

renegotiation, thus making it possible to classify numerous theorists as
postfeminists. However, when using Anzalduas and Sandovals ideas in
Chapter III to analyze writings by Rebecca Walker and Danzy Senna, I
prefer to refer to them as Third World feminists, acknowledging the

contested nature of the term postfeminism.
Interestingly, and possibly unavoidably, this shift in feminisms focus
from equality to difference was accompanied by another shift: the
separation of a unique and unified social movement with a theoretical
framework into two different ones: an academic trend and a political/social
ideology. From a time perspective, this split may look inevitable, but what
was remarkable about second wave feminism was the close connection
between theory and activism, maintained both on the conceptual and on
the personal level. Some of the most important theorists of feminismto
mention just a few: Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Robin Morgan,
Germaine Greerwere also well known as activists, appeared in the media
representing feminism as a political movement, participated in and
organized some of the more radical political actions. Postfeminism, even
though its echoes do transpire into popular culture, has never become an
ideology mobilizing the masses for action and its proponents have not
become the leaders of a social movement. Meanwhile, the types of street
activism which persisted into the 1980s and 1990s, such as pro-choice
marches organized mostly by NOW, the anti-pornography campaign and
activism in support of ERA, were ideologically stuck within second wave
identity politics and additionally tainted with the conservative discourse of
the 1980s.
The third waves relationship to this understanding of postfeminism is
usually rather nave, though one aspect of the academic understanding
of postfeminism which third wavers comprehend is its impact on the
funneling of feminism into the academia and the focus on theory, even if
they are not sure what this theory is. This explains the third waves
adamantly anti-academic attitude and the attempt to pull feminism out of
the academia and back into the streets. Ironically, quite often third wavers
become aware of the existence of feminism while attending womens
studies courses, which explains the high volume of campus activism
(Students Organizing Students, Take Back the Night, Voters for Choice).
Even though third wavers themselves are often not aware of the existence
of the theory sometimes classified as postfeminist, they are quite often
informed by it, as a result of the same mechanism which makes all cultural
theory relevant to popular culturethat is theory describes culture,
therefore culture reflects theory. This is one of the reasons why aspects of
postfeminism are a useful tool in the analysis of third wave literary texts,
as I demonstrate in this book, especially in Chapter III. The idea of fluid
and shifting subjectivity is explored in the writings of, for example,
Rebecca Walker and Danzy Senna.
Introduction
0.2. Postfeminism 2
The second definition of postfeminism, or rather the second group of
definitions, is connected to the mostly media generated trend of using the
word postfeminism to describe the contemporary world as one where the
goals of feminism have already been achieved and thus feminism is no
longer necessary. In Interrogating Postfeminism, an anthology exploring
how postfeminism functions as a concept in popular culture, Yvonne
Tasker and Diane Negra provide this definition: [p]ostfeminism broadly
encompasses a set of assumptions, widely disseminated within popular
media forms, having to do with the pastness of feminism, whether that
supposed pastness is merely noted, mourned, or celebrated (Tasker and
Negra 1). Angela McRobbies definition, presented in her by now classic
article Postfeminism and Popular Culture is a lot less positive.
According to McRobbie, postfeminism is an active process by which
feminist gains of the 1970s and 1980s come to be undermined (McRobbie
27).
Tasker and Negra note that the term began to be used in the popular
media in the 1980s, and Chris Holmlund records the first use of postfeminism in a popular publication as a 1982 article in New York Times
Magazine titled Voices from the Post-Feminist Generation, but the real
popularization of the term as a discursive phenomenon and as a buzzword
took place in the 1990s. Most scholars evaluate postfeminism as a
discourse which is not ideologically neutral, but which, in fact, operates as
a tool of the conservative right and of the corporate media, although there
are scholars who imbue postfeminist cultural projects with subversive
potentiality.
According to postfeminist discourse, the post-feminist generation is
supposedly the age group born during or after the second wave of
feminism; the generation that has grown up with feminism and benefited
from its gains. As the beneficiaries of feminism, they are in a position to
make truly free lifestyle choices and to follow their individual inclinations
and talents at a time of equal opportunities for all. Angela McRobbie calls
this basic premise of postfeminism as the taken into accountness
(McRobbie 28) of feminism and claims that in postfeminist discourse the
gains of feminism can only be acknowledged, or taken into account, if
feminism is understood to have already passed. This is a basic reading
enabling a positive evaluation of feminism, which simultaneously allows
for thorough dismantling of feminist politics.
The taking into account of feminism leads to its dismantling through
ironic gestures signifying a simultaneous recognition of feminism (or
sexism) and the acknowledgment of the lack of need for employing the
feminist perspective. Postfeminist discourse seems to be saying: yes, we
know this could be read as sexist, but in todays sexism-free world we can
all enjoy it. Among the many examples provided by McRobbie possibly
the strongest one is her analysis of a billboard showing the model Eva
Herzigova looking down admirably at her substantial cleavage enhanced
by the lacy pyrotechnics of the Wonderbra (32). This kind of
advertisement would have certainly been deemed as sexist in the 1970s,
but, as McRobbie claims, it is not a nave reenactment of the sexist ads
from days gone by, but a highly ironic performance of sexism which gives
away the creators familiarity with feminist critiques of advertising. The
ad plays back to its knowledgeable postfeminist viewers the very concepts
they learned about in their womens studies classes in college. Protesting
against the ad would be the dull, politically correct feminist response,
while the postfeminist response is a recognition of the ad as ironic.
McRobbie adds that such a reaction is also a signifier of generational
difference, the older feminists would be outraged, while the younger
female viewer; along with her male counterparts, educated in irony and
visually literate, is not made angry by such a repertoire. She appreciates its
layers of meaning; she gets the joke (33). This way feminism
dismantles itself as something outdated, lacking a sense of humor and
irony.
This specific strategy leads to what McRobbie calls the ironic
normalization of pornography (34), that is a situation in which women
consent to being perceived as sexual objects, all the while emphasizing the
role of their freedom of choice and the power they supposedly obtain from
flaunting their sexuality. McRobbie analyzes the proliferation of softpornographic images in contemporary visual culture from this perspective.
Women consent to their presence because objecting to them would mark
them as uncool. In this way postfeminism tricks women into surrendering
their subjecthood and allowing themselves to be objectified. Furthermore,
the very language of feminism, with words such as liberation and
empowerment, is made grotesque in its strictly sexual usage.4
To describe postfeminist ideology McRobbie also uses the term
double entanglement to signify the attempt to deal with, and normalize,
the coexistence of neoconservative values in relation to gender, sexuality
and family life with the ongoing processes of liberalization in regard to
choice and diversity in domestic, sexual and kinship relations (28). In
4
A similar argument is made by Ariel Levy in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women

and the Rise of Raunch Culture.
Introduction
other words, postfeminism is the conservatives attempt to hold their

ground, while being aware that certain changes in the organization of
social relations are inevitable. However, double entanglement also
signifies that social theory cannot be created in a vacuum, that these
changes have to be taken into account if a theory is to be useful. The
very same term, that is double entanglement, could also be used to
describe how third wave feminism operates. On the one hand, it grows out
of the opposition to postfeminism as championed by the media in the early
1990s, but it is simultaneously a product of postfeminism, since all its
proponents are themselves products of the culture which created
postfeminism. Some ways in which third wave feminism replicates the
very discourse it tries to undermine will be analyzed in detail in Chapter II
and Chapter IV, but a brief look at the main theoretical differences
between postfeminism and the third wave is due in the introduction.
0.3. Postfeminism vs. the third wave

The third wave defines itself in opposition to the popular understanding of
postfeminism,5 that is through defining what it is not and why. The
primary difference, not surprisingly, emerges as the need for collective
action, required to secure the gains of feminism and to pursue new goals.
Postfeminism claims to be a description of the existing status quo. This
status quo is presented as an achievement in itself; one which should be
enjoyed and not challenged in any way. Therefore, postfeminism can in no
way be seen as a social movement, but only as a social theory. Alison
Piepmeier, best known as co-editor of Catching a Wave: Reclaiming
Feminism for the 21st Century, writes in an article contrasting postfeminism
and the third wave:
Postfeminism relies on competitive individualism and eschews collective
action; it obscures or makes invisible the many ways in which women are
often fearful, subjected to rape and other kinds of violence, and politically
and economically underprivileged. The third wave, howeverin texts from
Third Wave Agenda to Manifesta to Colonize This!grapples with
women's intersectional identities and demands an end to all the forms of
oppression that keep women from achieving their full humanity (Piepmeier
1).
5
and through links to and differences from the second wave of feminism, but those
differences will be examined in Chapters I and II.
Postfeminism puts emphasis on the individual and that individuals

achievements. McRobbie calls this the process of female individualization.
The empowered and liberated individual, who is aware of the ideologies
surrounding her (and including feminism), is able and expected to make
decisions. As the strength of the social structures a woman is expected to
fill (marriage, childbearing, etc.) decreases, the capacity for personal
agency increases. Postfeminism presents collective agency as a thing of
the past, once necessary as a political strategy, but now obsolete and
certainly inferior to the strength of personal agency which one can
exercise in the postfeminist world. While the third wave, right from its
inception, heralds the need for collective action and rekindles the second
wave concept of sisterhood, though emphasizing community based on the
appreciation of difference rather than on the assumption of sameness, my
analysis of third wave texts presented in Chapter II reveals that the concept
of female individualization can easily be recognized in third wave
narratives.
A celebration of the individual and individual achievements leads to
the postfeminist fascination with consumption, which the third wave
strongly rejects. In postfeminism consumption becomes a measure of
ones success and, simultaneously, a tool of empowerment. The successful
postfeminist woman can afford to buy expensive clothing and accessories
and uses this power to improve her mood and boost her self-confidence.
Postfeminist consumption is very much a tool of the capitalist economy,
but in a similar way in which postfeminist irony is a tool of the
conservative right. A postfeminist woman consumes in an ironic and
acutely conscious way; she is aware that the Wonderbra and high heels
may have once been signifiers of female oppression, but their signification
has now changed into that of status symbols, as a result of their
consumption by successful women. Third wave feminists challenge these
postfeminist ideas about consumption in several ways. Naomi Kleins
book No Logo serves as an ideological framework for numerous third
wavers, whose agendas include the rejection of a globalized capitalist
economy through personal lifestyle decisions and collective action.
Kleins book, considered a manifesto of the anti-globalization movement,
reveals how the choice available through consumption is in fact illusory.
Before Klein and the rise of the anti-globalization movement, the Riot
Grrrl movement, similarly to other youth countercultural movements,
openly rebelled against conspicuous consumption and capitalism through
ways of dressing and behaving, but also through the establishment of
alternative media, record distribution networks and the use of do it
yourself technologies.
10
Introduction
Ironically, many of the concepts of the Riot Grrrl movement, as

described in Chapter IV, were later taken over by mainstream popular
culture, commodified and sold under brand namesa key example being
the grrrl power slogan itself. Of course, the commodification of
rebellion is not exclusive to the third wave, but is a phenomenon affecting
practically all countercultural movements. What makes the rebellion
against consumption even more complicated in the case of the third wave
is the fact that numerous third wave feminists are actually proponents of
the postfeminist take on consumption. Naomi Wolf (whose ideas are
discussed in Chapter I) and Elizabeth Wurtzel openly embrace
consumption as an avenue for exercising choice, while rejecting the label
of postfeminists. In some ways their attitude towards consumption is a
reenactment of postfeminisms strategy of preemptive irony as defined
by McRobbie. They seem to be saying: Yes, I know its bad, but lets not
be square, dull, boring. The third wave, in its opposition to the second
waves perceived seriousness, wants to be seen as light-hearted, fun and
having a keen sense of humor.
Another similarity between postfeminism and the third wave is
preoccupation with youth. In postfeminist discourse this idea is realized
symbolically through the opposition of the death of feminism with the
vitality and exuberance of rediscovered femininity, but it is also obvious
on the literal levelpostfeminisms heroines, as described in articles in
popular magazines and presented in popular culture, are vital, youthful
and playful (Tasker and Negra 9). They are usually no older than in their
mid thirties and the older they are, the more attention they spend on
preserving their good looks. Postfeminisms entanglement with
consumerism facilitates its obsession with the retention of youth; with
beauty, resulting from the ability of purchasing the right health care
products, being one of the signifiers of professional achievement. These
ideas are interestingly subverted by third wave writers originating from the
working class. For example, Michelle Tea, whose work is discussed in
Chapter IV, is utterly fascinated with bad teeth which, for her, function as
a badge of honor signifying working class origins.
However, the third wave is also young, almost by definition.
According to most classifications third wavers are usually women born
between 1961 and 1981, so the generation easily collapsed into the larger
category of Generation X (Henry 5). They often are, quite literally, the
daughters of second wave feminists (the relationship between the two
generations will be discussed in Chapter I) and their rebellion against the
second wave is often described with language usually reserved for
describing family relationships. The young daughters are, just like
11
postfeminist heroines, vital, youthful and playful, which gives them the
energy required for activism. However, along with the development and
aging of the third wave, a curious paradox can be observed. Due to the
classification of the third wave as women under thirtywhich was
somewhat customary but also codified through some policies; for example,
the Third Wave Foundation only accepted members less than thirty years
of ageit theoretically becomes possible to age out of the third wave.
Alternately, women over thirty proclaim their affiliation with the third
wave as if it guaranteed eternal youth.
0.4. The case for third wave literature

While the very existence of the third wave of feminism, not to mention its
agenda and ideology, has been highly contested, there is no such
controversy regarding third wave literature. The reason is simplethere is
practically no scholarly debate on the topic. Even though there do exist
scholarly analyses of the works of individual writers I discuss in this book,
these names are hardly ever placed alongside each other and classified as
third wave literature or third wave fiction. One of the first scholars who
dared to put them together, Jennifer Drake, provides several reasons for
this lack of critical attention and media interest in the category of third
wave literature. In her entry on Third Wave Fiction included in Leslie
Heywoods encyclopedia The Womens Movement Today Drake explains
that the publishing industry views the label third wave fiction as a
marketing limitation, especially when contrasted to the highly popular
emerging writers category. In other words, it is easier to sell a book
marketed as ideologically neutral but with a defined target age group and
fitting into an existing marketing category. Obviously, since most of the
writers whose work could be marketed as third wave are still young and do
not have well-established reputations, they have not yet received full
critical attention.
The emergence of third wave writing has also, according to Drake,
coincided with the memoir boom of the late 20th and early 21st century,
thus books by many of the authors I write about here can be found in the
memoir section of bookstores, which, again, is a common-sense marketing
strategy aimed at increasing sales and broadening the possible target
group. The non-fictional anthologies discussed in Chapter II, which focus
on defining the goals of the movement and which offer short personal
narratives, have enjoyed relative success as college textbooks and trade
books. Drake defines third wave fiction as:
12
Introduction
writing that possesses or performs a third wave feminist sensibility in its
embrace of hybridity and contradiction over purity and either/or modes of
thinking. While third wave fiction is most often produced by emerging
generation X or generation Y writers, the work of some established writers
can be understood as prefiguring or participating in third wave literary
production. While third wave fiction takes on many forms and themes, two
major trends in third wave fiction may be delineated: postmodern
multicultural literature and punk postmodernism (Drake 145).
I kept this very broad definition in mind while making my choices of

texts for this book and trying to provide a representative selection of
authors. Being at liberty to make the choices myself, I decided not to
include authors who, although they exhibit what Drake refers to as third
wave sensibility, do not self-identify as third wavers. However, the
same strategy and Drakes definition allowed me to include writers who
do not fit into the 1961-1981 age brackets, but who can be understood as
prefiguring or participating in third wave literary productionwhich
explains the presence of Dorothy Allison, a well established writer who,
however, often self-identifies as a third wave feminist. I treated actual
feminist activism as a bonus, bearing in mind the controversies
surrounding the definition of feminist literature in general. Therefore, I
assumed that if a writer self-identified as a third wave feminist and had
been involved in the movement, then definitely their work qualified as
material for my analysis.
Since such a huge volume of third wave writing is either non-fictional
or borders on non-fictional, I could not exclude some examples of
autobiographical writing. In the end, basically all of the works discussed
have some autobiographical content, which is proof to the strength of the
memoir boom which, in turn, is analyzed in Chapter II. The concept of
third wave theory, which I felt should be included in the book as a separate
chapter, also proved to be difficult because the third wave so strongly
opposes academic theory. Therefore, I finally settled on doing what most
instructors of womens studies courses settle on when teaching about third
wave feminism, and analyzed (in Chapter II) the anthologies usually
marketed as college textbooks and containing mostly personal narratives
of feminist activists.
Of course, certain exclusions had to be made and this is why a general
overview of the writers whom I do not analyze in detail but who could be
classified as third wave is needed. Drake writes about two main trends
within third wave fiction, the first one being postmodern multicultural
literature, which according to Drake, begins with Edwidge Danticats
fictions, Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), Krik? Krak! (1995), The Farming
13
of the Bones (1998), and Behind the Mountains (2002) and continues with
ZZ Packers Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2003) and Gish Jens Mona in
the Promised Land (1996). As Drake writes, these writers are in dialogue
with the work of established authors such as Toni Morrison, Bharati
Mukherjee, and Leslie Marmon Silko. Perhaps these three writers could be
called first sightings of the third wave in their insistence on exploring the
sometimes violent messiness of individual, communal, and national
identities in the context of globalization (146).
Drake lists four distinct features of third wave multicultural literature:
[f]irstly, third wave fiction often begins with the assumption that socalled marginal identities are normative, or, conversely, that the normative
is marginal (146). Not only are third wave narrators simply representatives
of ethnic minorities, their identities are often much more complex, as will
be evident from my analysis of Walker and Sennas works. This
complexity and marginality is for third wave writers something obvious, a
given, it does not require explanation. Secondly, third wave fictions often
emphasize the humor in cultural hybridity and cross-cultural exchange
(147). As examples of this sense of humor Drake lists Gish Jens and
Zadie Smiths books. Thirdly, characters in third wave fiction often resist
identity categories in favor of embracing the fluidity of identity (147). I
examine this resistance of identity categories in Chapter III, analyzing the
concept of passing in Danzy Sennas novel Caucasia and Rebecca
Walkers memoir Black, White and Jewish. And lastly, third wave fiction
writers engage popular culture critically and with pleasure (147) just like
third wave feminism in general, third wave writers are highly literate in
popular culture.
Drake lists the other significant trend within third wave fiction as punk
postmodernism, which she defines as autobiographical fictions [] set in
contemporary urban subcultures, usually lesbian, and [which] variously
explore sex, drugs, violence, music, low-wage work, gender identity,
travel, and friendship (278). Representatives of this trend include Lynn
Breedlove with her novel Godspeed (2003) and the semi-autobiographical
works by Michelle Tea. Drake traces third wave punk fiction back to the
writings of Sarah Schulman (co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers), who
was in turn clearly inspired by the beatniks and whose stories are set
among New York Citys lesbian bohemia of the 1980s, and to Kathy
Ackers Blood and Guts in High School (1984) and Don Quijote (1986). In
Chapter IV I analyze Michelle Teas Passionate Mistakes and Intricate
Corruption of One Girl in America and The Chelsea Whistle as inspired by
post-punk aesthetics and providing an insiders view of late 1980s prethird wave feminist/queer communities.
14
Introduction
There are several writers whose work does not neatly fit into either one
of these categories, but who deserve to be mentioned as third wave writers
of fiction on the basis of their aesthetic sensibilities and ideology. Drake
lists Aimee Bender, an extremely talented short story author, as someone
who has a talent for creating quirky and difficult characters and exploring
the nooks and crannies of contemporary life (148) while avoiding
swerving too much in the direction of postfeminism. Aimee Bender has
published three short story collections: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
(1998), An Invisible Sign of My Own (2001) and Willful Creatures (2005).
Drake also mentions chick lit, a hugely popular new literary
phenomenon, placing it on the border of postfeminism and the Third
Wave. I briefly look at chick lit, along with other new genres of popular
literature such as hip-hop lit in Chapter I, which analyzes the aesthetics
and politics of the third wave.
CHAPTER ONE
THE THIRD WAVE:
POLITICS OF STYLE,
AESTHETICS OF CONTRADICTION
1.0. Introduction
This chapter outlines the emergence of the third wave of feminism in the
United Stated and the various strands within it, in order to provide a
general view of how politics and aesthetics intermingle in third wave
discourse. In U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth Subcultures and the
Technologies of the Third Wave Ednie Kaeh Garrison calls these strands
nodes1 (Garrison 151) arguing that this metaphor, taken over from the
world of computer technologies, where nodes are critical elements of a
system and points in a network where lines intersect or branch, better
reflects the technologics of the third wave. The various strands within
second wave feminism are usually presented in opposition to each other
and the language used to describe them encourages contrasting, thus
overviews of second wave feminism explain how radical feminism
differed from liberal feminism, etc. Added up, these strands form a selfcontained structure, described synchronically at a specific point in time. A
node is a connection point or a redistribution point, thus the term puts
emphasis on connectedness and cooperation rather than on divisions. It
also allows for a more diachronic description and for abandoning the idea
of a structure, in exchange for that of a network. Indeed, the nodes of third
wave feminism do not simply add up to form a complete picture of the
movement, but often overlap and interconnect. Hip-hop feminism is
predominantly an African American phenomenon, while the Riot Grrrl
was overwhelmingly white, but the node metaphor makes it easier to see
how they both draw inspiration from the same source: popular music (hip1
Full quotation from Garrison: I want to argue that this movement called the
Third Wave is a network built on specific technologics, and Riot Grrrl is one node,
or series of nodes, that marks points of networking or clustering (151).
16
Chapter One
hop and punk, respectively). This chapter will also briefly describe the
popular literary genres which are in some way connected to third wave
feminism.
1.1. The emergence of third wave feminism

Third wave feminism, despite its relatively young age, already has an
extensive historiography with several different emergence narratives.2
These stories of how the third wave came into existence differ with
regards to which event they view as the founding moment of the third
wave, yet what they all share is a narrative structure which assumes a
waning of interest in feminism throughout the 1980s and what can be
defined as an explosion of writings about feminism and feminist activism
in the 1990s. While this structure itself can be easily problematized, the
persistence of the re-birth metaphor deserves to be analyzed as do the
choices of the founding moments.3
However, it should be mentioned as a word of caution, that it is
impossible to look at the third wave purely in terms of chronological
developments. Firstly, the third wave is not and has never been a
monolithic construct in terms of a main political or ideological party
2
Historical accounts of third wave feminism include the Introduction to The
Womens Movement Today, an Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism, edited by
Leslie Heywood, Chapter I Daughterhood is Powerful of Astrid Henrys Not My
Mothers Sister and Chapter II, What is Feminism? in Amy Richards and
Jennifer Baumgardners Manifesta.
3
In Not My Mothers Sister Astrid Henry quotes a New York Times article
Coming of Age, Seeking an Identity dated March 8, 2000 according to which
more women identified as feminists in the 1980s than in the 1990s. Henry also
writes that the notion that the 1980s can be dismissed as a post-feminist decade is,
in great part, a fiction that has helped to propagate the conservatives view of
feminism (Henry 21). The late 1970s and early 1980s were a period of the
infamous sex wars (see: Lisa Duggan and Nan D. Hunter. Sex Wars: Sexual
Dissent and Political Culture, New York: Routledge, 1995 and Emma Healey,
Lesbian Sex Wars, London: Virago, 1995), but the 1980s were also a decade of the
solidification of Womens/Gender Studies in academia and a period when some of
the most important feminist theory was published, for example, Judith Butlers
Gender Trouble. The metaphor of rebirth requires the preceding death of
feminism, always eagerly announced by the media (Baumgardner and Richards in
Manifesta quote Erica Jongs calculations according to which the media announced
the death of feminism a staggering 169 times since 1969). The 1980s function as a
decade of the death of feminism both in feminist historiography relying on the
wave metaphor and in popular sources.
17
line. In this way the third wave is similarand of course based onthe
various ideological strands within the second wave, which included the
liberal feminism of Betty Friedan and the radical anti-establishment ideas
of Valerie Solanas. Secondly, and even more importantly, the third wave is
composed of multiple aesthetic nodes, originating within various aspects
of American pop culture, which have existed and still exist alongside one
another, evolving internally, but not necessarily transforming from one
into another. Arguably, the two pop cultural communities which have been
the most influential for third wave feminism have been hip-hop and punk.
Nonetheless, several historic moments are described as key events,
or key publications, for third wave feminism, each one pointing to what
later became an important issue on the agenda of third wave feminism. I
would like to discuss the primary documents anthologized in the second
volume of Leslie Heywoods The Womens Movement Today: An
Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism. The publication, even through its
name, assumes an aura of authority. Therefore, the history it narrates can
be called an almost official history of the third wave. As in any thematic
anthology, the editor-historians choices are most certainly based on the
desire to draw the most representative picture of the movement possible.
Yet, as anyone familiar with Hayden Whites work on metahistory and the
concept of emplotment knows, such a goal necessarily entails selectivityit
is worthwhile to compare which of the feminist publishing boom
publications of the early nineties made it into the Encyclopedia and which
ones did not, in order to decipher what kind of story alternative history
can be created from the publications which were omitted.
Heywood and Drake track down one of the earliest uses of the term
third wave in the title of an anthology of writings about racism, The Third
Wave: Feminist Perspectives on Racism (Heywood and Drake 1), which
had been stalled in publication due to financial problems of its
independent publisher.4 However, the two women who were instrumental
in bringing the term to public attention, although their visions of what
third wave feminism should be like differed substantially, were Rebecca
Walker, an activist and author whose work I analyze in Chapter III of this
book, and Naomi Wolf, another popular and prolific writer. Both Walkers
and Wolfs writings from the emergence period of the third wave, which
4
The book was due to be published in 1991 by Kitchen Table, Women of Color
Press, but, in the end, was released in 1998. It is also important to note that Astrid
Henry records the first use of the term third wave in a 1987 article Second
Thoughts on the Second Wave by Deborah Rosenfelt and Judith Stacey.
However, as Henry notes, in the 1987 article the term is not used with a
generational meaning (Henry 23).
18
Chapter One
I roughly define as 1991-1995, that is before the publication of the first

third wave anthologies, are included in Heywoods encyclopedia. 5
In a 1992 essay in Ms. magazine titled Becoming the Third Wave,
Walker expressed her outrage at the Senate Judiciary Committees
response to Anita Hills testimony during the hearings preceding Clarence
Thomass appointment to the Supreme Court. 6 In 1991, Thomas was to
become the second African American Supreme Court justice. At that time
Anita Hill, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and Thomass
former colleague, accused Thomas of past sexual harassment.7 After the
Committee reluctantly held formal hearings, the US Senate chose to
believe Thomas, discrediting Hills testimony.
The case began to be viewed as a confrontation between womens
rights and the political gains of the African American community. Hill,
also an African American, was viewed by many as a race traitor trying to
obstruct Thomass political career for personal reasons. Walker, then
twenty-two years of age, was outraged that such accusations were meted
against a woman who had been a victim of sexual harassment. In her Ms.
article she claimed the hearings were not meant to establish Thomass
guilt or innocence. They turned into a spectacle of public humiliation
which Hill was forced to engage in, and became a lesson about checking
and redefining the extent of womens credibility and power (Walker in
Heywood 3). Walker explains how the experience of watching Hills
hearings helped her understand that the fight is far from over (5) and
issues a plea to all women, especially women of my generation to join
her in the fight. She ends the article with the statement I am not a
postfeminist feminist. I am the Third Wave, which marks the first
occurrence of the term third wave in a popular publication.
What makes Walkers essay and the ill-fated Third Wave Perspectives
on Racism anthology significant as founding documents of third wave
feminism is the foregrounding of racial issues as central to the new
generation of feminists. The absence of African American theorists and
activists from the second wave of American feminism is a frequent
The second chapter of this book is devoted exclusively to third wave anthologies
published in the period 1996-2006.
6
Walkers article was originally published in Ms. Jan/Feb 1992 and later reprinted
several times in various publications.
7
Anita Hill published an account of her story in 1998 in book form - Speaking
Truth to Power, New York: Anchor Books. Her testimony is included in Miriam
Schneirs Feminism In Our Time: The Essential Historical Writings, World War II
to the Present. New York: Vintage, 1994. 469-477.
19
complaint voiced by numerous third wavers,8 although there have been

critical voices, such as Kimberly Springers 2002 Signs article Third
Wave Black Feminism?, which claim that this absence has been
fabricated by the wave structure itself.9 Nonetheless, situating an article by
biracial Walker about the Anita Hill case as the historic emergence of the
third wave is a significant gesture. Walker is a young black woman
speaking about the intersections of race and gender, thus her piece signals
both a generational shift and the changes in feminist leadership and agenda
that this shift signifies. While the article discusses a case dealing with the
intersections of race and gender, its strength as a founding document of
third wave feminism lies also in the multiple intersections in the identity of
its author. Walker is biracial and bisexual10thus she herself embodies the
trademark hybridity of the third wave, which as Jennifer Drake writes,
operates both as a metaphor for understanding the complexity of
contemporary experience and as a lived reality (Drake in Heywood 179).
Furthermore, the fact that her mother, Alice Walker, was a well known
feminist herself, serves as a similar real life embodiment of the metaphor
of feminist generations. Who could possibly be more suited to being the
icon of third wave feminism?
Although Walker represents the positive, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic,
aspect of the third wave, the rhetoric she uses in the Ms. article foreshadows
some aspects of the third wave which are somewhat problematic for the
movements political efficacy. Astrid Henry notices that the third wave
feminists extreme individualism can be recognized in Walkers article.
Henry writes: Walker does not speak in a collective voice. There is no
we in this statement, just an I (Henry 43). Henrys observation points
to the first of many contradictions inherent in third wave feminismthe
tension between the third wave all-inclusiveness and emphasis on, to quote
the title of an essay by Linda Alcoff, the problem of speaking for others.
Third wave writers feel the need for sisterhood rooted in collectiveness
both as a personal longing, or third wave melancholia, and as an effective
8
I address this accusation in several sections of this chapter.

Springer argues that the definition of the (all white) womens suffrage movement
as the first wave of feminism forces an automatic comparison of any type of later
feminist activity with the white suffrage movement. At the same time this concept
of the first wave obscures the involvement of African American women in their
struggles for rights as women. Springers article, originally published in Signs 27.4
(2002), is anthologized in Heywoods The Womens Movement Today, 33-46.
10
However, in Becoming the Third Wave Walker does not mention her mixed
racial heritage or her bisexuality. The figure of Rebecca Walker will be discussed
in detail in Chapter III, which analyzes her memoir Black, White and Jewish.
9
20
Chapter One
political strategy, but it often seems they are unable to fulfill this need.
This contradiction is developed further in Chapter II, which analyzes the
discourse of third wave anthologies.
Returning to the myth of origin of third wave feminism, the
placement of Walkers article as the opening of the third wave by
Heywood is not necessarily justified by historical circumstances. There
were numerous other texts, often full-length books as opposed to Walkers
short article, appearing at more or less the same time, which also used the
term third wave, also signaled the coming of age of a new generation of
feminists and which generated a much greater media stir than a short piece
in Ms. I am referring, specifically, to two books by Naomi Wolf: The
Beauty Myth and Fire with Fire. Rene Denfields The New Victorians, a
case against the anti-pornography feminists of the 1980s which, for
Denfield, symbolized the entire second wave, and Katie Roiphes The
Morning After are two more books published in the early nineties, which,
although written from a feminist perspectivethe authors self-identified as
feministswere meant to attack the old ways of feminist thinking.
Wolf, who it should be added was actually a short-lived media
celebrity and hailed as the next Gloria Steinem, published several books,
served as Bill Clintons campaign advisor and then reappeared on the
public scene in 2004 when she accused her former Yale professor Harold
Bloom of sexual misconductan accusation with a striking and strange
resemblance to the Hill/Thomas harassment case. Yet, Heywood includes
only a short piece from her book Fire with Fire, with the stipulation that it
is a controversial text. Rene Denfield is omitted altogether, although her
pro-sex attitude has become a trademark of third wave sensibility and is
represented in the Encyclopedia by several essays from Lisa Jerviss
anthology Jane Sexes it Up. What Wolf, Denfield and Roiphe share is
certainly skin color, class affiliation and sexual orientation. They are all
very white, very middle class (verging on upper middle class), very
educated and very heterosexual. In many situations this must have
certainly been an advantage, but in this one the combination of these
factors may have contributed to their omission from the annals of third
wave history.
The racial and cultural diversity of the movement is embraced by all
and strongly emphasized by white third wavers, who not only seem
genuinely proud of the inclusive character of the third wave, but also
repeatedly refuse to take-on leadership roles which the media attempt to
impose on them. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, authors of
Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future (2000) a book which
became hugely successful as a long-awaited and unique compilation of the
21
goals of the third wave, co-authored an essay titled Whos the Next
Gloria? (published in Piepmeier and Dickers Catching a Wave) in which
they criticize the idea of designating individual leaders of the movement as
an outdated concept. The article was written after the success of Manifesta
had launched the two white, Manhattan-based, fashion-savvy writers into
national fame as the next Glorias.11
I am not implying that in reality there are no non-Caucasian third
wavers, that would be a radical untruth,12 but that curiously third wave
discourse produced by white, educated, middle class third wavers is
structured in such a way as to emphasize, or maybe even overemphasize,
the role of non-Caucasians and disadvantaged groups. The third wave as
11
There do exist critiques of the whiteness of the third wave posed from within the
movement. In general, most of the ethnic anthologies which will be analyzed in
Chapter II express this sentiment. There even exists a text which directly criticizes
Manifesta as an exclusionary text. In Heartbroken: Women of Color Feminism
and the Third Wave Rebecca Hurdis, who identifies as an adopted woman of
color feminist expresses her heartbreak over the fact that influential women of
color feminist theorists are not listed as influences in Baumgardner and Richardss
book. She does, however, overlook the fact that Manifestas main goal is, as the
authors claim, pulling feminism away from the academia and back into the sphere
of activism. Thus, basically all important theorists are omittednot just Gloria
Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, but Judith Butler as well. Interestingly, there never
appeared an official white response to this text. In fact, there has never appeared
a text written by a white third waver, which would directly confront such
accusations. Hurdiss text was, however, included in Heywoods Encyclopedia,
most likely to emphasize the variety of voices and positions within the third wave.
In Chapter II of this book I make the argument that third wave texts do not engage
in a real dialogue with each other, indeed they may present conflicting positions,
but the conflicts are rarely worked through. I think the story of Hurdiss text is an
excellent example of how this mechanism functions. The critique is never
addressed directly and analyzed, but incorporated into mainstream thought through
anthologizing in an important publication.
12
At this point, it is vital to emphasize the leadership role of African American and
multiracial women like Walker in the Third Wave, both as activists and as key
thinkers. In addition to Walkers 1992 article, her 1995 anthology To Be Real:
Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism and her 2001 memoir Black
White and Jewish: Memoir of a Shifting Self, other important third wave texts
published by African American and multiracial women include a collection of
essays Bulletproof Diva: Tales of Race Sex and Hair (1994) by Lisa Jones,
daughter of Jewish-American writer Hettie Jones and African American poet and
activist Amiri Baraka; the autobiography/feminist manifesto When Chickenheads
Come Home to Roost (1999) by Joan Morgan, and several memoirs and works of
fiction, for example, Veronica Chamberss memoir Mamas Girl (1994) and Danzy
Sennas novel Caucasia.
22
Chapter One
presented in the major anthologies edited by third wavers, and all the
editors but Walker have so far been white, is a lot less white than it would
seem from the examination of the third waves early history. This
phenomenon can be seen as an internalized form of political correctness,
but that term already connotes something negative, while it seems that the
need to create an inclusive movement, even if it means underplaying ones
role in it, is a genuine need of the white third wavers.
Furthermore, as Astrid Henry notices, while a lot of mainstream
second wave ideas are scorned as racist and classist, the theory produced
by second wave women of color is foundational for third wave feminism.
This fascination especially with African American thought and culture
expressed by white Americans is of course not limited to third wave
feminists, but can be viewed as part of a larger phenomenon which Cornel
West describes as the Afro-Americanization of American popular
culture.13 This shorthand phrase refers to the fascination with African
American culture, especially in the realms of sport and music, and does
make sense when one bears in mind that even white third wavers have
grown up listening to hip-hop and cheering for Michael Jordan.
Yet, Henry claims that the phenomenon is much deeper. Her overall
argument in Not My Mothers Sister is that the emergence of the third
wave of feminism required the symbolic matricide of the second wave.
This differed significantly from the relationship between the first- and
second wavers, for whom the passage of several decades created a
situation in which the first-wavers were literally dead by the time the
second wave emerged. The passage of time created a relaxed situation in
which second wavers could acknowledge their debt to the great
foremothers without the need to engage in dialogue with them.
Meanwhile, second wavers often are the actual mothers of third wavers,
13
West talks about this phenomenon in multiple essays and book chapters, most
significantly in Race Matters. The phrase refers to the disproportionately large
presence of African Americans (mostly males) in popular music and athletics.
West notices that even though this presence will not force young white consumers
of popular culture to question their preconceived notions of race, it does create a
shared cultural space where some humane interaction takes place (Race Matters
84). This fascination with black athletes and rappers among white suburban
teenagers leads to the imitation of black styles of dressing, behavior in speech.
Cornel West notices the ironic character of this phenomenon: just as young black
men are murdered, maimed and imprisoned in record numbers, their styles have
become disproportionately influential in shaping popular culture (RM 88). For a
discussion of the African-Americanization of popular music see, for example, On
Afro-American Music: From Bebop to Rap, originally published in Semiotexte in
1982.
23
which results in the psychologically grounded need to rebel from the

preceding generation, as described in Harold Blooms Anxiety of
Influence. Yet, at the same time the need for role models and influential
ideas is also a psychological reality. Henry claims that this internally
contradictory need is solved by the simultaneous portrayal of second wave
feminism with a capital F as exclusionary and white, as the mother
which they need to kill, and the acknowledgment of the third waves
influence by texts written by women of color (favorite theorists include:
Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Barbara
Smith), without acknowledging them as part of the second wave. Henry
claims that in order to argue for a new, real feminism, young feminists
need and old, out-of-touch feminism to whom they can shout get real
(Henry 166). This, in turn, results in a paradoxical situation in which the
third wave becomes responsible for perpetuating the perception of the
second wave as a white monolith.
Additionally, the history of race relations in the US complicates things
even further. Henry argues that feminisms whiteness is intrinsic to its
caricaturization as a puritanical mother. Third wavers describe this
maternal feminism as prudish, embittered, and moralistic in a way that is
clearly indebted to stereotypes of a certain form of uptight, white
femininity (167). I will discuss these stereotypes of the second wave in
more detail when I examine the accusations meted out by the third wave
against the second wave, but Henrys observation of the intrinsic
whiteness of the second wave leads to an interesting reworking of the
familial metaphors of feminism. As Henry notices, after Ann DuCilles
article The Occult of True Black Womanhood, in this metaphoric
relationship black second wave feminism becomes the third waves
mammy, while white second wave feminism is still its mother. Henry
explains that DuCille uses the mammy metaphor to critique what she sees
as white feminists cooption and fetishization of their relationship to black
feminists (168). This also explains why black (and women of color)
feminist thought can never be seen as a part of the second wavethat
would put it in the position of the despised mother.
Although Henry does not write about this, the use of these familial
metaphors accounts for, or questions, depending on which attitude one
assumes, the position of women of color within the third wave. The
daughter-bad white mother-good black mammy relationship, apart from
the fetishization and cooption of black feminism, assumes that, unless
miscegenation took place, the child has to be white. Thus, while bleaching
the second wave of any pigmentation, it also bleaches the third wave. This
would explain the burning need to include feminists of color in the third
24
Chapter One
wave expressed by white third wavers as an unconscious attempt to deny

the existence of the mother/mammy division. At the same time it would
also explain the reluctance of feminists of color to identify as third wave
as unconscious (or perhaps conscious?) recognition of the existence of this
familial triangle and their fear of being used. I have, however, noted that
the presence of women of color activists and theorists within the third
wave is a fact, which would seem to counter the claim that I have just
made. Yet, with the exception of Walker, basically all minority women
within the third wave tend to present themselves in ways which emphasize
the complexity of their identities, not simply as third wavers. Rebecca
Hurdis identifies as adopted-Asian-American-woman-of-color-feminist.
One of the root causes of such hyphenated identities is the perception of
the movement as white, which results in the need to emphasize ones
non-whiteness.
1.2. The conservative trio: Roiphe, Denfield, Wolf

Returning to the official history of the third wave, another early (1993)
text represented in most, though not all, accounts of the history of the third
wave is Naomi Wolfs Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How It
Will Change the 21st Century. Wolfs first book, The Beauty Myth: How
Images of Beauty Are Used against Women, published two years earlier,14
garnered even more popular media attention. It was rather immodestly
praised by Germaine Greer, the author of The Female Eunuch, as [t]he
most important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch.15
Australian-born Greer is known as the sexy feminist, with the main idea
of The Female Eunuch being that contemporary society has made women
feel ashamed about their bodies, which results in decreasing their sense of
self-worth and thus their autonomy. The solution is free sexual
experimentation and denouncing monogamy.
At the time of the publication of Wolfs first two booksshe has
published several more since that timeher classification as a feminist
writer was questionable. In their 1996 Third Wave Agenda: Being
Feminist, Doing Feminism, Heywood and Drake dismiss Wolf as postfeminist, along with Christina Hoff Summers and Katie Roiphe (Heywood
14
The first US edition was published in 1991, the original edition was published in
Canada in 1990.
15
On the book jacket of the Canadian 1990 edition. Interestingly, The Female
Eunuch was reissued in 2002. The reissuing of the book was initiated by Jennifer
Baumgardner, who also wrote the foreword to the 2002 edition. In other words,
Germaine Greer certainly is the third waves favorite second wave feminist.
25
and Drake 2 and 50). However, in the 2006 The Womens Movement
Today: An Encyclopedia of Third wave Feminism Heywood includes an
excerpt from Fire with Fire, albeit with the comment that it is a
controversial essay (Heywood 13). Wolfs Fire with Fire is thus an
interesting case of a book which became more feminist as it aged. And it
is important to note that the reason is not a change in Wolfs allegiance Wolf has self-identified as a feminist ever since the publication of The
Beauty Myth. Katie Roiphe and Rene Denfield also identified as feminists
at the time of the publication of their books, respectively The Morning
Afteran interpretation of the date rape awareness movement on college
campuses as a case of feminist hysteria, and The New Victoriansan
analysis of the anti-pornography strand in 1980s feminism. Yet their
books, even with time, have not made it into the third wave canon and
Wolfs books have. A brief analysis of Fire with Fire from the perspective
of a decade and a half after its publication reveals the reasons.
Similarly to Walkers Ms. article, Wolf begins the book with a
reference to the Anita Hill hearings. She claims the fall of 1991 (the date
of the hearings) sparked a genderquake which brought about
unprecedented female political activism (Wolf 1993 xv). However, the
main contribution of Fire with Fire to the debate on young women and the
feminist movement which began taking shape in the early 1990s are the
terms victim feminism and power feminism. The terms sound
relatively self-explanatory and indeed, the gist of the difference between
the two traditions, as Wolf calls them, lies in the reasoning behind
claims for the equality of women. According to Wolf, victim feminism is
when a woman seeks power through an identity of powerlessness and it
is what all of us do whenever we retreat into appealing for status on the
basis of feminine specialness instead of human worth (Wolf 1993 135).
The predominance of victim feminism has, according to Wolf, scared
young women away from the womens movement, because they do not
want to be seen as victims, whining and complaining about how bad the
world has been to them. They are smart and confident and want to be
perceived as such. Power feminism, defined a lot more vaguely in spite
of being the books main theme, as a tolerant assertiveness and a claim
to human participation and human rights, consists of claiming womens
power and acting from that standpoint.
The bulk of the book is devoted to a critique of victim feminism,
which, although not explicitly equated with the second wave or even with
the womens movementWolf writes: [v]ictim feminism is by no means
confined to the womens movement (Wolf 1993 135)is described as
outdated, old and referred to mostly in the past tense [victim
26
Chapter One
feminism] evolved out of the aversion to power of the radical left (143)
with frequent references to the 1970s.
When the characteristics of victim feminism listed by Wolf one by
one in the chapter Two Traditions (135-142) are scrutinized, it is easy to
see that Wolf lumps under this designation multiple and competing strands
within contemporary feminism, usually grossly simplifying their tenets.
The accusation [victim feminism] is sexually judgmental, even antisexual
is a reference to the anti-pornography stand taken in the 1980s by writers
like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, but it ignores the
existence of the strong anti-censorship strand within 1980s feminist
activism.16 Wolfs claim that victim feminism exalts intuition, womens
speech and womens ways of knowing and idealizes womens
childbearing capacity as proof that women are better than men attacks
views expressed by cultural feminists like Mary Belenky and Carol
Gilligan, who studied the different learning patterns of males and
females17without, it must be added, exalting those exhibited by women or
claiming that they were inborn. Wolf completely misreads Adrienne
Richs Of Woman Born as a treatise on the natural joys of motherhood,
while the book is in reality an analysis of how motherhood functions as a
culturally produced institution. Rich is branded a bad feminist for two
contradictory reasonsthat is, claiming that all women are lesbians (122123) and for idealizing womens childbearing capacity (135). Wolfs list
of characteristics of victim feminism includes statements such as [s]ees
women as closer to nature than men are, an obvious reference to
ecofeminism and writers like Vandana Shiva, without any form of analysis.
Summing up, it would seem that Wolf singles out a pop version of
difference/cultural feminism as the main culprit in the propagation of
victim feminism, but radical feminists also receive their share of scorn
from her, as can be deduced from arguments such as [victim feminism]
denigrates leadership and values anonymity and sees money as
contaminating. These accusations could refer to the late 1960s and early
1970s experiments in alternative forms of organization, as practiced by
groups such as The Feminists,18 Redstockings, New York Radical Women
16
as represented by, among others, popular Village Voice columnist Pat Califia.
Califias collected articles were published in Public Sex: The Culture of Radical
Sex in 1994.
17
See Mary Belenkys Womens Ways of Knowing and Carol Gilligans In A
Different Voice.
18
The manifesto of The Feminists states the groups organizational principles as
The Feminists is an organization without officers which divides work according
to the principle of participation by lot. [] Traditionally official posts such as the
27
and numerous feminist collectives. Wolf does not mention the continuous
existence of liberal groups, like NOW chapters, which diligently followed
Roberts Rules of Order or the heated debate within radical feminism on
the issue of leadership and organizational structure.19
All in all, Wolfs victim feminism is a grotesque version of second
wave feminism. She creates a monolithic structure, instead of representing
the manifold currents present within feminism. The monolith she creates
can by no means appeal to young American womenit sounds prude,
antisexual, self-righteous and out of touch with young womens concerns.
Exactly, as Astrid Henry phrases it in Not My Mothers Sister. In fact,
victim feminism as presented by Wolf resembles the negative media
portrayals of feminism prevalent in the media coverage of the womens
movement.20 Wolf suggests making feminism more appealing to the
younger generation and calls this facelift power feminism. Wolfs new
version of feminism addresses, simultaneously, all the problems which she
sees in the monolith of second wave feminism and solves them. Instead of
being antisexual, her vision of the feminism of the new generation is
unapologetically sexual. Instead of being manhating, it extends an
invitation for men to join the women. Instead of promoting groupthink
and denigrating leadership, it focuses on the individual and encourages a
woman to claim her individual voice rather than merging in a collective
identity. Instead of being obsessed with purity and perfection and being
self-righteous, it is always skeptical and open. Instead of seeing
money as contaminating, it knows that poverty is not glamorous and
wants women to acquire money. Victim feminism is rooted in the
academia and thus automatically out of touch with reality, while Wolfs
chair of the meeting and the secretary are determined by lot and change with each
meeting. [] Assignments may be menial or beyond the experience of a member
(Koedt, Levine, Rapone 371). For a closer look at the organizational structure of
radical feminist groups in the 60s/70s see Alice Echolss Daring to be Bad:
Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975.
19
See, for example, Joreens (Jo Freemans) The Tyranny of Structurelessness in
Koedt, Rapone and Levines Radical Feminism.
20
For more on the relationship between the second wave and the media see, for
example, Patricia Bradleys Mass Media and the Shaping of American Feminism,
1963-1975. Bradleys main argument is that the media interest which radical
feminists tried to capture from the very beginning (through events such as the 1968
Miss America Protest) in order to allow more women to learn about the
movements ideas, became a double-edged sword because mainstream media, in
order to increase viewer appeal of the news items created and promoted
detrimental stereotypes about feminismfeminists became bra burners and man
haters.
28
Chapter One
version of third wave feminism keeps in touch with the real world. The list
goes on, but the main changes concern attitudes towards sex, money,
individuality, inclusiveness and diversity which, according to power
feminism, should all be embraced and encouraged.
In Not My Mothers Sister Astrid Henry argues that the reason why
Heywood and Drake claimed in 1996 that Naomi Wolf, Katie Roiphe and
Rene Denfield, were post-feminists rather than third wave feminists was to
distinguish their own version of third wave feminism from that of this
conservative trio (Henry 31). Henry does not agree with that stance and
analyzes works by the three writers as opening the third wave of feminism.
Apparently, the argument was well-received and Wolfs Fire with Fire
made it into Heywoods Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism. However,
I would argue that the rejection of Wolfs version of the third wave by the
editors of Third Wave Agenda was rooted in the belief that in 1996 the
third wave still had the possibility of developing in a completely different
directionone which would make Wolfs ideas long forgotten a decade
later. The inclusion of Wolfs work in the third wave canon in 2006 is a
recognition of the fact that Wolfs views did in fact shape a large segment
of third wave thought and largely shaped public perception of what the
third wave is about, even if such a turn of events had not been considered a
desirable possibility by other third wavers in 1996.
The majority of third wavers have unquestioningly accepted Wolfs
concept of victim feminism and the monolithic view of the second wave.
This acceptance was most certainly aided by the media portrayal of the
feminist movement, especially in the 1980s. This monolithic perception of
feminism is often connected with a dismissal of the need to actually learn
about the secondnot to mention the firstwave of feminism. It sometimes
seems as if third wavers know about the second wave only from writers
like Wolf or from the popular media. In many popular third wave
publications, especially third wave anthologies of personal essays, the
contributors half-jokingly refer to the second waves feminist political
correctness police or the feminist Commandments of Political
Correctness (Sheryl Wong in Piepmeier and Dicker 295) all the while
rejoicing in the possibilities offered by the new third wave feminism,
which enables embracing individual experience and making personal
stories political (Wong 295).
In fact, Wolfs call for encouraging a woman to claim her individual
voice rather than merging her voice in a collective identity and the idea
that women have the right to tell the truth about their experiences
foreshadowed, or maybe even sparked, the development of one of the
favorite genres of third wave writingthe personal essay. Interestingly, the
29
narratives produced by the women claiming their individual voice are

often stories of abuse and victimization, a discourse which would seem at
odds with Wolfs call for power feminism. Feminist anthologies of
personal essays and the problems inherent to the genre are discussed in
more detail in the next chapter, but for now it will suffice to say that some
critics suggest that the third waves emphasis on personal experience has
weakened its power as a movement for political and social change.
Wolfs ideas about power feminism have also shaped some strands
within third wave feminism. The embrace of sexuality as a site of power
and pleasure has become one of the key issues for third wave agenda, as
documented by the numerous third wave books and articles on sexuality.
The anthology Jane Sexes it Up explores young womens sexual fantasies
and very real unorthodox sexual practices, from S/M to prostitution, in a
non-judgmental fashion, while popular third wave magazines like Bust and
Bitch offer advice on vibrators and dildos. However, pro-sex feminism, as
described by Wolf, has been attacked by numerous critics (see Angela Mc
Robbies argument summarized in the Introduction) as blurring the
boundary between third wave feminism and postfeminism. Wolfs
preoccupation with good sex as a major feminist issue has brought about
ridicule expressed in terms like bimbo feminism and do-me
feminism.21 The idea that flaunting ones sexuality as an identifying and
unique characteristic of a feminist has also been attacked from within the
movement, by numerous writers analyzing the watering down of the third
wave feminist message to the Spice Girl motto of girl power.22
Furthermore, Wolf herself has come to represent a certain type of third
wave feminist, opposed to Rebecca Walker. In the mythology of the third
wave, Walker stands for its multicultural, multiracial, multisexual and
internally contradictory character. In contrast, Wolf is white, middle-class,
21
In the Bimbo Feminism chapter of her book True Love Waits, Wendy Kaminer
describes bimbo feminism as a sexual rebellion against parental prohibitions on
sex confused with a political revolution. She claims that the personal discourse of
bimbo feminism could be a productive developmental stage for young women
who need to address personal conflicts before they can take on political ones
(Kaminer 27).
22
See, for example, Jennifer L. Pozners article in Feminista 2.1 Makes Me
Wanna Grrrowl. Pozner writes: It's probably a fair assumption to say that
zizazig-ha is not Spice shorthand for subvert the dominant paradigm. Of course,
that's precisely why the tough talking, Spandex clad, Svengali-molded demi-divas
have been hyped so thoroughly as girl power spokemodels. It is hardly threatening
when a group of jiggling, giggling girlie-girls bounce across a stage singing
nonsense words, or even when, in interviews, they preach Wonderbra power to
appeal to the young women who long to look like their favorite Spice Girl.
30
Chapter One
well-educatedshe is a Yale graduate and a Rhodes scholarunapologetically

and joyfully heterosexual, pretty, high-heeled and designer-clothed. With
the exception of the unapologetically sexual and pretty part of the
description, she is in fact the 1990s embodiment of Betty Friedan, the
founder of the second waves liberal wing. Wolfs first book, The Beauty
Myth, amazingly different in tone and style from the second one, analyzes
how media images of beauty affect the self-esteem of young women. Both
in its method and in its general ideathe belief that there is one broad issue
responsible for the woes of middle-class American womenThe Beauty
Myth resembles Friedans The Feminine Mystique.
Astrid Henrys use of the adjective conservative in describing the trio
of Wolf, Roiphe and Denfield does not refer to their social conservatism,
as all three accuse the second wave of sexual conservatism. It does refer to
their economic liberalism and to their target audience of middle-class,
educated women. In fact, many third wave writers who focus on sexuality
in their writings are white, Anglo, educated, middle-class women, for
example, Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
and The Bitch Rules,23 and Lisa Miya-Jervis. Post-feminist or not, Wolf
had to be included in the 2006 account of the history of feminism, because
even if she herself had in fact been an impostor using feminism as a
springboard for her writing/media career, she still influenced a significant
part of third wave thought. Yet, if Wolf is the conservative, bland and
vapid wing of the movement who made a huge media splash with her sex
appeal and good looks, where are the real radicals?
One possible answer is: they simply did not produce significant
writings. Wendy Kaminer phrases the relationship between feminism and
the publishing industry like this: If it ultimately fails as a liberation
movement, feminism will at least have achieved considerable literary
success (Kaminer 22). Indeed, all the waves of feminism are now viewed
as a discussion about the published views of activists and theorists and all
compilations of primary documents require the actual existence of such
texts. The radical wing of the second wave produced a number of
manifestos or statements of purpose, which were later collected in
anthologies of historical writings, like the one edited by Miriam Schneir.
Many of the individual members of the various radical groups went on to
publish books of their own.
The third wave never produced group manifestos, a significant
comment on the third wave attitude to groupthink. In fact, the only type
23
A spoof on Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneiders dating advice books - The Rules:
Time-Tested Secrets to Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right.
31
of third wave text bearing the word manifesto (or rather manifesta;
feminist wordplay on the word) in its title is a publication written and
signed by two individualsAmy Richardss and Jennifer Baumgardners
Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future. However, a
significantand radical in its definite countercultural character, though
very homogenously white in its racial compositionnode of the third wave
feminism, the Riot Grrrl movement and accompanying womens music
scene never entered the mainstream publishing market. As a result, it is
hard to expect a reflection of the movements early years in publications
like the Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism, although Heywood does
include later (dated 2000 and later) accounts of riot grrrls origins and
ideas. The Riot Grrrl movement has been so influential that is deserves
close analysis. Chapter IV of this book is devoted to the history and ideas
of riot grrrl and the literature originating from within that movement.
Any historical account, almost by definition, focuses on events and
ideas which were visible, controversial and attracted public interest,
capturing the attention of the media. Thus, some of the early third wave
ideas which were deemed unsuitable for broadcast by the media, never
became hot topics and have been omitted even from insiders account of
third wave ideas. A case in point is a story related to the already discussed
Hill/Thomas hearings. In an article titled The Invisible Ones in
Bulletproof Diva Lisa Jones draws the silhouette of Clarence Thomass
sisterEmma Mae Martin. Martin never became a public figure, though
her name was used by her conservative politician brother in order to
personalize his opposition to welfare recipients and to emphasize his status
as a self-made man. Jones recalls that Thomas used his sister as an
example of all-gone-wrong with liberal handouts and civil rights
leadership and was specifically quoted as saying She gets mad when the
mailman is late with her welfare check (Jones 117-118).
In reality, as Jones explains, the actual story of Martins life differs
significantly from the picture painted by her brother. While Clarence
Thomas attended Yale Law School, Martin worked two minimum-wage
jobs to support the rest of the family. She was forced to seek government
assistance when her elderly aunt suffered a stroke and, as an act of
compassion, she offered to care for her and her children full-time. Clearly,
her lawyer brother did not offer to help out in the crisis. Martin spent four
years on public assistance and then returned to her entry-level job at a
hospital, where she began her workday at 3:00 AM. Jones comments:
While Thomas was pulling himself up by the bootstraps, self-helping
himself, Martin took care of auntie, because who else would? And for this,
he calls her a welfare queen (119). The case never became a media
32
Chapter One
scandal, never garnered much public interest and in no way hindered

Thomass road to the Supreme Court. Jones argues that Anita Hills sexual
harassment case was a more appealing middle class womens issue than
welfare rights. Of course, Jones does not question the validity of Hills
claims; she simply notices the reason why some valid accusations, like
Martins never-vocalized complaint against her brother, are never
publicized.
Firstly, women like Martin are the invisible ones in the society,
having no resources and no time (two full-time jobs and a family to take
care of) to even consider raising their issues in a public forum. Secondly,
unlike educated middle-class women, their access to the media or other
avenues for telling their side of the story is practically nonexistent.
Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, over the years their belief in the
possibility of the system righting the wrongs which have happened to them
has probably decreased to nothing; they may feel powerless when faced
with discrimination. Although the third wave genuinely wants to represent
those who do not have a voice in the society, sometimes this task proves to
be impossible because of the reality of social divisions in the US.
1.3. Chick lit

Some concepts related to third wave feminism have been influential for
ideas surfacing in popular culture. Sometimes the relationship between the
third wave and popular culture is so symbiotic that it is difficult to decide
whether it was third wave feminism which influenced pop culture or
whether it was pop culture which influenced third wave feminism. I will
discuss both the positive aspects of this relationship, that is how the third
wave draws from popular culture and at the same time subverts it, and the
negative aspects, that is how certain radical feminist ideas have been
commercialized and diluted in pop cultural texts, in Chapter IV. With
regards to Wolfs concept of power feminism, it is difficult to talk about
the commercialization of a radical idea, as I have shown, the concept was
not radical from the beginning, but it does bear a striking resemblance to a
genre of popular fiction, interchangeably referred to as feminist and
postfeministnamely to chick lit.
I will not be discussing chick lit in detail, as the genre is very
formulaic, but it is important to acknowledge its existence, especially in
connection to Wolfs idea of power feminism. The mother-book for chicklit is without a doubt Helen Fieldings Bridget Joness Diary (1996),
which in turns clearly refers to Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice and the
comedy of manners (Ferriss and Young 5, Harzewski 41, Wells 49).
33
Although Cris Mazza, the editor of a 1995 anthology titled Chick-Lit:

Postfeminist Fiction, argues that her use of the term not only predates the
Bridget Jones phenomenon but also signifies a completely different, more
serious and sophisticated, type of literature, it must be acknowledged that
the definition which has become ingrained in the minds of countless
readers worldwide is the one which Mazza deems a perversion of her
original concept: [s]omehow chick lit has morphed into books flaunting
pink, aqua and lime covers featuring cartoon figures of long-legged
women wearing stiletto heels (Mazza 18).
Although chick-lit has been on the market for only a decade, and has
been marketed as such for even lessthe term chick lit did not appear in
the original Bridget Jones reviewsit has enjoyed tremendous commercial
success and has received an almost unbelievable amount of critical
attention, especially from feminist critics. The main line of argument
among critics seems to be the progressive character of chick litthe
question of whether the genre advances the gains of feminism, perverts
them, co-opts them for commercial use and, regardless of what the answer
to any of these questions is, how feminists and feminist literary critics
should react to the genre. In other words, is chick-lit postfeminist literature
or is it third wave feminism? In her review of three anthologies of feminist
criticism devoted almost exclusively to chick lit, Jennifer Mahrer explains
the critical attention devoted to chick lit as an expression of our, that is
feminist critics, skill at unearthing progressive potential in what might at
first appear to be patently sexist or otherwise conservative depictions of
women (Mahrer 194). Mahrer succinctly summarizes the main line of
contention among critics as basically trying to answer the eternal question
of whether overt bashing of any type of genre written specifically by and
for women does or does not perpetuate the long tradition of disrespecting
female writers and readers, Hawthornes damned mob of scribbling
women.
The genre itself quickly became highly formulaic, which probably was
a key element in its success story. Indeed, as Mazza notes, even the covers
of chick lit novels exhibit the same features; bright colors with a strong
predominance of pink, fancy fonts imitating the style of womens
handwriting, cartoon-like figures of women dressed in skimpy clothing,
fashion accessories such as handbags, necklaces, fancy wine glasses.
Chick lit has been called an offshoot of the film genre romantic comedy
(Harzewski 39) and the visual side of the novels certainly reflects that. The
book itself has become a sort of fashion accessory and must necessarily
look chic. Harzewski notes that product placement has become common
practice in chick lit books, with writers being paid a fee for making their
34
Chapter One
heroine drive a Ford or use LOreal cosmetics. Avon Trade, a chick lit
imprint, of HarperCollins features a bag in its logo with a sloganbecause
every great bag deserves a book (Harzewski 35).
The heroines, even though they very often have problems with their
body image, diet, dye their hair and even undergo plastic surgery, are still
surprisingly and uniformly pretty. They are usually in their mid to late 20s
and 30s, are white, college-educated and usually work in entry-level
positions in the media industry. They can be journalists, PR-specialists,
copywriters, or work in the publishing industry. Without exception, they
live in big cities, where the plots of the novels are also set. Their hobbies
include shopping, which often results in credit card debt. Their interests
center around fashion, there is a strong fixation on clothing and
accessories in almost all chick lit novelsfrom Bridget Jones to The Devil
Wears Prada. Chick lit novels are supposed to be light-hearted and funny,
with the main sources of humor emerging from the heroines internal
struggles and anxieties, her foibles about dieting and failures with starting
an exercise regimen. The heroines are usually able to reflect on their lives
with a certain dose of irony.
The plot is always organized around the characters (strictly
heterosexual) relationships, although, unlike the classic romance, chick lit
novels do not usually end with marriage. The heroines professional
career, family issues and friends are always in the background, but what
pushes the plot forward is the possibility of finding Mr. Right. The male
characters themselves are often underdeveloped and seem to serve a
secondary role, with much of the plot revolving around the complications
which ensue from misinterpretation of symptoms of the mans interest or
lack thereof. The fact that most chick lit novels are narrated in the first
person by the main heroine and utilize the confessional mode even
technically renders these men silent. All chick lit novels contain at least
several sex scenes and they all exhibit a strong fixation on frequency of
sexual intercourse as evidence of ones success in life and status, which, of
course, is yet another feature differentiating chick lit from the Jane Austen
type comedy of manners. However, sex by itself is never enough for
chick-lit heroines, they all desire a stable, long-term, monogamous
relationship, although the search for Mr. Right regularly includes sexual
experimentation with various Mr. Wrongs.
Another difference between the classic romance and chick lit is the
status of money. Harzewski notes that in the classic romance money,
although usually the ultimate reward in the search for a good husband, was
never an explicit reason underlying the desire for a man. In fact, stock
characters such as the gold-digger are cast as female villains and the
35
ability to tell between the woman who wants his money and the woman
who loves him is basically the only challenge facing the male hero of a
romance. Chick lit drastically changes this scenario; it becomes fair game
for the heroine to be interested in rich men and this does not make the
reader any less sympathetic towards her quest. Harzewski recalls a novella
from Bushnells Four Blondes in which the main character, Janey from
Manhattan, prides herself on being able to spend her summers in the
Hamptons without paying a penny; her ever-changing boyfriends are the
sponsors. When questioned by a friend about the ethics of this enterprise,
she responds, Im a feminist [] its about the redistribution of wealth
(Bushnell in Harzewski 40). This comment can, of course, be read as
ironic and self-conscious commentary on the cooptation of feminist ideas,
but it does express how the attitude of entitlement has shifted from the
paradigm of political rights to lifestyle choices (I deserve to be able to
wear Prada and I will do anything to realize my right)
Ties between Wolfs idea of power feminism and the ideology of
chick lit can be seen on several levelsone of them being the attitude of
entitlement which forms the basis of the victim feminism/power feminism
division. The blatant materialism and consumerism exhibited in chick lit
bring to mind Wolfs critique of victim feminism seeing money as
contaminating and clearly show how her type of argumentation can easily
lead to product placement in novels. Of course, the strongest link is the
obsession with (hetero)sexuality. Admittedly, the find Mr. Right script
is one not taken over from power feminism, but the idea of having as
much sex as possible along the way clearly is.
Harzewski recalls Ann Snitows analysis of the popularity of
Harlequin romances in the 1970s, the decade of the greatest activism of
the womens movement and of the greatest changes within the model of
the family, as fascination with the ability of the genre to offer a traditional,
stable and conventional view of male-female relationships at the time of
changing social realities. According to Harzewski, humor and parody
inherent to the genre function as a defense mechanism against the
multitude of lifestyle choices offered to the liberated woman. Harzewski
writes:
Chick lit [] responds to upheavals in the dating and mating order through
a mixed strategy of dramatization, farce and satire. Daughters of educated
baby boomers, chick-lit heroines, in their degree of sexual autonomy and
professional choices, stand as direct beneficiaries of the womens
liberation movement. Yet they shift earlier feminist agendas, such as equal
pay for equal work, to lifestyle concerns. Unlike earlier generations, chick
36
Chapter One
protagonists and their readers have the right to choose; now the problem is
too many choices (Harzewski 37).
It should, however, also be remembered that one of the lures of classic

romances had always been their status as (sexual) fantasy. While chick lit
authors regularly claim to be writing about women just like you, in
reality most chick lit readers are not even remotely similar to the heroines
of the novels. The allure of chick lit lies in its status as fantasy, much like
that of the romance. Chick lit is a romanticized version of the career
womans imaginary problemsthe kinds of problems many women would
actually love to have. The ideological framework of these novels aligns
them with the status quo rather than social change and, therefore, with
postfeminism and not third wave feminism.
1.4. Keeping it real

I have already quoted Astrid Henrys evaluation of the conflict between
the second and the third waves as the third waves attempt to shout get
real! to the second wave. The concept of realness deserves more
attention. The title of Walkers 1995 anthology of third wave feminist
essays is To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of
Feminism. The anthology marks the first print appearance of the concept
of realness in third wave writings. The idea of realness, being real,
and keeping it real has become one of the important themes of third
wave feminism, especially for African American women. The phrase itself
is transferred from hip-hop culture, where it serves as a political slogan
and rallying cry for hip-hop fans.24 In Prophets of the Hood: Politics and
Poetics in Hip Hop Imani Perry describes the multiple meanings of the
phrase, which over the past decade has crossed over from hip-hop into
various genres of music and art. Perry traces the origins of the phrase
within hip-hop culture as signifying loyalty to the African American
community and pride in ones heritage, even if it includes poverty and a
projects background, what Perry calls a rejection of sanitized
Hollywood depictions of life and of conscious efforts to cross over and
become accepted by white audiences (Perry 95). Other associations
include a dedication to a high standard of artistry, as opposed to
commercialization and selling out to the pop industry. Astrid Henry
24
The phrase originates in the lyrics of numerous popular rap songs, for example,
Jamals Keep It Real from Last Chance, No Breaks (1995), Milkbones title song
from the Keep It Real album (1995), MC Ren Keep It Real from Villain in Black
(1996), Shaggys Keepn It Real from Hotshot (2000).
37
explains that the phrase has been used within hip-hop culture to signify
authenticity, something that cannot be faked (Henry 148).
It is obvious that Walker did not use the phrase to be real in the title
of her anthology by accident. In Not My Mothers Sister Astrid Henry
examines the implications of the title with regards to a generational view
of feminism. She explains what kind of a relationship with the second
wave it represents, bearing in mind the functioning of the adjective real
in hip-hop culture. The juxtaposition of the two parts of the title, suggests
that the new generations desire for authenticity is a reaction to the
constraining and regulatory ideas of the second wave, which downplayed
authenticity and emphasized repetitive schemes and patterns. Henry
writes:
Walker relies on the association of being real with honesty. Doing so,
however, would seem to imply that what will distinguish this new
generation is their refusal to live a liea feminist ideal not of their own
making. Being real [] is about rejecting the previous generations
definition of feminism when it doesnt fit with our experience. [] the
claim for realness is posed as the third waves challenge to the second
wave: our generation will tell the truth about our lives (Henry 151).
The truth is understood as openness to the contradictions inherent to

the lives of young women. These contradictions stem from the multiple
roles they play in society; the multiple, changing and overlapping
identities they assume throughout their lives and the various and often
contradictory desires which dominate their lives. The truth, Walker
suggests, lies in the recognition of the lived messiness25 (Heywood and
Drake 8) of the lives of young women, to use another phrase which has
made history since its initial use in the Introduction to Heywood and
Drakes Third Wave Agenda. Walker implies that the willingness to
recognize the truth is what distinguishes the younger generation from the
preceding one. The title of Walkers anthology is a promise to explore
25
Full quote from Heywood and Drake: The lived messiness characteristic of the
third wave is what defines it: girls who want to be boys, boys who want to be girls,
boys and girls who insist they are both, whites who want to be black, blacks who
want to or refuse to be white, people who are white and black, gay and straight,
masculine and feminine, or who are finding ways to be and name none of the
above; successful individuals longing for community and coalition, communities
and coalitions longing for success; tensions between striving for individual success
and subordinating the individual to the cause; identities formed within a
relentlessly consumer-oriented culture but informed by a politics that has problems
with consumption (8).
38
Chapter One
aspects of that messiness in a way which the second wave had ignored.
The use of hip-hop vocabulary is also a declaration of the method which
will be used in realizing the goala preference for the street rather than for
the academy and for using down-to-earth language which young women
are familiar with, as opposed to more abstract, theoretical language.
Through the use of the language of hip-hop, a musical genre and youth
culture originating within the African American community, the title also
reclaims the feminist movement for African American women. According
to Henry, this matter-of-fact acknowledgment of the generations
entitlement to feminism as a birthright, to use a term popularized by
Baumgardner and Richards in Manifesta, of a group of racially diverse
people might be its most revolutionary statement (Henry 149).
In spite of the revolutionary promise the books title delivers, the
ideological framework of To Be Real is fraught with the types of
inconsistencies which have been at the root of the critique of the third
wave. Although third wave feminisms embrace of contradiction and
rejection of theory preempt accusations from both a theoretical and a
common-sense perspective by default, the inconsistencies are highly
noticeable. Firstly, Walkers manifesto-like call for realness in the third
wave is based on a limited understanding of the second wave, as evident in
the preface and afterword to the anthology, in which Gloria Steinem and
Angela Davis express their frustration with the ignorance of the
contributors regarding second wave agenda and history. Responding to
texts arguing for new revolutionary ideas Steinem writes: I confess that
there are moments in these pages when Iand perhaps other readers over
thirty-fivefeel like a sitting dog being told to sit (Walker 1995 xxii).
Secondly, and perhaps even more significantly, the idea that a
feminism based on realness can be achieved in a postmodern world is a
nave one, as exposed in the opening essay of the To Be Real anthology,
Danzy Sennas To Be Real. In this essay, Senna, a multi-racial young
woman raised among competing cultural traditions, explains how the
desire to be realthat is, to find an authentic identity which she could
claim as her owndominated her adolescence. As Henry comments, Senna
finally came to understand that the quest for realness []for an
authentic identity to make me realultimately reveals such realness to be
an impossibility (Henry 151). Henry reads the third wave quest for
realness, which appeared as a driving force in the adolescence of many
third wavers, as part of nostalgia that haunts this generation, a desire for
an authentic political identity and a political movement of their own
(Henry 151). Indeed, one of the driving forces of the third wave seems to
be a very postmodern nostalgia, as described by Jameson in his seminal
39
essay Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of late Capitalism, with the
exception that the lost object of desire which is nostalgically looked
back upon is not the 1950s, but the late 1960s, early 1970s, the heyday of
the second wave. Of course, this nostalgia does not curtail criticism of the
second wave, but the idea that the late 1960s were a period when the
agenda was clear, the enemy was easy to identify, the movement was
strong and the idea of sisterhood was real haunts many third wave texts,
including Henrys project which, as she admits in the introduction, grew
out of the feeling that she had missed something.
Henry stops her comparison of Walkers and Sennas understanding of
realness on the observation that Senna considers realness to be an
impossibility, but this observation can be taken even further. Walker
obviously misreads the title of Sennas essay in her introduction to the
volume. In a nutshell, Walker views realness as a desire for authenticity,
Senna claims that authenticity is no longer possible and the aspiration to
realness is actually a rejection of complexity, rather than an embrace of it.
Clearly, Sennas beliefs are influenced by contemporary postmodern
theory. Her descriptions of protests she attended as a college student
immediately evoke Baudrillards concept of simulacra: the whole protest
had seemed simply a cheap imitation of 1960s protests I had seen [...] on
television and in the movies. It was a crude imitation of my parents life
experience (Senna in Walker 13). It is highly ironic that the title of the
first anthology of third wave essays is, in fact, the result of a
misunderstanding, resulting, it would seem, from Walkers lack of
familiarity with contemporary concepts of identityfrom not understanding
theory. It should, however, be noted, that Walkers 2001 memoir Black,
White and Jewish, which is discussed together with Sennas Caucasia in
Chapter III of this book, reflects her agreement with the arguments Senna
put forward in To Be Real.
As an interesting side note, the actual development of the concept of
realness within the hip-hop community, the culture from which Walker
freely borrowed the title of her anthology, reflects the theoretical concerns
connected to the concept. While keepin it real started out as an
affirmation of the poor urban roots of hip-hop, the phrase began to be used
by impostors of the lifestyle, raised in the suburbs and private school
graduates. Walker herself is, in some ways, such an impostor. She is
clearly trying to tap into the hip-hop sensibility and culture which she is
not truly a member of, as a very middle class Yale graduate. Ironically, in
the 1990s hip-hop music began to be fraught with questions of authenticity
as countless MCs began lying about their childhood experiences, in order
to present themselves as tougher and more streetwise than they really
40
Chapter One
were. Thus, the call for keepin it real backfired on the hip-hop
community as the concept of realness proved to be one impossible to
achieve in the contemporary world. Of course, one is not affiliated with
hip-hop culture simply on the basis of ones social class background. Hiphop is also a set of aesthetic sensibilities which deserve to be analyzed in
more detail.
1.5. Hip-hop
Hip-hop is most often discussed in terms of politics and commercialization,
not in terms of aesthetics. It is very likely that many opponents of hip-hop,
that is those who treat it as the incomprehensible mumble of a group of
gun-touting gangsters, would cringe at the concept of an aesthetics of hiphip. Yet, this very postmodern aesthetics has influenced contemporary
youth culture and, as a consequence, also third wave feminism, to a huge
extent. Hip-hop music, which originated in New York in the 1970s, was
from the beginning part of a much larger culture, which also included
breaking (or breakdancing) and graffiti. All of these activities violate
middle class social norms and aesthetic conventionsbreaking as a form of
dancing which does not take place in ballrooms but on pavement and
graffiti as an art form practiced on non-traditional surfaces such as subway
cars.
Hip-hop music participates in the postmodern merging of high and
low art; similarly to much of pop art it violates the idea of originality
and uniqueness as a necessary and valued component of art. The
techniques which made hip-hop famous and which are integral to the
genre include sampling, looping and layering, all of which fall under the
category of cutting and blendingthat is, using pieces of non-original
prerecorded music to create new songs. Overlaying, that is the mixing of
certain sounds from one record with those of another one already playing,
is also a common hip-hop technique. Richard Shusterman, a music
scholar, summarizes hip-hops attitude to originality, while making a
claim that it is a postmodern art form which challenges deeply entrenched
Western aesthetic conventions: Artistic appropriation is the historical
source of hip-hop music and still remains the course of its technique and a
central feature of its aesthetic form and message. The music derives from
selecting and combining parts of prerecorded songs to produce a new
soundtrack (460). Shusterman also notes that there has never been any
effort to conceal the fact that hip-hop artists were using prerecorded
sounds. In fact, good sampling is among deejays a source of pride. As
Shusterman writes, in hip-hop music: [o]riginality thus loses its absolute
41
originary status and is reconceived so as to include the transfiguring,

reappropriation and recycling of the old (461).
Hip-hop is deeply rooted in the realities of 1970s changes in the social
structure of urban communities, specifically the ethnic dislocations in the
South Bronx, which were spurred by the construction of the South Bronx
Highway. The impact of this investment was devastating on the remaining
Bronx population, causing massive job loss and a ghettoization of what
once was an economically stable area. Similar processes took place in
other large urban centers at the time. Many theorists argue that the
aesthetic qualities of the music which began to be created in the ghetto
reflect the process of urban decay which took place in big cities, especially
New Yorks Bronx, in the 1970s, and that hip-hop culture is an attempt to
rebuild the concept of community in these changed conditions. Mark
Anthony Neal observes that the emergence of hip-hop, which appeared in
a rudimentary state in the 1970s, was representative of a concerted effort
by youth urban blacks to use mass-culture to facilitate communal
discourse across a fractured and dislocated national community (Neal
371).
In Black Noise, an early and exceptionally insightful book on hip-hop
music, Tricia Rose argues that one of the qualities of hip-hop music is
rupture, which is incorporated into the songs on the level of rhythm, flow
and language. She discusses ruptures from a theoretical standpoint,
claiming that:
interpreting these concepts [those of scratching and cutting and
blending] theoretically, one can argue that they create and sustain
rhythmic motion, continuity, and circularity via flow; accumulate,
reinforce, and embellish this continuity through layering; and manage
threats to these narratives by building in ruptures that highlight the
continuity as they monetarily challenge it. These effects at the level of
style and aesthetics suggest affirmative ways in which profound social
dislocation and rupture can be managed and perhaps contested in the
cultural arena. (Rose 39)
Rose thus sees rupture as an aesthetic technique which serves an important

social functionthat of giving the listeners a positive example of dealing
with rupture. A practitioner of hip-hipcolloquially called a hip-hop
headshould be prepared for social rupture and, in fact, find pleasure in
it and use it in creative ways that will prepare [] for a future in which
survival will demand a sudden shift in ground tactics (Rose 39).
Scratching, blending and rupturing notwithstanding, hip-hops primary
area of artistry is the spoken word. It is that aspect which best reveals hip-
42
Chapter One
hops African roots, as it utilizes the traditionally African spoken word

forms, such as the trickster tale, boasting and toastingperformances
in which the speakers recount stories of their ingenious wit and slyness,
boast about their abilities, successes, prowess and popularity or honor
figures of authority. One of the most valued skills among MCs is that of
improvisation or freestyle, the ability to create lyrics on the fly, often in
response to challenges posed by the preceding performer or crew. Some of
the most notable hip-hop performances in history were battles of the
MCs, that is gathering in which popular MCs square off on stage together
and the audience choose the best performer of the night. Such
confrontations led to the practice of dissing, that is songs which are
intended specifically to verbally attack another crew or performer.26 Of
course, these African spoken word forms did not miraculously appear in
1970s hip-hop out of nowhere, or rather straight out of Africa, but have
been a part of African American culture for centuries. In To The Break of
Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip-Hop Aesthetics, William Cobb emphasizes
the connection between the hip-hop verbal art and the heritage of African
American literature:
The heart of the art of hip-hop is how the MC does what he doesthe
specific catalog of trade trickery he uses to get his people to open. And just
as the MC is at the center of hip-hop, his toolsverbal craft, articulation,
improvisationare at the center of black cultures. The pedigree runs deep.
It connects that dreadlocked mic-gripping orator to the tradition of black
verbal gamesmanship that starts with the black preacher, whom Du Bois
reckoned with in The Souls of Black Folk as the most unique personality
created by the Negro on American soil. Zora Neale Hurston identified the
preacher as the first black artist in America (Cobb 15-16).
26
Interestingly, dissing (sometimes spelled dising) is a word which began its

career as a slang version of the word disrespect (first noted appearance was in a
1985 song by LL Cool J), became popular throughout hip-hop culture and has now
entered mainstream English as a word with no negative connotations. This is, of
course, an example of the spread of hip-hop culture in mainstream American
culture. The language used in hip-hop has always been close to the language of the
street and of the ghetto. Many theorists claim that the use of such language by MCs
who certainly knew how to speak proper English, was an attempt to disguise the
meaning of the track, make it incomprehensible for those who did not understand
street English. The MCs use of language can also be read as an excellent example
of code-switching, using a certain insider code when addressing a specific
audience.
43
Indeed, the hip-hop MC has become a modern day preacher, whose

influence on people, especially young people, cannot be underestimated,
which explains the mainstream preoccupation with the themes of hip-hop,
the message the music is emanating. A detailed analysis of these specific
messages falls outside of the scope of this book,27 but it cannot be
overlooked that what makes hip-hop such a well-suited medium for hiphop feminists is not just its aesthetics, but primarily its value as a tool for
conveying social outrage.
The emergence of hip-hop was influenced by the appearance of the
angry black urban underclass, although for several years in the 1970s the
music served as an escape from the everyday woes of young Blacks. Hiphops roots are connected to the era of the DJ, a period of the appreciation
of the technical skills of the person mixing and sampling the soundsthe
first big names in hip-hop, for example, DJ Kool Herc, did not actually
sing or rap, but focused on improving the techniques of producing hiphops sound. Old-school hip-hops political message is connected to the
passing of the era of the DJ and the rise of the MC, that is a shift of
emphasis from the sound to the words. However, hip-hops first
commercial hits, including the first hip-hop hit to go gold Rappers
Delight (1979) by the Sugarhill Gang, were not straightforward protest
songs but party songs, with lyrics reveling in the vocal skills of the rappers
and their ability to make the crowd move their feet. These songs clearly
reference the African traditions of toasting and boasting, which also
strongly influenced the further development of hip-hop genres, from hiphop strands as varied as the Native Tongues Posse28 to gangsta rap.29
27
My subjective ranking of books discussing the politics of hip-hop would

certainly include the following titles: Tricia Roses Black Noise: Rap Music and
Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), Mark Anthony Neals Soul
Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetics (2002) and Imani
Perrys Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip-Hop (2004).
28
A group of the late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop artists, who emphasized the
African heritage of African Americans as a source os strength and power, also
known for pioneering eclectic sampling and their use of jazz beats in hip-hop,
which produced a softer and gentler sound. The Native Tongues Posse included the
Jungle Brothers, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. The female rapper Queen
Latifah, whose song Ladies First is analyzed later in this chapter, is also
considered to be a part of the Native Tongues Posse.
29
Currently gangsta rap is probably the most commercially successful and
internationally successful sub-genre within hip-hop. The themes which hip-hop is
most often criticized for, that is the glorification of violence and extreme
misogyny, can be found mostly within this genre, which was popularized in the
early 1990s by mostly West Coast crews, for example, N.W.A. Other
44
Chapter One
The strongest early expressions of urban rage came from a group

called Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Their 1982 song The
Message describes the dead-end situation faced by many black urban
youths, for whom deteriorating standards of living coupled with a lack of
money and lack of perspectives of advancement in life, lead to desperation
and hopelessness. Grandmaster Flash raps: Broken glass everywhere/
People pissing on the stairs/ You know they just dont care/ I cant take the
smell, I cant take the noise/ Got no money to move out, guess I got no
choice. In turn, this feeling of having no way out of the situation, leads to
a building up of rage which is about to explode. The songs infamous
chorus Dont push me, cause Im close to the edge is both an expression
of frustration and a warning about the violence which may erupt as a
natural consequence of the situation. The music video for this song is set
on the streets of the Bronx and the shots of the neighborhood most
definitely reflect the urgency of the lyrics. The clip finishes with a police
arrest of the group of rappers singing on a street corner, an obvious
example of discrimination and police prejudice. The song is thus an
expression of frustration and a protest against the conditions young black
urban youths are forced to live in.
Hip-hop music, as phrased by Layli Phillips and colleagues in their
article about women in hip-hop, braids strands of protest and pleasure
together into a seamless flow (Phillips, Reddick-Morgan, Stephens 253)
and represents the voices and visions of the culturally, politically and
economically marginalized and disenfranchised (254). As such it would
seem to be an especially well-suited medium for those who are doubly
marginalized, that is African American women, and for conveying issues
of gender equality in general. Indeed, women MCs have been present in
hip-hop since its inception, although hip-hop is most likely not defined as
a womens genre in the popular imagination. In fact, the immensely
popular and commercialized version of gangsta hip-hop which emerged
in the second half of the 1990s and which regularly objectifies women as
objects of sexual desire and a kind of currency among the male rappers,30
has turned the discussion about women in hip-hop into an analysis of the
representatives include the pioneering Schooly D from Philadelphia, Tupac

Shakur, Ice T.
30
A lot of scholarship has been devoted to the negative portrayal of women in hiphop. For an analysis of the specific stereotypes used to describe black women see
for example, Freaks, Gold Diggers, Divas and Dykes: The Sociohistorical
Development of Young African American Womens Sexual Scripts by Stephens,
Phillips and Layli. Sexuality & Culture, Winter2003, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p 3.
45
various sexist stereotypes appearing in the lyrics of the male MCs songs,
rather than a discussion about the contribution of women to hip hop.
Meanwhile, the fact remains that women MCs were holding their own
in the world of hip-hop right from the 1970s, with names such as ShaRock (Sharon Jackson), Lady B of Philadelphia and The Mercedes Ladies,
the first all-female rap crew. Of course, not all women MCs embraced
feminist sensibilities, and certainly none of the early women rappers took
on the label of feminist, but as Gwendolyn Pough argues in her book
Check It While I Wreck It, their presence is already a disruption of the
patriarchal order of hip-hop. To describe the presence of women in hiphop Pough uses the term bring wreck, which in conventional English
connotes destruction, but which is used in hip-hop vocabulary as a form of
praise, to describe skill and greatness of an MC. The essence of hip-hop is
that on a technical level, as noticed already by Tricia Rose, it incorporates
disruptions/ruptures in a way which highlights the continuity of the piece
as it momentarily challenges it. The presence of women rappers is exactly
such a rupture, but on a higher levelnot that of the rhythm of a particular
song, but that of the politics of hip-hop in general.
1.6. Hip-hop feminism

Hip-hop feminisms status as a distinct strand within third wave feminism
is more of a thesis which needs to be defended than a simple statement of
fact. Arguably, some women who identify as hip-hop feminists do not
identify as third wave feminists for reasons similar to those for which
many African American feminists chose to disassociate themselves from
the womens movement in the 1960s and 1970s; that is a belief in the
different needs of African American women and a fear that focusing
exclusively on womens rights would endanger the much needed unity of
the black community in the struggle against racism.31 However, the same
story looks very different from the opposite perspective. The third wave
embraces hip-hop feminism as its integral component, as exhibited by the
inclusion of an excerpt from hip-hop feminisms founding book as the
third text (after Walkers Becoming The Third Wave and Findlens
Introduction to her anthology Listen Up!) in Heywoods Encyclopedia
of Third Wave Feminism.
31
A lot has been written about African American women and the womens
liberation movement. For an insiders historical account see Barbara Smiths
Feisty Characters and Other Peoples Causes: Memories of White Racism and
U.S. Feminism in Du Plessis and Snitows Feminist Memoir Project.
46
Chapter One
The term hip-hop feminist was coined by Joan Morgan in her 1998
book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost as a term which, as
Morgan felt, best described her intersectional identity: we need a
feminism committed to keeping it real. We need a voice like our music
one that samples and layers many voices, injects its sensibilities into the
old and flips it into something new, provocative and powerful (Morgan
62). A hip-hop feminist is thus not just a description of someone who
listens to hip-hop music and identifies as a feminist, but a term which,
through the inclusion of the aesthetic sensibilities associated with hip-hop,
signifies much morespecifically, an allegiance to specific aesthetic and
social ideas, what Mark Anthony Neal, a well known music scholar and
author of a seminal book on post-soul music Post-Soul Aesthetics, calls a
politics of style (Neal 371).
While Morgans book contains practically no theoretical definitions,
the way in which it is organized already points to what these aesthetic
categories specific to hip-hop feminism are. Morgan revisits old feminist
issues, like domestic and gender specific violence, from a new perspective,
she switches freely between issues creating a non-linear and slightly
chaotic yet highly readable flow. In typical third wave style she discusses
her place in feminism and hip-hop, dwells on personal references and
locates herself within the urban landscape of New York, particularly the
Bronx. She purposefully styles her voice as an intervention and disruption
in the fabrics of both hip-hop culture and feminism. Through recreating
these aesthetic sensibilities in book format, Morgan also makes her book
more appealing to her target audienceother women who could possibly
identify as hip-hop feminists as well.
Admittedly, most of the well-known women rappers do not identify as
feminist, hip-hop or otherwise. Still, the themes which they talk about in
their songs and the ways these themes are depicted correspond exactly to
the theoretical tenets32 of hip-hop feminism, as described in Morgans
Chickenheads and other books which are usually classified as hip-hop
feminism, for example, Lisa Joness Bulletproof Diva, Tales of Race, Sex
and Hair and Mamas Girl by Veronica Chambers. These three books are
analyzed in the article Third Wave Black Feminism? in which Kimberly
Springer examines the relationship between black feminism and the third
wave as well as the main themes which are of interest to young black
feminists today. Meanwhile, Phillips, Reddick-Morgan and Stephens, in
their article about female rappers, categorize the themes of womens rap
32
I use quotation marks for the term theoretical tenets, as I am sure all of the
writers describing hip-hop feminism would object to the idea that what they have
created is a theoretical description.
47
songs in an attempt to describe the development of feminist consciousness

within hip-hop culture. The themes they define are: talking back to men
in defense of women and demanding respect for women, womens
empowerment, self-help and solidarity and defense of black man against
the larger society (Phillips, Reddick-Morgan and Stephens 9). Interestingly,
Springer also mentions three very similar themes as crucial for
contemporary black feminism: young Black womens relationship to our
personal and political histories. This history includes our relationships to
past social movements, our biological mothers and our political
foremothers. The second theme is relationship to self and the third one
is Black womens relationships to men: biological brothers, brothers in
the political sense and fathers (Springer 1060).
The theme of connectedness to the past often includes the experience
of what I termed in the first part of this chapter third wave nostalgia, but
which should be reformulated for the purposes of this section as African
American nostalgia, that is, a feeling that all the important developments
on the arena of civil rights took place in the 1960s and were completed by
the time the writers came of age. This created a mixture of nostalgia for a
time when goals were clearly visible and possible to achieve, but also, at
least among those who later called themselves hip-hop feminists, the need
to search for new and more subtle ways of action, which Chambers recalls
watching documentaries about Black history: It seemed that all the big
black battles were over by the time I was born (Chambers 1065) and, as
Springer notices, Morgan recalls envying her mothers generation of
women, not because their lives were easy but because of the simultaneous
emergence of the womens movement and dissemination of ideas about
independence and self-fulfillment at that time (Springer 1066). Chamberss
parents instituted a Black History Day at their home. The young woman
grew up surrounded by references to the struggle of African Americans,
aware of the need to acknowledge and honor heroes of the civil rights and
womens rights movements, but came to realize that their generations
struggle songs consisted of the same notes but [] were infused with
different rhythms (Morgan 21-22). One of the goals of hip-hop feminism
is thus postulated as looking for new ways to tackle issues pertinent to the
young generation, drawing from lessons of the civil rights struggle and
from African heritage, all the while maintaining a gender perspective.
An excellent example of how these postulates are put into practice is
the song and music video Ladies First from rapper Queen Latifahs
debut album, All Hail the Queen (1989). The rappers assumed name
already associates her with the tradition of African royalty, as does the
dress she is wearing in the video, an African headscarf and African garb.
48
Chapter One
The video opens with stills of Black women famous for their participations
in the civil rights and womens rights movements: Madame C.J Walker,
Sojourner Truth, Angela Davis, Winnie Mandela and Harriet Tubman, in
an effort to pay homage to their achievements. The video then proceeds to
present Queen Latifah as a military strategist, knocking over white chess
pieces on a chessboard and replacing them with clenched fists, symbols of
black power, but also of the womens liberation movement. These scenes
are interspersed with footage from South Africa, depicting the fight
against apartheid. Interestingly, the lyrics of the song do not reference
issues of race and focus solely on gender, specifically on the need for selfrespect among women and womens skill and artistry as MCs:
Grab the mic, look into the crowd and see smiles
Cause they see a woman standing up on her own two
Sloppy slouching is something I wont do
Some think that we can't flow (cant flow)
Stereotypes, they got to go (got to go)
Im a mess around and flip the scene into reverse
(With what?) With a little touch of Ladies First
The juxtaposition of lyrics relating to gender and images connected to race

is a brilliant move which emphasizes the connection between these two
aspects, as is the use of images of women who were on the front lines of
both struggles. The use of the term ladies first is clearly ironic. After all,
it is a phrase expressing the kind of chivalry which masks the denial of
womens rights. Queen Latifah reclaims the phrase through the visual
associations with famous women, true pioneers in the fight against racism
and for gender equality. What makes this process of reclaiming even more
ironic is the fact that the phrase ladies first would not have been used to
address Black women in the US. Thus, the reclamation is doubleit is both
a call to truly put ladies first and the expansion of the term lady, conferring
class and dignity upon Black women.
The spirit of sisterhood, a concept used by both feminists and black
women, is also conveyed through emphasis of the collaborative effort of
Queen Latifah and her co-rapper, Monie Love. As has been mentioned, in
hip-hop performances MCs usually confront one another in a battle to
establish who has the greater vocal skills. In Ladies First Queen Latifah
flips this conceptshe and Monie Love are clearly cooperating not
competing, they are both trying to achieve a common goal. Even the use of
the chorus emphasizes collaboration among women. In Black Noise
Tricia Rose admits how unusual collaborative songs are in the world of
hip-hop, especially in debut records which are supposed to establish and
49
confirm the newcomers talent: [Queen Latifahs] decision to collaborate

on her debut album is as surprising as it is ambitious; it suggests that being
a solo rap artist does mean isolating yourself from your peers (Rose 16).
Emphasis on African heritage is in turn a strategy for raising young
Black womens self-esteem by providing them with images of beauty and
behavior alternative to those promoted by mainstream popular culture.
Memories of playing with dark-skinned dolls resurface in almost all the
childhood accounts written by hip-hop feminists, as do accounts of
doing each others hair. While for the white third wavers it was second
wave feminism which was in the water, their African American friends
also absorbed black power ideology. In Chapter III I analyze how this
influenced the main protagonist of Danzy Sennas Caucasia.
It is no accident that the topic of hair features so prominently on the
agenda of hip-hop feminismLisa Joness book is subtitled Tales of Race,
Sex and Hair. Jones writes Everything I know about American history I
learned from looking at black peoples hair (Jones 12). Hair is the
ultimate third wave symbolic material which combines politics and style.
It is at the same time a natural aspect of the body, an expression of
dominant ideology or a sign of rebellion against it, a means of showing
allegiance to a specific peer group and a statement of personal style. For
decades the popular practice of straightening black womens hair, through
a process involving high temperatures and lots of chemicals, was practiced
by all who wanted to be fashionable. Good hair was considered to be the
least kinky and nappy type, hair similar to the hair of people of European
ancestry.
As Kimberly Springer notes in Third Wave Black Feminism, and
Phillips, Reddick-Morgan and Stephens in The Case of Feminism and
Womanism in Rap and Hip-Hop, one of the three major thematic areas in
womens hip-hop music with a feminist message and in hip-hop feminism
is the relationship between black women and black men. In fact, one of the
major concerns expressed by black women in the late 1960s and 70s
regarding the second wave of feminism in the US was that it would pit
black men and women against each other at a time when unity was of
primary importance. Similar concerns surface in contemporary hip-hop
feminism: young African American women recognize the problems faced
by young black men, the demographic group least likely to survive until
the age of forty-five.
Yet, at the same time sexism and misogyny within hip-hop culture are
a pressing problem, which needs to be addressed. Proliferation of sexist
lyrics, attitudes and imagesespecially in hip-hop videosincreased with
the development of the gangsta rap style, connected to the West Coast.
50
Chapter One
Of course, seeds of sexism were present from hip-hops beginnings. After

all, one of the traditions used as the basis for hip-hop lyrics was that of
boasting, which often including boasts about ones sexual prowess and
sexual conquests. The first rap hit Rappers Delight included such
sexual boasts as: Im imp the dimp the ladies pimp/ the women fight for
my delight, but boasts such as these were taken tongue-in-cheek,
especially as the performer was a short and very chubby jovial man. In the
1990s misogyny in hip-hop lyrics and videos reached an unprecedented
scale.
There have been two kinds of musical responses from women within
the hip-hop community. One is outright opposition to the objectification of
women in rap music and to sexism in the African American community in
general, often phrased as a call for self-respect among black women.
These songs very often use the very same aspects of hip-hop culture,
which have been used against women, turn them around and use them to
warn women against allowing themselves to be used by men.
SaltN Pepa, a female duo popular from the mid 80s to the early 90s,
released the song Tramp in 1985. Tramp uses the hip-hop tradition of
diss songs to attack men who treat women without the respect they
deserve. The female speaker in the song is aware of the fact that she
attracts men (I know the real deal, I know what they want/Its me (why?)
because Im so sexy) and knows that her sexuality can attract men who
are only interested in her as a sexual object (You are what you are, I am
what I am/It just so happens that most men are tramps). The speaker then
proceeds to tell the story of a first date with a man who undressed [her]
with his eyeballs and was only interested in sex. The speaker immediately
breaks up with the man and tells him that You aint treatin me like no
prostitute. The song is a typical example of SaltN Pepas feminist
message, the main components of which include a high dose of selfrespect for oneself and ones body, a consciousness of the womans
sexuality not only as a tool to attract a man, but also as a source of joy and
the belief in the right to pick and choose among men as partners. As Tricia
Rose writes:
SaltN Pepa are carving out a female-dominated space in which Black
womens sexuality is openly expressed. Black women rappers sport hiphop clothing and jewelry as well as distinctively black hairstyles. They
affirm a black, female, cultural aesthetic which is rarely depicted in
American popular culture. Black women rappers resist patterns of sexual
objectification and cultural invisibility (Rose 126).
51
It is important to note that not all of SaltN Pepas songs relating to

relationships between men and women are phrased as diss songs. In fact,
one of their more famous songs Whatta Man is an outright ode to a
mighty, mighty good man, who, in contrast to the playas, is honest,
loving and respectful. These two types of songs, that is songs dissing the
dishonest Black men who want to take advantage of women and praising
those who know, to quote Alicia Keyss song A Womans Worth, how
to treat [a] woman right, are interspersed in the albums of numerous
female rappers.
Some artists go beyond this black/white, good man/bad man dichotomy
and describe more complex tensions present in the relationships of African
American men and women. Alicia Keyss first big hit Fallin from her
first album Songs in A Minor describes the speakers complicated though
very intense relationship with a man; a relationship which gives her
pleasure and pain at the same time and which makes her feel confused. If
we base a reading of the song simply on the lyrics, a purely psychological
reading of the song seems validshe loves him, although he sometimes
treats her badly. However, the video for this song suggests a more political
reading. In the video Keys takes a bus to the penitentiary where she visits
the man she is singing about and who is an inmate there. Through the
video, the song becomes a political statement about the toll the high rate of
imprisonment of African American males is taking on relationships and
families. The bus traveling to the prison is filled with African American
women, all on their way to see the men they love. On their way to the
prison they pass fields where female inmates, all of them African
American, are laboring as the guards watch over them. In her analysis of
this song in Prophets of the Hood, Imani Perry notices that this visual
dualitywomen inside the bus and women outside the buscomments on
two issues related to black women, the first being that many black women
are in relationships with men who have been incarcerated and the second
being that many black women are incarcerated themselves for becoming
unwittingly or naively involved with men participating in illegal activities
(Perry 179). In connection with the video, the lyrics become a realist
mixture of psychological and social commentary. The speaker seems
unable to resolve her personal problems, but the existence of these
problems is socially and politically motivated.
In the writings of hip-hop feminists themes related to African
American men are discussed in a way similar to how they are treated in
hip-hop music; that is, in three basic ways: dissing disrespectful men,
praising the loyal and honest ones, and discussing the complicated
personal effects of political and social problems affecting black males. A
52
Chapter One
lot of emphasis is placed on the fine balancing act of, as Springer writes
quoting the Combahee River Collective Statement, struggling with Black
men against racism but also struggling with Black man about sexism
(Springer 1075), which has been a recurring theme of black feminism for
decades. The men which appear in the three representative texts are
usually the authors biological brothers (Chamberss only brother Malcolm
was the focus of most of his mothers attention throughout their
childhood), lovers (often very supportive of their careers and their
feminism, Morgans book was admittedly inspired by a lover who
convinced her to put her views into writing) and very rarely fathersall
three writers examined experienced the divorce of their parents, after
which their fathers became almost completely absent from their lives.
Divorce is a generational experience for many third wavers, but being
raised by a single mother seems to be a running theme among hip-hop
feminists.
Another issue which emerges from an analysis of the hip-hoppers
relationships with men is their inherent heterosexuality. In fact, not only
are there almost no popular queer female rappers, the theorists of hiphop feminism, clearly heterosexual themselves, do not explore any
alternative expressions for sexuality. Kimberly Springer notices that for all
the emphasis on reclaiming a positive black female sexuality implicit in
the song lyrics and in the writings of Morgan, Jones and Chambers, there
is surprisingly little sexuality being discussed openly. The rappers and the
writers often flaunt how sexy they feel, and criticize the popular
perception of black women as oversexed and animalistic through the
dismantling of stereotypes concerning black women,33 but they omit the
more specific aspects of sexuality. Springer writes: Instead, black
womens (hetero)sexuality is alluded to in their musing on fine brothers
33
Interestingly, the one stereotype that both Jones and Morgan explore in detail is
that of the black woman as the strong and silent type, who feels the burden of
responsibility for her family and for her race on her shoulders, yet still manages to
take care of herself and others, especially endangered black males. Morgan calls
this stereotype the strongblackwoman, spelled together to emphasize the
transformation of a stereotype into an accepted and recognizable identity trait for
black women. This linguistic move solidifies the idea of strong, black, and
woman, as nonseparable parts of a seemingly cohesive identity. [] Morgan
wants to take apart the strongblackwoman image for what it is: a way for black
women to deny emotional, psychic, and even physical pain, all the while appearing
to keep it together (Springer 1069-1070). The title of Joness book, Bulletproof
Diva, is also a reference to the same stereotype. Jones attempts to redefine it by
reclaiming the term Bullettproof Diva, but at the same time making it broader,
giving the Bulletproof Diva the right to cry and be weak when she needs it.
53
and dating mores. Black womens sexuality is something to be repressed,

except on a surface level of relationships with Black men (Springer
1075).
To prove this point, Springer recalls one of the few episodes in Joness
text which could have been developed further as a comment on black
womens sexuality. In Chamberss memoir Mamas Girl, when Veronica
gets her first period, her mother reacts with fear, afraid that her daughter is
now at the risk of becoming a pregnant teenager. Veronica herself is also
genuinely worried about a possible unplanned pregnancy derailing her
plans for a career and for furthering her education. However, even these
fears are something of a side note to the main plotlines, even though
Veronicas attitude to her sexuality could significantly contribute to one of
the major plotlinesthat is the exploration of her bouts with depression.
The reader also never learns how well grounded the fears of an unwanted
pregnancy are, Veronicas boyfriends are never personalized as actual
people, but rather presented as the ever changing stock types filling in the
role of Veronicas boyfriend. All we learn about her relationship to these
boyfriends is that No guy ever said a word to me that didnt sound like a
lie. The answer [to sex] was always no (Chambers 70-71).
Springer classifies this sexual conservatism of hip-hop feminists as a
step back from the kinds of explorations of sexuality which took place in
the writings of the earlier generation of Black feminist writers: Audre
Lorde, Michelle Wallace and Alice Walker. Springer suggests that one of
the reasons for the flaunting of heterosexuality in these texts, without a
deeper exploration of female sexuality as such, is in fact the experience of
fatherlessness, which may have led to the realization of the need for
contact with men only in heterosexual relationships and the silence on the
topic of sexuality in good (middle-class) African American families.
Admittedly, there do exist some exceptions, a few queer hip-hop artists
who make their sexuality central to their art, but none of these artists enjoy
mainstream popularity. God-Des and She, a duo of lesbian feminist
rappers, have been active on the New York club scene. Interestingly, they
are both Caucasian and hail from Madison, Wisconsin. Another, and more
well-known, exception is artist Meshell NdegeOcello whose image is
deliberately androgynous and whose texts are overtly and consciously
feminist. Heywood and Drake list Ndegeocello in the Introduction to
Third Wave Agenda as an example of third wave feminist hybridity,
contradiction and activism (Heywood and Drake 6). NdegeOcello, who,
coincidentally, used to be in a long-term relationship with Rebecca
Walker, explores problems within lesbian relationships, but also, especially
54
Chapter One
in Plantation Lullabies (1993), the need for unity among black men and
women.
1. 7. Hip-hop lit
In order to draw a more complete picture of hip-hop culture and hip-hop
feminism, a few words need to be devoted to a very recent literary genre
growing out of the hip-hop culture, and specifically out of gangsta rap,
known as hip-hop lit, gangsta lit or urban fiction. The genre will not be
analyzed in the following chapters because it is not part of the explosion of
feminist writing, although a few of the writers seem to exhibit elements of
a feminist consciousness and try to provide a message of self-empowerment
to their young readers. However, hip-hop lit is an explosion of its own,
currently topping the charts in terms of the numbers of titles published.
New publishing houses devoted exclusively to hip-hop lit have been
established and most of the major publishing houses have created divisions
devoted to hip-hop lit.
The boom began around the year 2000 and can be credited to the
establishment of the first publishing house, Triple Crown Publications in
Columbus, Ohio, devoted exclusively to hip-hop lit. In fact, the creation of
this publishing house is itself an interesting reflection of the
entrepreneurship of young African American women from a disadvantaged
background. In 2001, Vickie Stringer, a native of inner city Detroit,
finished serving a prison sentence for dealing drugs. While in prison, she
had handwritten a 90% autobiographical novel recounting the
experiences which led to her imprisonment. Stringer could very well have
been one of the women portrayed in Alicia Keyss Fallin video, as it
was her involvement with a drug-dealing boyfriend which eventually led
this middle-class raised, college educated, churchgoing young woman to
face a prison sentence and to be separated from her two-year old son. The
book describes the glamorous lifestyle she led as a drug dealer, but can
also be read as a warning about the dangers of this lifestyle, especially as it
was written by a prison inmate.
The manuscript of Stringers first novel, Let That Be The Reason, was
rejected by numerous publishers, which prompted her to borrow money
from a friend and set up Triple Crown Publishing, named after The Triple
Crown Posse, a gang she and her boyfriend were members of in
Columbus. The publishing house became an almost overnight success,
selling over a million books in its first two years of operation
(Cunningham 1). Vickie Stringer is now a millionaire, planning her
retirement in Mexico.
55
Most hip-hop novels are set in the inner cities and reflect the comingof-age of the main character, usually African American or Latino,
including his or her initiation into the world of crime. Hip-hop lit, like hiphop lyrics, reflects the culture of the streets, set in the urban world of
hustlers, gang members, thugs, wannabe rappers and their girlfriends
(young mamas). The most extreme of these tales can be easily identified
by the violence, sex, hustling and crime (Meloni 38). There seem to exist
certain variations within the genre, often the novels authored by men
present a glamorized account of crime and sexual conquest, while the
stories written by female writers (Nikki Turner, Deja King) bring accounts
of the womens resourcefulness when faced with difficult conditions or
cautionary tales of how the seductive allure of the life of glamour may turn
out to lead to the characters downfall. The covers of hip-hop novels
resemble the aesthetics of hip-hop CD jacketsdark colors with a
prevalence of black, red and gold, bright lettering, realistically drawn
human forms, often featuring objects or accessories connected to the hiphop lifestyle, such as guns, fast cars, jewelry and, of course, scantily-clad
women with big breasts.
The books are written using language of the streets, which can either
be seen negatively as a dumbing down of standard English or as one of
the first appearances in print of African American Vernacular English. Of
course, the use of street language is considered a mark of legitimacy of the
authors experience and constitutes one of the features accounting for the
popularity of the genre. As librarians report, hip-hop lit, similarly to hiphop music, is attracting a readership much broader than inner-city youths,
often attracting white suburban teens and young adultsthe target group
for hip-hop lit is the 15-25 age group (Meloni 40).
1.8. Conclusion
It should be noted that although I have been using examples from both
female hip-hop performers and hip-hop feminist writers, only the latter
self-identify as feminist. Most of the rappers with a feminist message
reject the feminist label, even though they clearly espouse the ideas. Robin
Roberts, a music scholar interested in Queen Latifahs Afrocentric
message, repeatedly calls her a feminist rapper and talks about Latifahs
feminist consciousness,34 yet it is important to point out that Queen
Latifah herself does not identify with feminism and in fact for quite a
34
This can even be seen in the title of Robertss article on Queen Latifah: Ladies
First: Queen Latifahs Afrocentric Feminist Music Video.
56
Chapter One
while actively rebutted this identification, stating Im not a feminist []

Im just a proud black woman. In a later (1997) interview with Rolling
Stone Queen Latifah is not as univocally negative regarding her selfidentification, but she certainly does not feel to be a part of what is
perceived as the feminist movement and explains why:
RS: Do you respond positively or negatively to the word feminist?
QL: I have mixed views on that wordalways did. When I was growing up,
I watched the news a lot. Whenever I would see them talking about
feminists, it was usually a bunch of white women hollering, marching and
screaming, but I didn't know what they were talking about. So when I first
came out, and people started calling me a feminist, I was like, well, I don't
dig the image that I had when I was growing up. To me, I'm womanist,
feminist, whateverbut thats all in the mind. I dont have to attach myself
to a political group. (Mc Donnell and St. Nicholas 122)
What is fascinating and very revealing about the picture of feminism in the
1970s painted by Queen Latifah, is that this very image of white women
hollering, marching and screaming is one which is strongly rejected by
white third wavers, who, as I have discussed after Astrid Henry, are much
more likely to be inspired by Lorde and Angela Davis than by Betty
Friedan and even Gloria Steinem. What underlies the disidentification of
Queen Latifaha perceptive observer of gender and racial mechanisms and
creative songwriteris the availability, or lack thereof, of different cultural
texts. As a woman from the music scene, not from the academia, she has
not come across the major Black feminist texts, while she may have
stumbled upon The Feminine Mystique or simply news footage of the Miss
America protest or abortion rallies.
While hip-hop feminism has been created as an alternative to academic
feminism, its first proponents are Ivy League graduates who were exposed
to a wide range of feminist texts in the course of their studies. They are all
journalists or women connected to the world of art, living and working in
New York. Their need for creating a third wave black feminism or hip-hop
feminism flows from the realities of their lives which combine street
smarts with their educational background. Hip-hop feminism has quickly
become quite popular within the academia, most likely because it suggests
that the non-academic real-life experience of numerous students can be of
use in the academic context. A few dedicated scholars, including
Gwendolyn Pough, have been active in the field of hip-hop feminism for
several years, but there has been an explosion of interest and publications
on the topic since approximately 2004. A conference on feminism and hiphop was organized in 2005 by the University of Chicagos Center for the
57
Study of Race, Politics and Culture and attracted scholars, artists and
others from the entertainment industry, creating numerous possibilities for
networking and generating a level of interest which exceeded the
organizers expectations. Gwendolyn Poughs anthology Home Girls
Make Some Noise!: Hip-Hop Feminism Anthology, the first comprehensive
account of the movement, was published in early 2007
Some attempts to introduce the perspective of hip-hop feminism on
campuses were initiated by students, sometimes working together with
individual faculty members. This was the case of the now famous
Spelman Controversy. In 2005 rapper Nelly, long known for his sexist
lyrics and video clips, released a song called Tip Drill, which crowned
him as the ultimate sexist in the music industry. The songs title referred to
a street slang term for a specific sexual practice. The term is also used to
describe a woman endowed with large buttocks and an ugly face. The
lyrics express Nellys desire to use such women as disposable objects of
temporary sexual gratification, because their lack of beauty makes them
unfit for any other form of relationship: I said it must be ya ass cause it
aint yo face. The video features a large number of video vixens
wearing only thongs and bikinis, gyrating their behinds and imitating
sexual intercourse with Nelly. In one of the final scenes Nelly swipes a
credit card through a womans backside, signifying the act of paying for
sex, the commodification of male-female relationships.
Shortly after the video hit the charts, the rapper was signed up for
hosting a bone marrow drive on the campus of Spelman College, a
historically all-black women-only college in Atlanta, Georgia. A group of
students and several faculty members opposed his presence on campus on
the basis of the sexist lyrics of his songs and, in the end, Nelly withdrew
and did not visit the college. However, the protest grew and finally, with
the backup of Essence magazine and the Black Womens College, it
turned into a week-long forum which culminated with a town hall meeting
called Take Back the Music.35 The meeting spurred a media campaign
by the same name, which promotes pro-women hip-hop lyrics. In other
words, although hip-hop feminism did not originate in the academia and is
promoted as a feminism of the streets, it is certainly making its way
there.
35
For more information about the Spelman Controversy, see, e.g.: The Hip-Hop
Discourse: Coming to a Campus Near You. By: Keels, Crystal L., Black Issues in
Higher Education, 5/19/2005, Vol. 22, Issue 7. For current updates on the Take
Back the Music Campaign see the campaigns website at
<http://www.essence.com/essence/takebackthemusic/>
58
Chapter One
This chapter has presented some of the major nodes of third wave
feminism, their relationship to each other and to the second wave of
feminism. Another node, punk third wave feminism, will be presented in
Chapter IV. This Chapter has also touched upon the major debates in third
wave feminism, one of them being the third waves opposition to theory
and its strange relationship to the academia. This issue will be developed
further in the next chapter.
CHAPTER TWO
FIRST PERSON SINGULAR:
THE PHENOMENON OF THIRD WAVE
ANTHOLOGIES
2.0. Introduction
This chapter examines the prevalence of autobiographical writing in third
wave feminism and in the history of feminist writings in general. It
examines the concept of feminist confession, its sources, uses and
development and traces the gradual transformation of the feminist essay
from a genre aiming at presenting theoretical concepts in a user-friendly
manner while challenging classic academic discourse to a genre which is
currently anti-theoretical and focused almost exclusively on evoking
empathy in the reader. I make the hypothesis that the causes of this shift
lie in the influence of the recovery movement on third wave feminism and
in the current memoir boom in the publishing industry. Furthermore, the
chapter also examines in detail the most popular type of third wave
publication; the feminist anthology, comparing and contracting the third
wave anthology with its predecessor; the second wave anthology.
60
Chapter Two
2.1. A classification of third wave anthologies

Life writing1 and the womens movement have had an intimate connection
ever since the first wave of feminism emerged in the 19th century. The
essential historical writings of the early American womens movement
include short personal pieces, such as Sojourner Truths famous speech
Aint I a Woman? and even personal recordslike the marriage
agreement between Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell.2 In the late 1960s
and 1970s the personal essay became a staple of feminist aesthetics.
Feminist theorists, like Jane Tompkins, Nancy Miller and many others,
built a case for the inclusion of the personal voice of the theorist in pieces
of literary and cultural criticism.3
Yet, there has never been such a proliferation of life writing as now, in
the third wave of feminism. Judging by the numbers of new titles, it seems
that various forms of life writing have all but replaced feminist theory and
fiction. The epidemic has reached such proportions that editors of
volumes of academic essays feel obliged to emphasize in their calls for
papers that personal memoirs are not acceptable as submissions.4
Life writing is a term used by numerous feminist scholars to escribe a wide range
of genres which would have traditionally been called autobiographical, ranging
from diaries, memoirs, confessional poetry to internet blogs. The term life
writing is used consistently in, for example, Sidonie Smiths and Julia Watsons
works on womens autobiographical writings. Smith and Watson, recognizing the
challenges set forth to the concept of autobiography as a certain kind of narrative
which emerged in the European Enlightenment and which celebrates the
autonomous individual and the universalizing life story (Smith and Watson 3)
settle on the terms life writing and life narrative as much broader and less biased
terms.
2
These founding documents of the womens movement are anthologized in
Miriam Schneirs Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings. The personal
writings anthologized in this volume include also George Sands letters and her
intimate journal, Abigail Adamss correspondence with her husband and
excerpts from Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own, which is often considered
to be the first example of the poetics of the feminist essaya piece starting out with
the description of a personal experience which inspires the narrator to analyze and
generalize on the condition of women.
3
The history and poetics of the feminist essay will be discussed later in the
chapter.
4
See, for example, this CFP announced in November 2006 through, among other
channels, the Womens Studies Discussion List for a forthcoming volume about
menstruation: NO fiction, poetry, or memoir. (This means that unless there is a
specific reason for it to be in your piece, we do not want to hear about when you
61
Furthermore, one specific medium for publishing life writing has gained
widespread popularity as a trademark of third wave feminism. This genre
is the feminist anthology. Many of the key third wave publications are
collections of personal essays, written by self-identified feminist activists,
writers and theorists, usually, though with exceptions, written specifically
as responses to calls for submissions for the various anthologies or, as Gail
Chester writes in her account of the history of feminist anthologies,
newly commissioned pieces of feminist non-fiction (Chester 194). Some
of these anthologies explore the shape of feminism today, while others
focus on specific issues within contemporary feminismmostly the aspects
of class, race and ethnic background, all through the use of the personal
essay.
The first category includes To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing
the Face of Feminism (published in 1995 and edited by Rebecca Walker),
Listen Up! Voices from the Next Feminist Generation (edited by Barbara
Findlen, also published in 1995), Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist,
Doing Feminism (published in 1997, edited by Leslie Heywood and
Jennifer Drake), Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st
Century (edited by Rory Dicker and Alison Piepmeier, published in 2003),
The Fire this Time: Young Activists and the New Feminism (published in
2004, edited by Vivien Labaton and Dawn Lundy Martin), and the most
recent addition We Dont Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next
Generation of Feminists (edited by Melody Berger and published in 2006).
The second category, anthologies with a more defined thematic focus,
can be divided into two main sub-categories, one organized around
specific feminist issues, the other one around the identity of the
contributors. The first sub-category consists of collected writings on a
specific topic, for example, body imageBody Outlaws: Young Women
Write about Body Image and Identity (published in 1998,5 edited by
Ophira Edut); sexuality - Jane Sexes it Up: True Confessions of Feminist
Desire (published in 2002, edited by Merri Lisa Johnson); motherhood
Breeder: Stories from a New Generation of Mothers (published in 2001,
edited by Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender); hip-hop musicHome Girls Make
Some Noise!: Hip-hop Feminism Anthology (edited by Gwendolyn Pough,
2007). The unifying theme for the remaining anthologies is the ethnic,
racial, sexual or class identity of the contributors: Dragon Ladies: Asian
got your first period or how bad your PMS is. This is not a collection of firstperson narratives).
5
The first edition (1998) of Body Outlaws was published under the title Adios,
Barbie. The title was changed for the reprint editions because of a lawsuit carried
forth by Mattel, the producer of Barbie dolls.
62
Chapter Two
American Feminists Breathe Fire (edited by Sonia Shah, published in

1997), Yell-Oh Girls! Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity and
Growing Up Asian American (edited by Vickie Nam, published in 2001),
Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Todays Feminism (edited by
Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman, published in 2002), Without a Net:
The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class (edited by Michelle
Tea, published in 2004).
A case can also be made for the existence of a third category,
anthologies of texts previously published in numerous feminist magazines
and zines. Zines, discussed in more detail in Chapter IV, were the primary
means of third wave guerilla publishing in the early 1990s. Several of
the magazines which started out as countercultural alternative publishing
venues (including: Bust, Bitch, Hip Mama and HUES) have achieved huge
popularity, which culminated with the publications of volumes collecting
the most significant pieces published in these magazines. These include:
The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order (edited by Michelle Karp and
Debbie Stoller, published in 1999); A Girls Guide to Taking Over the
World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution (edited by Karen Green and
Tristan Taormino, published in 1997), and BITCHfest: Ten Years of
Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine (edited by Lisa
Jervis and Andi Zeisler, published in 2006).
2.2. A historic look at feminist anthologies

As Gail Chester points out in her analysis of British feminist anthologies,
the form of the anthology is especially well suited for radical social
movements because the mechanism of the anthology can be used to
capture and contextualize a significant moment of political debate
(Chester 196). And indeed it was the radical, and not the liberal, wing of
the womens movement which produced the most influential anthologies,
including Robin Morgans Sisterhood is Powerful, Vivian Gornicks 1971
Woman in Sexist Society, Feminist Revolution published and edited by
members of the Redstockings, and Radical Feminism, edited by Anne
Koedt, Ellen Levine and Anita Rapone in 1972. An anthology can be put
together relatively quickly. In spite of the technical problems an editor
inevitably encounters with collecting submissions from contributors, the
process usually takes less time than the completion of a full-length book
by one author. An anthology by definition encompasses a variety of
opinions, or at least various realizations of one general worldview. The
form enables the representation of a dialogue taking place within a specific
group. The first sentence of Sisterhood is Powerful reflects how the
63
anthology realizes the concept of a dynamic exchange of ideas: This book

is an action. A thematic anthology can become a snapshot of the ideas
circulating at the time; it may, if it is skillfully put together, capture the
aura of a movement at a given period.
Early second wave anthologies, like Sisterhood is Powerful and
Radical Feminism, achieve that goal. The thematic choice of materials, the
organization and layout of the pieces, the figures of the contributors
themselves foreshadow the concerns which were later developed in theory
and the directions which feminist activism would take. Some of the pieces
touch on issues which already were or would shortly become the primary
concerns of the movement (abortion law repeal, power arrangements
within the heterosexual family unit), and some suggest possible future
sites of conflict within radical feminism (for example, pornography and
prostitution). As Joreens (Jo Freemans) piece on the problems resulting
from the rejection of patriarchal structure, The Tyranny of
Structurelessness from Radical Feminism, shows, the editors were not
afraid to include critiques of the womens liberation movement coming
from within the movement. Essays from the various anthologies form a
dialogue, respond to the ideas presented in the other ones, sometimes even
to specific texts.
The process of collecting and organizing materials was carried out with
feminist principles in mind. Although any social movement can create an
anthology of its writings, the ease of creating informal and short pieces
makes the form especially well suited to a movement of women because,
as Chester claims, the composition of a relatively short piece can be fitted
in with the many other duties which occupy womens time, and its length
is not overwhelming to the less experienced writer (Chester 195). Most of
the anthologies, with the exception of Feminist Revolution, sported the
names of the editors and the task of editing was sometimes shared between
several womenan idealistic gesture recalling the collective character of
the work and the spirit of sisterhood.6 Chester argues that what
distinguishes the genre of the feminist anthology from other types of
anthologies is the editorial intention to portray diverse perspectives, an
integral part, as Chester claims, of feminist sensibility in general.
Although the second wave has actually been criticized for its exclusionary
character, it is obvious from the texts chosen by the editors of the
6
For a thorough and thoughtful discussion of the concept of collaborative writing

as a feminist practice see Pamela Cotterill and Gayle Letherbys article
Collaborative Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of Working Together from AngLygate, Corrins and Henrys anthology Desperately Seeking Sisterhood: Still
Challenging and Building.
64
Chapter Two
anthologies, that they did their best to try to avoid such accusations. For
example, Robin Morgans early (1970) Sisterhod is Powerful includes
texts on and by lesbians, women of color and working class women. Of
course, there is no possibility of escaping the fact that the movement at
that time was predominantly white and based mostly in the urban
northeast, however, the need to acknowledge diversity was recognized by
the editors.
Many of the pieces included in the early anthologies turned into
feminist classics, which were later translated into many languages and
taught at colleges. Chester points out that published material which is
collected within the covers of a book is almost always granted higher
status than that which appears in a periodical and pamphlet, and is thus
more likely to be canonised (Chester 203). The early anthologies used
both original pieces and articles which had been earlier included in the
annual Notes of the Womens Liberation Movement. The inclusion of
various forms of expression was an organizing principle of the editors, the
articles ranged from personal accounts to theoretical studies and also
included some of the most important documents of the womens movement,
poems, songs, as well as appendices listing Drop Dead Lists of Books to
Watch Out For and Abortion Counseling Information. The contributors
included academics, who later went on to publish (or had just published)
substantial works of feminist theory (e.g. Shulamith Firestone), literary
criticism (Elaine Showalter, Naomi Weisstein, Cynthia Ozick, Kate
Millett), activists who later organized feminist services (Lucinda Cisler) as
well as writers of fiction (Alix Kates-Shulman, Marge Piercy).
The anthologies meant to provide a platform of discussion within the
movement, bring together the most important voices in the debates of the
time and make the texts accessible to a wider audience than the limited
circle of readers of the Notes. The hodgepodge of contributors and types of
contributions mirrored the dynamic state of the womens movement at the
time and the rejection of aesthetic norms considered to be patriarchal.
Robin Morgan comments on the mixture of the personal and the
theoretical in the anthology she edited: There is [] a blessedly uneven
quality noticeable in the book, which I, for one, delight in. There is a
certain kind of linear, tight, dry, boring, male super-consistency that we
are beginning to reject. Thats why this collection combines all sorts of
articles, poems, graphics and sundry papers (Morgan xvii). These
anthologies paved the way for the development of feminist theory, by
opposing what the editors considered to be stifling patriarchal legacies
through the mixing of genres, styles and registers and the mixing of the
theoretical with the personal.
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2.3. Getting personal in theory

It is this mixture of the personal and the theoretical, so evident in the early
second wave anthologies, which became an important element of feminist
aesthetics in general. Feminist scholars working within their disciplines
began introducing elements of personal experience into research and
scholarly writing, arguing that the disjunction between personal
experience and theory made it impossible to offer complete analyses. This
trend was especially visible in the field of feminist literary criticism, where
the agreed upon starting point of feminist criticism, that is the constructed
character of aesthetic value judgments, prompted an inquiry into how
those judgments were formed. Although many of the important founding
pieces of literary criticism offer commentary on the role of personal
experience for the critic, Jane Tompkinss 1987 essay Me and My
Shadow makes a succinct and clear case for the inclusion of the personal
in literary criticism. Tompkins summarizes feminist philosopher Alice
Jaggars analysis of reasons why women have been excluded from the
realm of theorybriefly, because women are the bearers of emotions which
men are expected to repress in order to produce legitimate theory,
womens epistemic authority is undercutand, using strong colloquial
language, phrases a personal plea for doing away with the disjunction
between the private life and the public work of academics. Tompkins
defiantly declares:
Well, Im tired of the conventions that keep discussion of epistemology, or
James Joyce, segregated from meditations on what is happening outside
my window or inside my heart. The public-private dichotomy, which is to
say the public-private hierarchy, is a founding condition of female
oppression. I say to hell with it. The reason I feel embarrassed at my own
attempts to speak personally in a professional context is that I have been
conditioned to feel that way. Thats all there is to it (Tompkins 2131).
The concept of introducing the personal as a category of thought and

gender as a category of analysis was a direct influence of the close
relationship between the activist and theoretical wings of the womens
liberation movement, an attempt to transfer the core tenet of the personal
is political onto academic fields, such as literary criticism. Feminism was
supposed to transform academic discourse and this was one of the
revolutionary strategies for achieving that goal.
In the 1980s, with the incorporation of womens/gender studies into
academic structures, most anthologies which included the word feminist
in the title became highly academic and lost the quality of coming from
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within an active womens movement, as the movement itself was losing

momentum, going through structural, organizational and leadership
changes. This is not to say that the anthologies using feminist analytical
methodologies ceased to exist in the 1980s and early 1990s. In fact, the
numbers of publications aimed for the academic market and offering
feminist perspectives on issues from crime to neuroscience, with special
emphasis on the social sciences, prove the opposite. Chester argues that in
Great Britain the more academic type of anthology still prevails (Chester
199) and that on the whole there has been a decline in feminist
anthologies with a political base in the Womens Liberation Movement
(200). Influenced by the development of Womens Studies courses and
departments in the 1980s and 1990s, the feminist anthology turned into an
academic genre, to be used as a textbook in the college classroom.
2.4. Features of third wave anthologies

This had been the case in the United States as well, up until the mid 1990s
and the emergence of the first third wave anthologies. Walkers To Be
Real (1995), following a resurgence of pro-choice activism in the early
1990s and the mobilization of feminists of all ages in support of Anita Hill
as evidenced by Walker herself in her 1992 Ms. essay Becoming the
Third Wave, delivered a refreshingly new type of feminist anthology,
offering perspectives from within the womens movement on the most
important concerns of the young generation of feminists. Arguably, the
collection embodies a rebellion against two aspects of what young women
associated with feminismits increasingly academic character and its
prescriptive didacticism; the younger generations perception of having to
conform to certain party line views in order to be a part of the
movement, as described by Walker herself in the introdution to the
collection. The solution applied in To Be Real, which, as it seems from the
introduction was Walkers personal idea and actually met with resistance
from people whom she had asked to contribute to the volume, was to put
together a collection of personal essays with emphasis on submissions
from a diverse range of young people and to avoid editorial intrusions in
the form of commentary or even the division of the book into sections;
therefore leaving the interpretative work to the readers. This gesture can
also be viewed as a gross exaggeration of the tenets of theorists like
Tompkins and of the strategies of earlier second wave thinkers, a total
exclusion of theory from theory.
Walker explains her selection of materials in the introduction to To Be
Real: I prefer personal testimonies because they build empathy and
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compassion and are infinitely more accessible than more academic tracts
(Walker xxxvii). Yet, the personal character of the essays has turned into a
double edged sword. Empathy and compassion, intentionally elicited by
the editor, preclude productive criticism and dialogue, as it is impossible
to argue with someone elses personal experience. Thus, in an attempt to
provide counterarguments to ideas presented by contributors of To Be
Real, the editors of many of the third wave anthologies which followed
Walkers book replicate her editorial strategy by combining first-person
confessional pieces. As a result, the pieces in the various anthologies do
not address each other and do not create a platform for discussion, because
they are preoccupied solely with relating the narrators personal experiences.
The idea of a critical debate is also constrained by the production
process described by Walker in the forewardthe simultaneous creation of
newly commissioned pieces of writing. Unlike second wave anthologies,
which collected pieces that had been in circulation in leaflet or brochure
form, all of the texts in To Be Real were written specifically for
publication in the anthology, ordered by the editor, as it can be assumed
from the Introduction, as young feminists views on specific issues.
Walkers anthology is not meant to record a heated debate coming from
within the third wave. The debate is with the second wave, or, as I argued
in the previous chapter, with the third waves concept of the second wave.
True, sometimes the arrangement of pieces within the anthology suggests
the possibility of two opposite third wave views on an issue, but these are
not presented as a vibrant, ongoing debate within feminism. For example,
two pieces on body imagebell hookss Beauty Laid Bare: Aesthetis in
the Ordinary and the interview with supermodel Veronica Webb How
Does a Supermodel Become a Feminist?take two opposite stands on the
issue of how beauty standards presented in the media affect young women,
but one never directly engages the other.
Walkers book was soon followed by Barbara Findlens Listen Up,
which replays the strategy used by To Be Real. The stories collected in
Listen Up include testimonies from fitness instructors, sexual abuse
survivors, ex-anorectics, obese women, immigrant women, women of
color, abortion stories and birth stories. These two books were followed by
Third Wave Agenda, an anthology which differs from both Walkers and
Findlens anthologies by mixing academic-style criticism with personal
testimony, photographs and feminist artwork, resembling in its
organizational structure, though not in the aesthetics of the artwork, the
famous second wave anthologies. Read chronologically, Third Wave
Agenda seems to have moved on from the purely confessional mode of the
first two anthologies and undertaken an analytical project; it spells out the
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connections which the first two anthologies only hinted at. Yet, the
anthologies which follow might as well have sprung out of a vacuum;
instead of taking the cue from Third Wave Agenda, or going in a different
direction altogether, they revert to the personal testimony style of
Walkers and Findlens collections. Melody Bergers We Dont Need
Another Wave (2006) is a collection of very short essays written almost
exclusively by college-aged women; women who have not only grown up
with feminism, but who have actually grown up with the third wave of
feminism and feel exhausted with the debate over the differences between
the second and the third waves, which, to them, are similarly insignificant
as debates about ancient history. Yet, what they deliver is more of the
same type of writing as what was published ten years earlier; stories of
oppression, discrimination, and success stories of how the intuition and
courage of the authors helped them overcome discrimination and improve
their self-confidence.
Before analyzing some selected pieces from the anthologies in a closer
way, it will be helpful to discuss what kinds of narrative practices have
had influence on the development of third wave writing, in addition to the
already discussed form of feminist anthology. I would like to argue that
the most important building blocks of the third wave essay include the
legacies of three narrative practices. They are: the feminist confession, the
feminist practice of consciousness-raising and the language and ideas of
the 1980s self-help movement (in short, recovery talk). Together, these
three narrative practices contribute to the shape of third wave anthologies,
which either replicate them or engage them in confrontational ways.
2.5. Block I: feminist confession

Rita Felskis 1998 essay On Confession provides an interpretive
framework for analyzing the genre of feminist confession. Felski defines
feminist confession as a type of autobiographical writing which signals
its intention to foreground the most personal and intimate details of the
authors life (Felski 83). Felskis definition is very broad and can, in fact,
encompass at least several non-fiction genres, yet the books she focuses on
are mostly full-length memoirs. Although Felski emphasizes the intimate
character of confession, she also immediately notices that in feminist
writings there is always a tension between presenting the personal and the
need to generalizethat is to present the personal as representative of a
womans life. Many theorists have already written on this topic more
broadly, with regards to womens autobiography in general, noticing that
while the classic eighteenth century enlightenment genre aimed to
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foreground the unique life of an exceptional individual, autobiographies

written by women tend to focus on collective life, not on individual
achievement. Felski notices that even in the most personal of the feminist
genres, the confession, there is still a tension between representing
personal experience as unique to an individual and as representative of a
group. She argues:
feminist confession [] is less concerned with unique individuality or
notions of essential humanity than with delineating the specific problems
and experiences which bind women together. It thus tends to emphasize the
ordinary events of a protagonists life, their typicality in relation to a
notion of communal identity (84).
The reasons why this tension is a defining feature of the genre are
threefold. Firstly, many arguments have been put forward concerning the
greater significance of communal identity for women, ranging from
reasons based on womens supposedly better social skills, through
arguments emphasizing womens involvement in the community, to ideas
of women as the carriers of communal identity who pass it on to children
through the process of socialization. Whichever concept one accepts, they
all center around the idea that community is crucially important for women.
Secondly, the tension between the individual and the representative
becomes a given when the adjective feminist is added to the genre of
confession. Feminist literature in general is interested in portraying the
lives of women as gendered beings and in revealing how gender-based
oppression shapes their lives. This goal is sometimes undertaken more
overtly, as in genres such as the consciousness-raising novel, but is an
inherent feature of practically all writing that can be described as feminist.
Therefore, feminist confession by definition should provide, or at least
encourage, a reflection on how the narrators experience was shaped by
her gender and, what follows, how it resembles the experiences of other
women. Paradoxically, confession is well suited to this political
endeavour, because of its simple, concrete non-theoretical language. This
is why it was an important genre for numerous social movements of the
1960s, not just for feminism. Because confession avoids theoretical
abstraction, it is easily accepted by movements which express ambivalence
towards classic theoretical language.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the tension between the personal and
the representative in feminist confession is connected not just to the
political function of the narrative, but also to the implied existence of the
addressee, who, in the case of this genre, is not just the general public, but
a sympathetic female confidante. The existence of this implied reader
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forms the definition of what constitutes commonality, what experiences

the narrator assumes will be empathetically understood by the addressee.
Felski writes:
This sense of commonality is accentuated through a tone of intimacy,
shared allusions, and unexplained references with which the reader is
assumed to be familiar. The implied reader of the feminist confession is the
sympathetic female confidante and is often explicitly encoded in the text
through appeals, questions, and direct address. The importance of the
reader is directly related to the belief that she will understand and share the
authors position [] (86).
This expectation encourages a specific type of interaction and a specific

style of narrationunrelativized first-person narration with a thematic
concentration on feelings and personal relationships, frequent use of
informal and non-literary style and the downplaying of the aesthetic and
fictive aspects of the text. The text is supposed to be read as a spontaneous
overflow of feelings, produced without careful consideration of its
aesthetic aspects. Obviously, no literary text is produced this way, but
what the attempt to achieve this effect reveals is the importance of the
desire to connect with the reader on an intimate level.
In The Erotics of Talk: Womens Writing and Feminist Paradigms
Carla Kaplan suggests that the desire to be listened to by an ideal listener
is one of the most important paradigms in feminist writing. She identifies
the erotics of talk as a topos which can be placed alongside, or opposite,
the search for a voice, arguing that the search for a voice is a more actionand goal-oriented paradigm while the topos of the erotics of talk is
concerned less with achieving a measurable political goal and more with
fulfilling an often unconscious desire, the desire to be understood. Kaplan
writes:
An erotics of talk might be understood as wish fulfillment fantasy: a desire
to be reassured that exchange between people is still possible, that we are
not merely alone, speaking to ourselves, talking into the empty void of a
world from which meaningful and satisfying interrelationship has been
eradicated (Kaplan 15).
Kaplan is not analyzing feminist confession as a genre, but Felskis idea

that one of the main reasons for the creation of confession writing is the
longing for intimacy with a sympathetic reader fits perfectly into Kaplans
discussion of how the erotics of talk functions in womens fiction.
However, Felskis analysis is not a laudatory review of feminist
confession. On the contrary, she emphasizes several problems inherent to
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the genre. On the political level, although the confession is sometimes

used as an alternative to traditional political discourse, the very personal
character of the genre makes it prone to reinscribing the very limitations it
is trying to overcome. Specifically, although the description of ones life
as a member of a marginalized group may carry subversive potential,
through the topos which Kaplan would call assuming a voice, at the
same time the internalized cultural values which define specific identities
as marginal, or deviant can come to the surface in feelings of anxiety and
guilt (Felski 88). Obviously, patriarchal ideology has shaped the narrating
subject just as much as it has shaped anyone else and traces of that
ideology will be detectable even in a genre which speaks against it.
Although stepping out of ideology is, of course, impossible, a more
overtly analytical or theoretical genre makes the critique of this ideology
more straightforward.
Yet, this is just the first side effect of using a genre which claims to be
unmediated and honest. The dynamics of confessional narrative, from
a readers perspective, assume that it is possible to reveal someones true
self and, from a writers perspective, that self-examination and selfdisclosure can and do lead to self-knowledge. Both of these assumptions
have been questioned by postmodern theorists. The self in a narrative is
always carefully constructed, no matter how aware or unaware of this fact
the writer is. Therefore, it would seem that confession is a genre which
should not exist in its traditional form in the postmodern world in which
the recognition of problems with self-representation is common
knowledge. Yet, not only does it exist, in recent years it has flourished.
The third wave confessional boom is part of a much larger phenomenon.
Felski argues that the reason for the resurgence of interest in confessional
genres, and it should be noted that her article was published in 1998
before the proliferation of blogs and other multi-media confessionsis in
fact connected to the longing for the community which has been lost with
the advent of late capitalism. Tracing the history of the genre, from the
Middle Ages when confession was used as a mechanism of social control,
and a reaffirmation of social order to the eighteenth century when
confession became an affirmation and exploration of free subjectivity, she
recounts the argument that capitalism offered individual emancipation
from authority of tradition, but at the cost of alienation from society,
which ceased to be a source of accepted values and systems of belief. In
such a society, and the contemporary postmodern society, the popularity of
confession can be seen as a logical result of the increasing alienation; a
longing for the lost sense of intimacy and community, both the desire of
the reader for intimacy with the narrator and the authors desire for
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intimacy with the reader, the sympathetic female confidante. Felski

writes:
[T]he production of the text itself functions as an attempted compensation
for this failure [failure of intimacy], generating in the relationship between
the reader and author the erotic mutuality which cannot otherwise be
realized. Writing, seemingly, the most isolated of activities, becomes the
means to the creation of an ideal intimacy (Felski 89).
And indeed, the effects of reading a confession can be amazingly

stronganother explanation for the popularity of the genre at a time when
strong emotions are in demand. Felski describes several instances of
readers falling in love with the narrator of a confession. This is exactly the
erotic charge Kaplan describes when she talks about the erotics of talk.
However, and this is something Felski fails to say outright, although the
relationship can be intense, the actual ideal intimacy is an illusion because
the narrator of the confession is a textual construct. In the history of the
womens movement there existed a practice which aimed at creating actual
intimacy and simultaneously focused on achieving political goals. The
legacy of this practiceand I am referring to consciousness-raisingis
highly debated, yet, it is most definitely one of the building blocks for the
use of the personal in third wave feminism.
2.6. Block II: consciousness-raising

Quite overtly, the role third wave anthologies play in the contemporary
womens movement is dramatically different from the role played by
second wave anthologies. Arguably, the feminist anthologies of today
attempt to play a function which in second wave feminism was realized
through a different genre, the second wave fiction bestsellers, often called
consciousness-raising novels, which, in turn, were rooted in the legacy of
consciousness-raising groups from the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Consciousness-raising was both a theory of communicative ethics and that
theorys realization in practice, through certain protocols followed by
women attending CR meetings.
Consciousness-raising, a term borrowed from Marxism, was a
technique used by feminist groups to make women aware of the political
character of personal experience, or, to rephrase, of the fact that certain
misfortunes were not falling upon them because they were unlucky people,
but because they were women. Sara Evans describes the goals of CR in
Personal Politics: People first had to understand that their problems were
social and not personal in nature and that collective action could solve
73
them (Evans 133-134). The process of consciousness-raising was carried

out in small groups of about 10 to 12 women, meeting weekly to discuss
different issues on the basis of personal experiences of the women in the
group. The women sat in a circle and took turns speaking, without being
judgmental and interrupting the other speakers.
In The Erotics of Talk Kaplan recalls Jurgen Habermass idea of the
ideal speech situation, that is a context in which all speakers engage in
discourse in the public sphere on an equal footing. Specifically, an ideal
speech situation is one where every subject with the competence to speak
and act is allowed to take part in discourse; it is a situation of dialogue
free of external pressures and internal distortions in which participants
would respond to the force of the better argument alone (Habermas in
Kaplan 9). Consciousness-raising was an attempt to enact the ideal
speech situation through enforcing specific protocols.
The process might seem calm and peaceful but its goal was, as Kathie
Sarachild, a member of Redstockings, a radical feminist group from New
York, described in a 1973 essay Consciousness-Raising: A Radical
Weapon: to start a mass movement of women to put an end to the
barriers of segregation and discrimination based on sex (Sarachild 144,
emphasis by Sarachild). Even CR meetings were never all talk, as it was
assumed that certain material conditions had to be met in order for CR to
be able to take place. As Kaplan writes, group members did everything
from provide child-care services to help each other get jobs or get out of
stifling relationships in the belief that life changes had to precede, not just
result from, womens ability to speak freely (Kaplan 154). However,
most importantly, CR groups were supposed to transform into radical
feminist groups organizing various kinds of events; CR was supposed to
move from words to actions.
Consciousness-raising later transpired into various forms of feminist
art, from poetry to zines. It was realized on a larger scale in popular
feminist novels of the time: the consciousness-raising novels I have
referred to, feminist art and media. Lisa Maria Hogeland, while analyzing
the feminist novels of the 1970s, notices that CR has not become a thing of
the past, although it has most definitely transformed. The role of CR
novels of the 1970s was to provide [] more personal narratives, more
and more extended versions of the testimony that women provided in the
face-to-face group meetings which were the basis of CR (Hogeland 24).
When reading such novels the readers were expected to identify with the
main characters and see the common features, the similarities between
their lives and the lives of the characters in the novels and to recognize the
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forces shaping the lives of the fictional characters as the same forces
which have influence over their lives.
In Feminism and Its Fictions Hogeland describes her experiences with
asking contemporary students to read 1970s CR novels. It seems the
students did not take to such novels as easily as she had expected them to.
Hogeland explains:
My feminist students today read in ways different from the ways I read as
an undergraduate feminist in the late 1970s. Reductively (and polemically)
put, I see our reading strategies as shaped by this disjunction: my students
read for difference where I read for identity. Or, perhaps more accurately,
my students read for specificity where I read for universality (xiii).
The paradigm for second wave consciousness-raising was indeed that

of identification and generalization, a nave and simplistic paradigm which
most definitely brought about the demise of the practice itself. Yet,
bearing all this in mind, Kaplan still feels feminism owes a lot to the
idealistic project:
[I]t is easy to deride consciousness-raising for self-indulgence,
assumptions of female sameness, a failure to address sufficiently the
effects of race, class, and sexuality, a kind of generalized and operative
naivete. But it is also hard to overstate the positive, political impact of
womens groups gathered to talk (Kaplan 154).
After all, at the height of the consciousness-raising there were more than
100,000 women involved in CR groups.
It is hard to say that CR failed because it most certainly mobilized
huge numbers of women, but it definitely waned, declined in popularity
and importance. One of the reasons was the gradual realization of CRs
exclusionary character and of the silences it enforced while eliciting
certain types of responses. Specifically, the definition of womanhood
created by the experiences shared in CR was a definition pertaining only to
a specific group of womenthose who engaged in CR. And they happened
to be mostly white, middle class and heterosexual. Furthermore, in
Kaplans terms, CR did not achieve all of its goals because it shifted from
an attempt at combining the politics of voice with the erotics of talk
the project of creating a safe space for the articulation of ideas that would
lead to social change, to the practice of the erotics of talk exclusively. It
turned out that complete safety was not productive. The safe and
comfortable environment of CR may have, in fact, become too comfortable
for many women to leave. At the same time, while constructive ideas
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could have been developed within CR, the very protocols which ensured
equal footing curtailed debate and disagreement. Kaplan argues that the
seeds of that failure were present from the beginningcomplementing Lisa
Hogelands argument that CR evolved from hard, task-oriented CR to
soft, talk-oriented CRin the rigid organizational and operative
structures of CR groups. Kaplan asks: [w]ithout some license for challenge,
disagreement and question, how could participants hope to transform one
another, to recreate understandings, to challenge and provoke new forms
of consciousness itself? (155).
2.7. Consciousness-raising and the third wave

My claim is that the personal essays collected in third wave anthologies
serve the same function (that of consciousness-raising) as CR novels of the
1970s, but the characteristics of CR have changed, as have, according to
Hogeland, general paradigms of womens reading practices, from reading
for universality to reading for specificity. Third wave feminism has been
shaped by multiculturalism and postcolonialism and, in general, a
sensitivity to difference and a fear of generalizations. Therefore, third
wave narratives place more emphasis on diversity of experience. This
makes the form of an anthology of personal essays much better suited to
representing the mindset of third wave feminism than that of a novel
with a single main character and a storyline documenting the characters
transformation. Furthermore, compilations of personal essays on a specific
topic resemble the process of classic small-group consciousness-raising.
Of course, what makes these anthologies different from the stories
exchanged in CR groups, and which violates the golden rule of feminist
consciousness-raisingthat the stories be shared with others because of the
confidence that they would never leave the roomis the public character of
this testimony.
This is not to say that public testimony was an unacceptable strategy
for second wavers. It had been used by the womens liberation movement
to its advantage in, for example, public speakouts on abortion, rape and
sexual harrassment. Its effectiveness in swaying public opinion in favor of
the cause, lay in the same features which Walker found important for the
texts included in To Be Realin generating empathy and compassion.
Public testimony can be an empowering form of breaking the silence about
taboo topics and there are moments when the anthologized essays manage
to achieve that. Yet, the strength of public testimony lies in its shock
value, in the detabooization of the taboo, a feature which becomes lost
in the repetitiveness of the genre. In the second wave, public testimony
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was a point of departure for theory and activism and a strategy for the
realization of political goals. In third wave writings, these points become
questionable.
So far, I have discussed these anthologies as consciousness-raising
tools aimed at the outside public, at the readers. Most overtly, the goal of
these texts is to elicit empathy and raise the consciousness of the reader,
convince her that because the stories she is reading are so diverse, she too,
can identify as a feminist. Yet, there is also one more CR aspect of the
anthologies, their function as therapeutic support groups for the contributors.
Many of the key figures in third wave feminism, writers, activists and
theorists, have also published full-length memoirs, often very early on in
their careersRebecca Walkers Black White and Jewish: Memoir of a
Shifting Self was published when she was thirty, most works by the
prolific Michelle Tea are autobiographical and the two most overtly
autobiographical ones The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption
of One Girl in America and The Chelsea Whistle, a memoir of Teas
childhood, were published by the time she turned thirty. bell hooks Bone
Black: Memories of Girlhood proves an exception to this memoir under
thirty rule, yet hookss comments about the importance of publishing a
memoir provide insight into this phenomenon of third wave feminist
memoir writing. hooks argues that telling the story of my growing up
years was intimately connected with the longing to kill the self I was
without really having to die. I wanted to kill that self in writing. Once that
was goneout of my life foreverI could more easily become the me of
me (hooks in Felman 16). What hooks is admitting to in this passage is
the therapeutic effect of memoir writing on the writer, a fact which begs to
be analyzed not only in the case of full-length memoirs, but also in the
case of the aforementioned anthologies.
Not only does an anthology like Yell-Oh Girls aid the process of
consciousness-raising of the readers, but also creates a community of the
contributors resembling a consciousness-raising group. Hogeland explains:
CR had long been recognized to have, at least incidentally, a particular
kind of therapeutic effectspecifically, it was understood to replace
therapy, in the sense that the assurance women received from CR that they
were not crazy would enable them to forgo patriarchal therapys enforced
reconciliation with gender-based systems of domination (Hogeland 27).
CR as understood by second wave feminists was supposed to be a tool

leading to political action. One of the conflicts in the 1970s womens
movement concerned the direction CR was going in. Hogeland writes that
so-called soft CR was so intensely focused on personal experience that
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the rules for its practice disallowed theorizing, generalizing, and

challenging. In The Culture of Recovery Elayne Rapping views soft CR
groups as precursors of self-help groups, which, as some theorists and
historians claim, led to the deradicalization of the womens movement in
the 1980s.
2.8. Block III: recovery culture

In The Culture of Recovery: Making Sense of the Self-Help Movement in
Womens Lives (1996) Elayne Rapping analyzes how certain feminist and
New Left ideas dating back to the 1960s turned into founding blocks of the
self-help movement, at the same time masking their original revolutionary
goals of achieving political change. Rappings book traces the roots of the
self-help movement, which permeated 1980s popular culture not just via
actual self-help groups but also through made for television movies,
popular talks shows and bestselling books, back to the organizational
structure of radical feminist consciousness-raising groups. Indeed, groups
such as Alcoholics Anonymous and other kinds of 12-step recovery
groups which stemmed from AA;7 for example, Sexoholics Anonymous
(SA), Codependents Anonymous (CODA), Overeaters Anonymous (OA),8
adopted the methods for conducting meetings introduced by CR groups.
Yet, these technicalities were not the only feature self-help groups took
over from CR. Most importantly, CR provided a basic set of guidelines for
sharing personal experiences with the hope that these narratives would
lead to individual empowerment and, at least in the case of classic CR, to
collective action aimed at changing the circumstances of oppression.
Rapping writes:
CR, like the newer kinds of recovery theories, ultimately builds a
worldview which is powerful in its all-inclusiveness and ability to explain
and integrate many phenomena. It posits a simple, common set of root
7
For a description of the history and organization of Alcoholics Anonymous see
Alcoholics Anonymous. The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women
Have Recovered from Alcoholism, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed. new
and rev. 2001.
8
It is important to note that although AA was founded by Bill Wilson and Bob
Smith in 1935, well before the second wave of feminism in the US, AA groups
were predominantly male. The popularity of 12-step groups among women soared
in the 1980s when the range of various recovery groups was increased. Rapping
argues that the appeal of these groups to women was connected with the existence
of the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
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causes [] which, it is assumed, affect all members identically (Rapping
55).
In the case of CR groups the root cause is the fundamental inequality of

men and women in a patriarchal society. Rapping argues that in the
recovery movement the root cause of the individuals life problems is
phrased in the language of illness; it is ones toxic parent or a childhood
trauma that make one prone to addictions responsible for the resulting
calamities which can only be overturned through the rigid adherence to a
12-step program.
Rapping views the development of the recovery movement in the early
1980s as a logical solution to a post 1960s world, which had suddenly
become confusing and difficult to navigate. The recovery movement,
according to Rapping, offered a comforting and supportive environment
(61). In this way, a self-help recovery group also resembles a CR group;
both create friendly and safe spaces one can belong to and constitute a
community based on shared experience. However, the goal of the recovery
movement at its best is the rehabilitation of the individual as a productive
member of the society, not the change of the factors in the organization of
the society which caused the individuals problem in the first place,
revealing the main difference between the two types of groups. Poignantly,
in the self-help movement the social causes of individuals destructive
behaviors go completely unnoticed. The personal does become public, that
is private lives become public knowledge of everyone in the group, but it
does not become political because the language of disease precludes
change. For if ones problems are caused by an incurable diseaseand
admitting this state is the first step in all types of 12-step programsthe
best that can be done is managing the symptoms in a way which enable
the patient to resume the life she had been leading before the onset of
the disease.
One can hardly blame people struggling with life threatening behaviors,
such as alcoholics, for not wanting to become involved in social change,
but, as Rappings research shows, in the heyday of the recovery
movement, the majority of self-help groups did not deal with alcoholism.
Rappings experiences as auditor of various self-help groups in New
York City led her to observe that, although there indeed existed groups
which dealt with actual addictions, many of the self-help groups used the
addiction model as a springboard to discuss various kinds of non-addiction
related behaviors and, sometimes, turned into gab fests or kaffee
klatsches for people to gripe about their private lives and get agreement
and support (118). Such groups were not focused on providing specific
solutions and on supporting the members in adhering to a recovery
79
regimen, but functioned as outlets for personal stories which could not be
told in any other group. Rapping carried out the research for her book in
New York City, predominantly among urban professionals. The meetings
themselves were scheduled during lunch breaks in the Manhattan-based
corporations the members worked in. As she writes, [m]ost members
simply came in, yelled, whimpered, or blankly recited their deepest, most
publicly controlled, secret anguish, usually in terms learned in recovery
literature and meetings, inflected, subtly, with gender politics and then
left (110). These groups functioned as ersatz communities for the 1980s
urban world, offering a safe space to bring up ones personal problems,
without the need for creating closer personal ties with other members of
the community.
In The Erotics of Talk Kaplan, while putting forward her theory of the
search for the ideal listener in feminist writing, notices that one of the
reasons for the preoccupation with the implied addressee of confessional
literature is the strong cultural prohibition on self-talk, that is, on speaking
to oneself, without an addressee. Paraphrasing sociologist Erving
Goffmans ideas presented in Forms of Talk, she writes that no form of
talk is as self-effacing, humiliating, or damaging to ones social standing
as talking to ourselves: displaying our lack of a proper and appropriate
interlocutor (Kaplan 13). Self-talk is either perceived as immature (after
all, small children talk to themselves) or dangerous (lunatics and drunks
talk to themselves too), therefore, as Kaplan writes, the compulsion to
produce a listener is not only a strong one, but is also motivated by a
number of negative associations (13). Rappings description of recovery
groups such as CODA suggests that their members are not interested in
establishing a community operating outside of the meeting rooms. The
primary purpose of the groups thus becomes providing listeners, even if
completely passive and uninterested onesas Rapping notes, many of the
attendees never listen to what other speakers have to say, but are
engrossed in preparing their own performance. The existence of the
listeners confirms the speakers maturity and social standing, all the while
not requiring the type of emotional commitment an actual personal
relationship would require. The group becomes, in fact, an alibi for
engaging in narcissistic self-talk.
Furthermore, membership in such a community does not require any
commitment to activism beyond attending meetings. In fact, the
popularization of the self-help movement through the media and books
created, as Rapping writes, a mass social movement held together by a set
of ideas and beliefs about social and personal life [] more dependent
upon books, TV programs, conferences and seminarsthan upon actual
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group or individual activity to determine membership and identity (136).

This creates yet another difference between the functioning of CR groups
and self-help groups. Feminist CR groups in the 1960s were supposed to
evolve into activist groups, even if this did not always happen. But the
point of defamiliarizing gender relations and uncovering a root cause of
the problems was to mobilize the members to collective action.
In terms of chronology, Rappings book predates the third wave
anthology outbreak and was, or at least can be read as, written during a
void in feminist activism; Rapping refers to the feminist movement only in
the past as she analyzes the influence it exerted on the popularization of
the late 1980s and early 1990s self-help movement which, as she notices,
has become the dominant form of womens organizing. Rapping does not
foresee the emergence of the third wave of feminism, although clearly her
analysis provides a partial answer to the question of the prevalence of the
broadly defined personal in third wave feminism. She describes how
radical feminism shaped the recovery movement, but what can be implied
from the analysis is how the self-help movement of the 1980s shaped the
third wave of feminism of the 1990s. It cannot be negated that the young
women of the 1990s grew up with the gains of feminism, but they also
grew up in the times of the self-help movement which had a similarly
significant influence on them.
One of the major symptoms of the recovery movements influence
on third wave feminism is the lack of transition from personal experience
to either activism or theory in the essays written by third wavers.
However, the writers themselves would, without a doubt, refute such
accusations. What clearly happens in the third wave is the stretching of the
definition of political activism to include personal growth and development.
The moments which are dubbed as political or revolutionary are
instances of the realization of ones oppression and the emergence of the
will to change ones victim status. In several essays in Barbara Findlens
Listen Up, the discovery of feminism is portrayed as a successful strategy
for dealing with a personal problem and for improving ones self-esteem.
Abra Fortune Cherniks essay The Body Politic is an account of her
struggle with anorexia, in which feminist insight played a crucial role:
Armed with this [feminist] insight, I loosened the grip of the starvation
disease on my body. I determined to recreate myself based on an image of
a woman warrior. I remembered my ocean, and I took my first bite.
Gaining weight and getting my head out of the toilet bowl was the most
political act I have ever committed (Chernik in Findlen 108).
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A similar paradigm can be traced in an essay describing a different

authors struggle for self-acceptance as a fat woman. According to Nomy
Lamm, her self-acceptance of her fat body as beautiful is an act of
revolutionary significance: Wheres the revolution? My body is fucking
beautiful, and every time I look in the mirror and acknowledge that, I am
contributing to the revolution (Lamm in Findlen 137). Most of the stories
in Findlens anthology are also personal accounts of continuing struggle
for self-acceptance in spite of being labeled as odd, queer or strange, on
the basis of race (JeeYeun Lees Beyond Bean Counting), class (Maria
Cristina Rangels Knowledge is Power), disability (Cheryl Greens
One Resilient Baby), sexual activity (Rebecca Walkers Lusting for
Freedom), experience of sexual abuse (Emilie Morgans Dont Call Me
a Survivor). In most of these stories feminism becomes a catalyst which
allows these outcast women to increase their self-esteem and, therefore,
to function better in life. Their common complaint seems to be the lack of
acceptance from society in general and from the communities they grew
up in, which they view as lying at the roots of their problems. Rebecca
Walker ends her section with a plea which could summarize the demands
of most of the other contributors: We are growing, thinking, inquisitive,
self-posessed beings []. We deserve to have our self-esteem nurtured
and our personal agency encouraged (Walker in Findlen 24).
The most political moments in these accounts are the instances in
which the authors decide to change their lives by improving their physical
health and mental self-esteem. Sometimes, such changes require
alterations in the individuals behavior (anorectic Chernik stops starving
herself), but sometimes only a new perspective is necessary for the
individual to change her life (Lamms acceptance of her fat body).
Feminism is then realized through resisting temptation to accept mainstream
societys ideas about the nature of ones experiences. In other words, the
authors practice feminism by not dieting, not succumbing to the pressure
to perceive themselves as uglyin general, through lifestyle choices.
2.9. The politics of third wave confession

Many of the stories included in Findlens Listen Up are structured as
recovery narratives, the kinds of stories Elayne Rapping heard recounted
during the meetings of various self-help groups she attended. All such
stories include elements of confession, the baring of ones soul. I have
discussed how, according to Rita Felski, confession operates as a feminist
genre and why she claims it cannot deliver what it promises. As can be
implied from the practices of self-help groups, confession is also the basic
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narrative paradigm for the recovery movement. Stories told at meetings

follow one of two scenarios. They can be a progressive account of the
individuals pitfalls, mistakes, increasing harm inflicted on others and
oneself, a story of falling down to the very bottom and finally seeing the
light, recognizing ones addiction and joining a twelve-step group. This
type of narrative resembles the conversion narrative, which is deeply
ingrained in American culture and which has also, albeit with some
alterations, been used by the feminist movement in its various stages of
development.
The original conversion narrative, as practiced in seventeenth century
Puritan New England, was supposed to prove that the individual was
accepted into the divine state of grace and was required for full church
membership. Such narratives consisted of specific stages which the
convert went through on his way to salvation. In the Cambridge
Introduction to Early American Literature Emory Elliot calls these steps,
as outlined by seventeenth century Puritan minister Thomas Hooker, the
morphology of conversion. Elliot writes: The six essential stages of this
morphology of conversion were contrition, humiliation, vocation,
implantation, exaltation, and possession; and these he subdivided further.
He required that a prospective member demonstrate to him and then to the
congregation a successful passage through these stages (Elliot 47). The
Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous basically mirror the stages of
conversionthe recovering alcoholic is supposed to move from the
recognition of his addiction (Step 19), through contrition for his
wrongdoings (Steps 5, 8 and 9), to an awareness of the saving power of
God as we understand him (Steps 10 and 11) and to carrying the
message to other alcoholics. Humiliation and Vocation, the stages of
Puritan conversion which consisted of misery and despair in the possibility
of Salvation have not been included in the twelve steps of AA, but remain
an integral part of the recovery process creating a separate sub-genre of the
recovery narrative, which can be called the temptation narrative. In
The Culture of Recovery Rapping relates moving accounts of the struggles
of recovering alcoholics, their setbacks, their early morning jitters and
aborted trips to the liquor store.
The forms of third wave feminist confessions, as exemplified in the
popular anthologies, draw on the recovery narratives of the twelve step
programs and, automatically, on the classic Puritan conversion narrative
9
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous published by Hazeldean Publishing in

1993 provides a detailed account of the Twelve Step program, including elaborate
descriptions of each of the steps. A list of the steps can be found on page ix of this
publication.
83
as the recovery movement is openly based on religious ideas. In fact, the

various kinds of feminist confession narratives can be roughly divided into
three types of categories. I would propose to call them: the feminist
conversion, third wave temptation narrative and the coming out
story. These are not neat divisions, the boundaries of each type of
narrative are not clear-cut and sometimes overlap, but this framework still
provides a basic typology of third wave confessions and enables an
analysis of what elements are drawn from which sources of inspiration and
of how third wave confession differs from the previous uses of confession
in the womens movement. I would like to take a closer look at several
pieces from the anthologies, using examples from Walkers To Be Real,
Findlens Listen Up and Bergers We Dont Need Another Wave. These
collections consist of the highest percentage of pieces which can be called
confessional.
The feminist conversion narrative, a personal story describing how
one became a feminist has been widely used by the preceding generations
of feminists, though rarely realized in essay form. Most second wave
conversion narratives were written as chapters in full-length memoirs,
or, the complete opposite to this full-length genreletters to the editors of
popular magazines. As Felski notes, in the confession genre, the existence
of the addressee is of crucial significance. And some of the
chronologically second wave pieces which operate as conversion
narratives were in fact forms which could not exist without a clearly
defined addressee, that is lettersletters to the editor of a popular magazine
such as Ms. or responses to the authors of popular feminist books. The title
of Betty Friedans second book, It Changed My Life: Writings on the
Womens Movement (1976), is a direct reference to the types of letters she
received after the publication of The Feminine Mystique (1963). Friedan
included fragments from these letters in the second chapter of It Changed
My Life. The letters were highly personal stories recounting how the
discovery of Friedans book and, concurrently, feminism dramatically
altered the authors perspectives on a multitude of issues.
The authors describe their pre-feminism lives which lacked a sense
of purpose and no perspectives for a happy future. A 26-year-old mother
of three wrote: Here I am! I feel like an appliance. [] My brain seems
dead, and I am nothing but a parasite (Friedan 21). Then they turn to the
dramatic change brought about by the discovery of feminism, the
feminist conversion and its effects. A woman from Iowa described how
The Feminine Mystique finally put into words her own thoughts and
feelings and gave her the motivation for self-development: Thank God
someone had the insight and courage to write it. It struck at the center of
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my being. I am finally confident of myself and my desire to launch the

career Ive wanted for so long (27). A young bride-to-be wrote: I saw in
marriage the opportunity to become a woman by completely immersing
myself in husband and home. I still want to marry, but now I know I can
only give to my marriage what I am as a person. And I know I cannot be a
full person if I live exclusively in a ghetto of diapers and dishpans (27).
These feminist conversions, sent in to Friedan, share a lot of the
features of the pieces included in third wave anthologies. They are direct
and intensely personal. They are written in informal, nonliterary style, they
are not meant to be works of artin fact it can be assumed they were not
meant for publicationbut authentic revelations of ones soul, written
without the consciousness of how problematic such an attempt may be in
theoretical terms. The form of the letter emphasizes the existence of a
sympathetic addressee and fosters the atmosphere of intimacy created by
the piece. Another feature which is striking in the short section Friedan
devotes to these letters is the overwhelming feeling of emotional and
physical isolation which the women were experiencing. There are feelings
of physical alienation in middle-class suburban homes in towns scattered
across the continent: Some of us are trapped, with no hope of freedom
(26), feelings of alienation from ones husband [i]t takes a real woman to
sit home every night raising his kids while hes living it up high, wide and
handsome (24) and, most significantly, isolation from other women: I
renounced all social life and recreation in order to spend time with my
children (23). The achievement which they credit Friedan with is the
easing of their alienation through a sense of the commonality of their
experience: I am grateful because you have dispelled some of the
loneliness I have felt (23).
It is important to emphasize that the letters included in It Changed My
Life document the feminist conversion of a specific group of women,
Friedans target audience of her first book. The womens assumption of
Friedans sympathy and friendliness was based on their belief in the
commonality of their shared situation. As Felski writes, feminist
confession, by contrast, is less concerned with unique individuality or
notions of essential humanity than with delineating the specific problems
and experiences which bind women together (Felski 84). The Feminine
Mystique, the book the women were referencing as the turning point in
their lives, had been written from the perspetive of a middle-class stay-athome housewife and mother and the women who sent their letters to
Friedan were mostly in the same social and financial situation. Thus, the
problems they encountered in their lives as women were also specific to
this category of women. It is now common knowledge that Friedans
85
positioning of herself as the typical housewife was a tactical maneuver

aimed at fostering a bond of intimacy with a specific group of women
rather than an unproblematic self-identification.10 The Feminine Mystique
has been criticized for its lack of representativeness and focus on middle
class white women and it is important to note that there exist examples of
feminist confessions written at the same time by women from completely
different backgrounds. Yet, the reason why I include the discussion of
these letters is because setting them next to third wave confessional pieces
reveals the most clearly the evolution of the genre of feminist confession
from the second to the third wave of feminism.
The third wave versions of feminist conversion, as realized, for
example, in Abra Fortune Cherniks The Body Politic (in Findlen),
Elena Azzonis Seventh Grade Slut (in Berger), L.A. Mitchells The
Healing Vagina (in Berger), reveal the influence of recovery talk on the
structuring of the conversion narrative. Such stories open with the
description of a significant problem in the narrators personal life; a
problem which may stem from a traumatic childhood experience, or from
the internalization of societys expectations and contradictory pop-cultural
messages. L.A. Mitchell opens her essay with a description of how her
hatred of her body kept her from realizing her full potential in life: I was,
to use a word I now despise, ashamed of my desires. Even more than that,
I was terrified of myself (Mitchell in Berger 107). Chernik describes the
effects of anorexia on her psyche: Curled up inside my thinness, a
refugee in a cocoon of hunger, I lost the capacity to care about myself and
others (Chernik in Findlen 103). The story follows with descriptions of
how succumbing to the illness (which is not always a physical disorder
like anorexia) ruined the narrators relationship with friends and family
and brought down her self-esteem. When the narrator reaches the very
bottom, some life-altering force makes her turn around and realize the
harm she is doing to herself and others.
The turning point may be the direct influence of feminist mentors, [i]n
feminist circles I have found mentors, strong women who live with power,
passion and purpose (Chernik 110), or womens studies courses in
college, I went off to college and found myself in my first womens
studies class. I dont even remember choosing it, but within a semester I
declared it my major and began attending protests and marches for
10
for example, in Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique Daniel
Horowitz documents Friedans work in the post-war labor movement and other
leftist causes, revealing that The Feminine Mystique was not a nave heartfelt
appeal made by a stay-at-home housewife, but was carefully framed and marketed
as such by the pragmatic and politically experienced author and her publishers.
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womens rights (Fox in Berger 70). As an aside, I would like to note that
the positive role womens studies courses play in these narratives is
unexpectedly significant for a movement which claims to be decidedly
anti-academic.
Often, this type of conversion actually leads to what in recovery
language amounts to the last one of the twelve stepscarrying the message
to others. Third wave conversion narratives usually end in one of two
possible ways. In the first scenario the narrator discovers feminism which
helps her solve certain problems in her life. Once that goal is achieved, the
narrative ends with a manifesto for self-acceptance and tolerance of
difference. This is the case in Cherniks The Body Politic. The narrator
discovers feminism, manages to gain weight and get her head out of the
toilet bowl. She finishes the account with this appeal: As young
feminists, we must place unconditional acceptance of our bodies as the top
of our political agenda (Chernik in Findlen 110).
While Chernik only articulates this plea, L.A. Mitchell sets out to
realize it in practice through becoming a gynecological technician and
conducting workshops for other women: Sharing how I feel about my
cervix with people is something I now take pride in doingits a passion, if
you will. I can often be found in a room with three of four medical
students, pointing out my own plush, fleshy bulb (Mitchell in Berger
107). This element of proselytizing is a structural element of all
conversion narratives, from the Puritans to Alcoholics Anonymous. What
the third wave takes over from the recovery movement are the institutional
forms for spreading the word. Rapping notices that practically all
therapists within the recovery movement boast of having been in
recovery themselves. Similarly, the primary motivation for the authors of
the anthologized pieces who decided to become activists is the desire to
help people who are in the same situation as they once were. Mitchell
becomes a gynecological technician, HIV-positive Lisa Tiger (Woman
Who Clears the Way in Findlen) becomes an AIDS activist and organizes
workshops about safe sex; rape survivors volunteer in womens shelters
and incest survivors raise awareness of the sexual abuse of children.
Another sub-genre of the confessional narrative which can be
identified in third wave anthologies is the coming out story. Originally,
one of the founding narratives of the LGBT community, the coming out
story is a narrative form used by gays and lesbians to relate their
experiences of struggling with their sexual identity and, finally, coming to
87
terms with it.11 The term itself is borrowed, with full consciousness of the
irony inherent in this loaning, from the upper-class practice of debutante
balls, where young ladies came out in society, that is, were presented as
eligible for marriage. A typical coming out story, inevitably narrated in
first person singular, usually follows a set pattern. It opens with an account
of the narrators childhood, haunted by his or her sense of some
unspeakable difference from other children. This sets the scene for the
growing realization of the character of that difference; accounts of the
narrators internal struggles and then the actual coming outthe
revelation of his or her sexual identity to friends and family. A coming out
story may also include descriptions of the narrators rejection by society,
family and friends and the accounts of struggles, usually at least partially
successful, to be accepted as a homosexual; or the search for a supportive
community to replace the friends one lost as a result of coming out.
The coming out story, just like other forms of confessional narratives,
is written for an implied reader. In this case the reader is a closeted
homosexual, who is already past the stage of the realization of his or her
sexual identity but has not yet made the decision to reveal it to others. A
coming out story is not written solely for the sake of self-discovery but
with the aim of enticing the still closeted homosexual persons to come out
and openly claim gay/lesbian/transgender identity. The opening of the
narrative, the description of childhood problems and alienation, establishes
an intimate bond between the author and the reader who has presumably
experienced similar issues. Once identification is achieved, it becomes
more likely that the reader will treat the following sections of the story,
11
Numerous collections of coming out stories have been published in the past 30
years, although accounts by men predominate. For coming out stories by lesbian
and bisexual women see, for example: Joan Larkin, ed.: A Woman Like That:
Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories and Moore, Lisa C.
Moore, ed.: Does Your Mama Know? An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out
Stories. Interestingly, anthologies of coming out stories began to be published in
the late 1980s, early 1990s. Clearly, the popularity of recovery movement and talkshow culture influenced the timing of the emergence of this genre as well. The idea
of self-acceptance, propagated by popular therapists, aided the goals of the LGBT
movement. However, there also exist numerous therapeutic methods and
organizations, based closely on the ideas of the 12-step program, for what is
termed coming out of homosexuality. The most popular organization is Exodus
International. In these methods homosexuality is treated like an addiction similar to
alcoholism. At least thirty self-help books have been published to date on this
topic, most religious, but some also psychological. Examples include: Coming Out
Straight: Understanding and Healing Homosexuality by Richard A. Cohen, and
Jeff Konrads You Dont Have to Be Gay.
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that is the actual coming out, as a probable scenario for what could happen
in his or her own life.
Third wave anthologies include many narratives based on the coming
out story pattern. Some of them are classic coming out stories involving
sexual identity, but many replicate the narrative structure of the coming
out story, even though they do not pertain solely to sexual identity. In fact,
the most popular pattern among the stories is the coming out as feminist
scenario. In these stories the author struggles with her identification as a
feminist, usually because her views on a specific topic do not represent
mainstream feminist views. Due to these differences, the narrator may
feel personally rejected by the feminist movement, may feel she is not
radical enough to be a feminist, or, in some instances, that she is too
radical. Whichever situation is the case, the narrator, often with the help of
good feminist mentors or friends, comes to understand that she has the
power to shape the feminist movement instead of just adapting to it.
In the piece Femmenism in To Be Real Jeannie DeLombard
describes how hard it was for her to reconcile her taste for lipstick and
sexy clothing with her feminist convictions. DeLombard, a lesbian who
engages in butch-femme relationships as the femme part of the couple, felt
that the feminist movement perceived butch-femme relationships as an
antiquated relic (DeLombard in Walker 25). She conformed by playing
down her femininity, wearing oversized mens shirts, bulky knee-length
Greek fishermans sweaters and baggy Indonesian pants (25) and found
herself in a passionless long-term relationship. DeLombard notices that
ironically, while second wavers were forced to conform as girls to notions
of femininity which they found appalling, she found herself having to
fight for it tooth and nail (33). Over time she begins to understand that
she need not suppress either her feminist convictions or her femme desires
and calls herself a femmenist.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Jennifer Reid Maxcy Myhre,
whose essay One Bad Hair Day Too Many, or the Hairstory of an
Androgynous Feminist is included in Findlens anthology, is a headshaving, androgynous, butch woman, who also grew up with feminism.
She writes: Even as a child, I considered myself a feminist, supported the
ERA [] and was quick to react to statements from junior-high
classmates that women should be barefoot and pregnant (Reid Maxcy
Myhre in Findlen 85). Yet, although her appearance is the complete
opposite of DeLombards she also found herself ostracized by certain
women within the feminist movement: I am a feminist with whom even
other feminists are sometimes uncomfortable: She gives us a bad name
(88). In spite of the lack of acceptance Reid Maxcy Myhre does not leave
89
the movement or try to conform in her appearance. She shaves her head
completely, thus making a fashion statement and posing a challenge to the
other women within the movement. Meanwhile, Stephanie Abrams, whose
piece Model Vs. Feminist: Seeing Beyond the Binaries was included in
Bergers anthology, claims she can be a model, a feminist, an X, a Y, and
a Z-all at once (Abrams in Berger 286).
What all these stories share, in addition to the confessional mode in
which they are written, is a scenario in which the narrator, after numerous
trials and mishaps, discovers thar she is, and has always been, a feminist
whether she shaves her head, works as a fashion model or is a lipstick
lesbian. The coming out narrative does not involve any change in the
narrators beliefs or behavior, other than the narrators growing selfacceptance and increasing articulation of the demand for tolerance and
inclusion in the feminist movement. Just like the protagonists in the classic
coming out stories, the narrators confront friends, family and other
feminists demanding their acceptance as feminists.
2.10. The audience of third wave confession

The question which I have not yet tackled, but which has been in the
background throughout the discussion of third wave anthologies is the
question of the audiencewho are they written for, who buys them and
who reads them? Felski writes about the implied reader of the feminist
confession as the sympathetic female confidante, although she is aware
of the constructed character of the writer/reader bond. Second wave
anthologies were often composed as platforms for discussion within the
movement, although their impact often greatly exceeded that target group
and spread into the academia. Meanwhile, third wave anthologies, with the
exception of Third Wave Agenda which was published by an academic
press, do not target the academic market, but reach out to two different
groups at the same time. The first one is young women, mostly college
students, who are on the fence, who are still undecided if they should
call themselves feminists and what such an identification would entail.
Narratives such as the feminist conversion and, perhaps most
importantly, the feminist coming out story are meant to encourage
young women to take on the feminist label, even if they do not provide a
common agenda. The message sent out by these narratives can be
paraphrased as Its cool to be a feminist and you, too, can be one.
The second target group, implied indirectly through the generational
emphasis in the titles of all the anthologies, is the second wave of
American feminism. Most of the anthologies use the phrases Third
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Chapter Two
Wave, New Generation, Young Women, therefore addressing, in a

confrontational way, the tradition of feminism within the United States.
The curious exception is the most recent publication We Dont Need
Another Wave, which replicates the generational paradigm while at the
same time attempting to fight it. The titles locate the anthologies as
manifestoes of the third wave, promising a program for the future, an
agenda and situating the new generation opposite the old generation.
This manifesto-like quality has helped the books conquer a location which
they did not initially attempt to reach: the academia. Although I have said
that the anthologies are not academic publications, they are often taught in
the academia, usually in introductory womens studies courses.
Interestingly, Findlens book, the most personal of the early anthologies
seems to be a favorite choice for Introduction to Womens Studies
classes.12 I would argue that two forces are responsible for placing this
book in the academic classroom. The first one is the often unconscious
wish of womens studies teachers to reach their students and convert
them to feminism. Assigning books like Findlens Listen Up is an attempt
to bridge the generational divide between students and feminist teachers
through the inclusion of materials which the students feel comfortable
with, without the need for analysis. The second reason is that Findlens
Listen Up is considered a great example of third wave aesthetics in its
compilation of the first person singular with a wide variety of narrators,
constituting trademark third wave diversity.
2.11. Conclusion
I have described the three narrative practices which have had the greatest
impact on third wave anthologies and on the shape of third wave discourse
in generalthe feminist confession, consciousness-raising and the recovery
movement. I have touched upon the major problems connected with each
of these legacies. Third wavers have, more or less consciously, tried to use
feminist confession and consciousness-raising in a way which would
differentiate third wave use of the practices. In fact, it is a major project of
the third wave to avoid the paradigms of identification and sameness
inherent in both second wave confession and CR. As Lisa Hogeland writes
in Feminism and Its Fictions she used to read for identity, while her
12
A Google search performed on January 3rd 2007 for the phrases course
syllabus listen up Findlen yielded exactly three hundred results. The courses
which used Findlens book as course material included: Introduction to Womens
Studies, Women in Contemporary Society, Critical Perspectives in Womens
Studies.
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students read for difference. The difference is realized in the anthologies

through the inclusion of submissions from a variety of contributors
representing different races, different class and ethnic backgrounds,
different lifestyles and worldviews. Yet, as I have just proved through the
analysis of the influence of recovery talk on third wave narrative
practices, this diversity of contributors does not result in narrative
diversity. Almost all of the myriad contributors create pieces which realize
one of the two narrative patterns I have described.
The diversity of the anthologies is realized mostly on the editorial
level. It is the editor (or often co-editors) of the anthology who choose the
submissions in a way which incorporates a wide range of contributors. The
intensely personal character of the submissions, with a focus on selfacceptance and self-esteem, actually precludes any attention paid to
diversity within the essays themselves. Paradoxically, although the
paradigm of identification is frowned upon in the broader editorial
framework, it is still a very significant paradigm for the contributors,
whose main preocuppation is their own lives. The third wave, clearly
drawing on poststructuralist theory, places a lot of emphasis on the
contingency and intersectionality of various identities, but the only way in
which this intersectionality is realized in the individual essays is through
the feminist coming out story, the type of narrative which says You can
be X (or Y or Z) and feminist at the same time. However, even in the case
of this type of narrative, the single-issue focus of each of the articles is
striking, especially as representative of such a multi-issue movement as
the third wave is said to be. It seems that of the multitude of issues
composing third wave feminism, there are single issues which are of
importance for individual women, but no agenda which is actually shared.
To be fair, I have to add that there are exceptions to the lack of critical
insight in the essays. I have already mentioned that the various third wave
anthologies do not engage in a discussion with one another and that,
viewed in chronological order, they can be seen as exhibiting progressive
personalization. Although Findlens Listen Up was published in the same
year as Walkers To Be Real, the two anthologies are very different in
character. Listen Up consists exclusively of personal confessions, while
Walkers anthology shows that attention was paid to the diversity of
genres, not just the diversity of contributors. In fact, one of the pieces,
Missionary Position by Gina Dent, can be viewed as an early (1995)
warning against the prevalence of confessional narratives in third wave
feminism. Dents article deals with her own experience of posing a
theoretical question concerning the personal confession told by the
participant of an academic conference on womens issues. The woman
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Chapter Two
recounted her story of sexual abuse leading to prostitution, which only

ended with her feminist conversion. Dents theoretical question
regarding this personal story was met with hostility and the woman who
had made the confession left the room in tears. Dent tries to theorize her
experience arguing that feminist confession, even when performed in a
public context such as an academic conference, creates expectations of
sacredness and intimacy. A confession is to be honored and respected
as such, not used as the basis for discussion or theorizing. Dent respects
that argument as relating to speech acts performed in private settings, but
questions its validity for public situations, such as an academic conference.
In her view, the increasing confessionalization of feminist discourse will
lead to the stifling of debate on various important topics. As Dents essay
shows, the practice of confession is not used within the feminist
community to stimulate intellectual debate or create a public forum for the
exchange of ideas. On the contrary, the underlying assumption of those
who choose to confess is that their stories will be treated with the same
kind of sensitivity reserved for approaching a loved ones account of
personal problems.
As I have mentioned, Kaplan makes a similar argument in The Erotics
of Talk regarding the failure of consciousness-raising: [w]here
consciousness-raising suffered, ultimately, from the one-sidedness of its
own communicative norms, from its mandate to create only an erotics of
talk at the expense of the contestation that might realize such utopian
ideal speech situations (Kaplan 161). Unfortunately, it seems that may
of the third wave anthologies do not encourage dissent and discussion,
through the (ab)use of personal confession. Instead, what they do
encourage, as explicitly worded by Rebecca Walker in the introduction to
To Be Real, is empathy. Empathy is a concept which is meant to replace
the now problematic category of identifiction. Yet, empathy is often
defined as the ability to put oneself in anothers position, the ability to feel
what someone else is feeling. Thus, the concept is in fact very close to the
one which it tries to replace. Kaplan argues that [t]he mandate to support
one another will produce illusory recognitions that cannot help but
disappoint. It will not generate concrete others about and from whom we
need to learn, but generalized others we can imagine we already
understand (156).
I have already noted that the reason for the popularity of third wave
anthologies, and the reason why they are put together in a certain way, is
that the genre seems to lend itself best to the goals of the movement or
correcting the mistakes of second wave feminism, that is, promoting
diversity, providing equal footing to representatives of various groups
93
and moving away from the paradigm of identification. However, my

analysis proves that the possibilities offered by this genre are either
illusory or have not been used to the fullest advantage. In fact, I will argue
in the next chapter that full-length ficion or fictionalized autobiographies
have turned out to be more successful in realizing the tenets of third wave
feminism than the short essays collected in the anthologies.
CHAPTER THREE
PASSING AND THE FICTIONS
OF THIRD WAVE SUBJECTIVITY:
REBECCA WALKER, DANZY SENNA,
DOROTHY ALLISON
3.0. Introduction
This chapter focuses on some aspects of what I call third wave
subjectivity, stemming from a framework of shared experience, resulting
in a mindset or sensibility present in the work of third wave writers and
contributing to what I have described in the first chapter as third wave
aesthetics. The shared experience factor, obviously a necessary element
for the formation of any kind of group identity, is not as easily discernible
for third wave writers as it was for the preceding generation. For second
wave writers the shared experience was that of living in a patriarchal
society and, more importantly, the awareness of the existence of the
oppression of women, the existence of women as a political category and
of the political dimension of personal experience or, as Jane OReilly
succinctly phrased it in the first issue of Ms. Magazine in 1972the
click. The feminist click was a moment when the pieces of the puzzle
suddenly fell into their places and made the big picture visible, a change
of perspective which permanently influenced the views of the subject,
altered (or raised) her consciousness and gave her the impetus to embark
on a new aesthetic project as a writer.
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Chapter Three
There usually are no such clicks for third wave writers.1 There is no
sudden transition, no epiphany or feminist conversion, but rather a process
of becoming, or sometimes simply being. In this chapter I would like
to focus on this very process, arguing that although specific experiences
leading to the development of third wave consciousness vary greatly and it
is, to use David Halperins description of queer identity, an identity
without an essence (Halperin 62), elements of different experiences
overlap, weaving themselves into a nonuniform and amorphous, yet
politically potent subjectivity.
3.1. Third world influence on third wave subjectivity

Third wave feminism and its critiques of the second wave of American
feminism have been shaped by the discourse of Third World Feminism.2
1
The concept of the click has been reworked by some third wavers, see: Kim
Allen, The Feminist Click. The Third WWWave. Online publication retrieved
20 June 2006 from: http://www.3rdwwwave.com/display_article.cgi ?138. Allen
argues that because third wavers have grown up with feminisn, they did not need
to have their consciousness raised about its existence. The moment of the click or
clicks is, according to Allen, the realization that feminism pertains to them and
that they, too, can influence the shape of feminism, not just accept it as an
unchanging set of attitudes.
2
The first critiques of the second wave of American feminism which did not
constitute reactionary backlash but proposed changes within the movement without
altering the basic demand for eradicating the oppression of women came from
groups who felt their presence and issues of importance to them were missing from
the agenda of the womens movement. These included African American women
and lesbians. The key texts of the 1980s included: Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell
Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds. All the Women Are White, All the Blacks are Men,
But some of Us Brave: Black Womens Studies. New York: The Feminist Press at
The City University of New York, 1982; Audre Lorde. Sister Outsider: Essays and
Speeches. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984. The 1980s also marked the
emergence of the terms Third World Feminism and US Third World Feminism.
Third World Feminists criticize Western feminism on the grounds that it does not
take into account the experiences of women living in Third World countries and
the existence of feminism in those countries. US Third World feminists are
feminists living in the United States, but either born outside of the US or second
generation immigrants, coming from immigrant families. Third World Feminists
and US Third World feminists strongly advocate coalition building among
minority feminists based on common differences. Third World Feminism has
overlaps with postcolonial feminism. The key texts include: Chandra Mohanty,
Ann Russo, Lourdes Torres, eds. Third World Women and the Politics of
Feminism. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991; Cherrie
Passing and the Fictions of Third Wave Subjectivity
97
Therefore, it is not surprising that the end-result of third wave

subjectivity has been described most aptly by Chicana/Hispanic theorists,
writing not about the third wave of American feminism, but about US
Third World Feminism generally, or Chicana feminism specifically. Yet,
the hybrid identity which, for example, Gloria Anzaldua writes about in
Borderlands is not, as she herself admits, the exclusive property of
Chicanas:
the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge
each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory,
where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space
between two individuals shrinks with intimacy. (Anzaldua Preface,
unpaginated)
The marginal and minority status of the New Mestiza, Anzalduas term
for an individual aware of her conflicting and meshing identities and using
them for transgressing binary categories of identity, creates a constant
need for negotiating ones relationship with multiple cultures and the need
to ceaselessly reconsider ones own identity. This ongoing process of
identity formation is a source of power and pleasure, of exhilaration and,
at the same time, of discomfort:
[L]iving on borders and in margins, keeping intact ones shifting and
multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an
alien element. There is an exhilaration in being a participant in the
further evolution of humankind, in being worked on. I have the sense
that certain facultiesnot just in me but in every border resident, colored
or non-colored and dormant areas of consciousness are being activated,
awakened. Strange, huh? And yes, the alien element has become
familiarnever comfortable, not with societys clamor to uphold the old, to
rejoin the flock, to go with the herd. No, not comfortable but home....
(Preface, unpaginated)
Arguably, the metaphor of trying to swim in a new element, the state

of not fitting in and the process of developing certain faculties rings
true for third wave identity in general, not just for Chicana identity. Third
wave writers of fiction have taken over the concept of subjectivity from
US Third World feminists and have applied it to subjects who are not
necessarily third world. Yet, this process is not a hostile appropriation, a
colonizers tactical maneuver aimed at decreasing the power of the
Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by
Radical Women of Color. Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1981.
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struggle of the colonized, but a gesture which recognizes this model of

subjectivity as necessary for the development of political agency for third
wave US feminists. To prove my point I have chosen works by three
writers, coming from different backgrounds, though none of them third
world, using different aesthetic styles and focusing on different primary
issues in their fiction. I will be analyzing a novel by Danzy Senna, a writer
born in 1970 in Boston of an African-Mexican father and an Irish mother;
a memoir by Rebecca Walker, also a mixed-race writer and well-known
feminist activist; and a novel written by a precursor of third wave aesthetic
sensibility, more established writer Dorothy Allison.3 I will also be using
some stories from Allisons partly autobiographical short story collection
Trash. All these texts, although very different from each other, exhibit
stages of what can be called the process of the formation of third wave
subjectivity.
Terminology created by Chela Sandoval in her book Methodology of
the Oppressed and in her earlier essays will aid in discussing these stages
as clearly as possible. The methodology described by Sandoval is a set
of skills developed by colonized citizen-subjects enabling them to survive
in the colonizing culture, and also to ultimately change it using, or rather
abusing, the very tools provided by that culture. According to Sandoval,
women of color have long been able to read situations of power and shift
their identity accordingly as tactics for negotiating hegemonic structures of
meaning and power (Sandoval 2000 69-71). These skills include:
the ability to self consciously navigate modes of dominant consciousness,
learning to interrupt the turnstile that alternately reveals history, as
against the dominant forms of masquerade that history can take, focusing
on each separately, applying a formal method of reading, cynically but
I am aware that the inclusion of works by Dorothy Allison in a discussion of third

wave fiction and memoir is problematic, because Allisons date of birth (1949)
would locate her within the second wave of feminism. Yet, I think she is more
third wave both with regards to the chronology of her publications, the themes
she focuses on and the aesthetics of her work. Allisons first collection of short
stories was published in 1988 and her first novel (Bastard Out of Carolina) in
1992, long after the second wavers had made their literary debuts. Her characters
struggle with navigating their many intersecting identitiesworking class, lesbian,
S/M, feminist. Her pieces have been anthologized in third wave volumes, for
example, in Zahavas Feminism3 and Michelle Teas Without A Net: The Female
Experience of Growing Up Working Class. Arguably, if not generationally part of
third wave feminism, Allison has most certainly been an important influence for
younger writers.
99
also un-cynically, and not only with the hope of surviving, but with a
desire to create a better world. (104).
Sandovals work includes a detailed analysis of works by Frantz Fanon

and Roland Barthes whose 1957 Mythologies represents one of the first
attempts to encode in Western academic, technical, and scientific
language [] the methodology of the oppressed (81). In this passage
Sandoval is summarizing her preceding discussion of Roland Barthess
essay Myth Today, and the language she uses is borrowed from
Barthess analysis of how ideology functions using the example of a cover
of a Paris Match magazine from 1956, featuring a black boy wearing the
uniform of the French colonial empire and saluting.
According to Barthes, the dominant mode of consciousness is
internalized by citizen-subjects (or the subjects of ideology) through the
taking in of form and meaning together. A technique which enacts the
methodology of the oppressed is the taking apart of form and meaning
focusing on each separately. This formal method of reading, which is
an attempt at deciphering how ideology is created, interrupts the formation
of ideology and goes against its own dynamics, because ideology is meant
to be transparent; meant to be consumed and not analyzed. According to
Barthes, the act of deconstructing ideology can be performed either
cynically or un-cynically. Although the cynical mode of analysis
deconstructs ideology, it does so not with a desire to create a better
world, but selfishly, in an attempt to take advantage of the ideology for
personal reasons, strengthening it at the same time. As Sandoval writes,
this cynical mode of focusing perception is that of the advertiser, that
self-conscious producer of ideologies (100). The advertiser is interested
only in selling his product. Meanwhile, the practitioner of the methodology
of the oppressed deconstructs ideology in order to change the world, in
order to interrupt the turnstile of history. The Wonderbra ad with Eva
Herzigova, analyzed in the Introduction as an example of postfeminist
discourse, utilizes this cynical mode to expose sexism, but without aiming
to change the assumed status quo. Postfeminism, in general, could be
described as a cynical discourse.
Sandoval also describes the specific techniques used by uncynical
deconstructors to achieve their goal of making the world a better place
through enacting the methodology of the oppressed. The methodology
relies on the use of five different technologies or techniques of inner
psychic resistance and outer social praxis which Sandoval also takes
over from Barthes. By inner social resistance Sandoval understands
strategies which allow a subject to recognize and resist ideology on a
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personal level, while outer social praxis is the putting to use of these
strategies in the society.
The first one of these inner strategies is semiotics or signreading (1), or the observant deciphering of cultural figuration. By this
Sandoval understands the perception of signs not as transparent pretty
pictures, but as standing in for something else. Just like Saussurian
linguistics, Sandoval emphasizes the arbitrary relationship of the signifier
and the signified, but is aware of another level above the sign itself, that of
ideology. Sandoval also equates semiology with Anzalduas concept of
la facultad and Henry Louis Gates Jr.s signifin(81). Anzalduas la
facultad is a certain sensitivity developed by those who are cast out by
their tribe, who are outsidersthe capacity to see in the surface
phenomena the meaning of deeper realities, to see the deep structure below
the surface (Anzaldua 38).
The second technology of the methodology of the oppressed is
deconstruction, or, in Barthesian terms, mythology (Sandoval 82), that is
the revealing of elements which create the transparent appearance of the
sign as ideology. Deconstruction is the next step after the recognition that
signs are ideological; this step not only recognizes ideology, but also
reveals how it is created, thereby challenging dominant ideological forms.
The third technology and the first outer one, that is a technology
necessary for purposeful interventions in social reality as opposed to
simply changing ones consciousness, is meta-ideologizing, or the
appropriation of ideological forms in order to rework and re-use them in a
revolutionary fashion. I claim that this technology is of primary
importance for third wave feminism in general and also for third wave
fiction.
Sandoval quotes Barthess description of meta-ideologizing as the
ideologization of ideology itself, the addition of a third level two-tiered
relationship of the sign and ideology. Meta-ideologizing challenges
dominant ideology not through speaking outside of it, but by speaking
within it, in a way which subverts it.4 Sandoval writes: This self-conscious
Sandovals (and Barthess) description of how meta-ideologizing holds

revolutionary power through the subversion of ideology in its self-conscious
enactment recalls Judith Butlers ideas described in Gender Trouble and Bodies
That Matter. Butler locates revolutionary potential in subversive re-enactments of
gender; repetitions which through their self-consciousness emphasize the
performative character of gender, that is the idea that the re-enactment itself
constitutes gender. Interestingly, Sandoval only briefly refers to Butler although
she must have been aware of her concepts, especially as most of Methodology of
101
production of another level of signification parasitically based on the level

of dominant ideology serves to display the original dominant ideology as
naveand no longer natural (Sandoval 108).
Meta-ideologizing is a trademark strategy of third wave activism;
some well known examples of the application of this technology include
the appropriation of the color pink or the word girlphenomena
described in Chapters I and IV. At this point it will be useful to analyze
them from a different perspective, that is, to trace how the development of
concepts like girlies fits Sandovals paradigm of technologies for
enacting the methodology of the oppressed. The stage of sign-reading
can be equated with the recognition that the word girl is used not only as
a descriptive term for females under 18, but also as a derogatory term
coding womens subservient position and dependence. The second step,
that of mythologizing, is the (second-wave feminist) analysis of the
history and roots of the use of the word girl to humiliate and objectify
women. Meanwhile, the third wave appropriation of the word girl in
slogans such as girl power and girls rule and its re-working in terms
such as girlieand grrrl are examples of meta-ideologizing at work.
Meta-ideologizing is also a prominent strategy of third wave literature and
paves the road for the activation of the remaining two outer technologies:
democratics and differential movement. Democratics consists of using
the first three techniques not just for survival, but for active change; with
the intent of bringing about [] egalitarian social relations (82). The last
technology is differential movement, which can be understood as
conscious and informed organized oppositional activity. According to
Sandoval, differential movement is a polyform on which the previous
technologies depend for their own operation. (82)
Of course, Sandoval is not the first scholar to theorize how the
colonized resist dominant discourse.5 However, Sandoval proposes a
the Oppressed (with the exception of Chapter II, first published in 1991) must have
been written after the publication of Gender Trouble.
5
Sandoval herself is greatly indebted to the theorists who published before her. In
fact, her book is often more of a summary of Frantz Fanon, Roland Barthes and
others than a presentation of her own ideas. Her analysis of the roots of the
methodology of the oppressed goes back to Hegels recognition of the insights
available to the slave and not to the master. She re-reads Frantz Fanons Black
Skin, White Masks and Roland Barthess Mythologies through a Third World
Feminist lense. She is also inspired by Gloria Anzalduas writings. In fact,
Anzalduas concept of la facultad, developed in Borderlands/La Frontera is
equated with oppositional consciousness. Personally, Sandoval used to be a student
of Gloria Anzalduas at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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highly comprehensive, precise and meticulous method, suited for tracing

the subtle changes in feminist fiction. Furthermore, as it is relatively
recent, it incorporates and opens a dialogue with many ideas of theorists
who came before hermostly Barthes, Fanon, but also Said. I propose that
the third wave narratives listed (and not only these) use the first three of
the technologies described by Sandoval, with a special emphasis on metaideologizing, in a way which enables the coming into existence of
democratics and differential movement. In other words, although
these works may not, at first glance, seem to be as engaged in a political
project as novels by second wave writers, they in fact lead to the
development of third wave subjectivity in the reader, which, in turn, paves
the way for the development of differential movement. It will be
especially fruitful to trace how technologies one (sign-reading) and three
(meta-ideologizing) are developed in these texts and how one specific
ideological activity or narrative, the activity of passing, is used to
deconstruct the notions of race and class. It will become evident that in
third wave narratives the traditional notion of passing is transformed
from an activity which, although unarguably transgressive in itself,
ultimately leads to stabilizing racial hierarchy, into an activity with
revolutionary power. Traditional passing narratives enacted the first two
of Sandovals technologies, that is sign-reading and deconstruction, while
the third wave passing narrative moves on to meta-ideologizing, the next
step on the road to creating a better and more egalitarian society through
democratics.
3.2. Passing
The term passing has significance for both American social and literary
history and is rooted in slavery and the oppression of African Americans.
The historical practice of passing grew out of the so-called one-drop-rule,
which categorized all persons with even the slightest percentage of African
ancestry as black and, therefore, devoid of privileges accessible to whites,
including freedom itself.6 Setting up life in a different location under a
6
For more on the origins of the one-drop-rule see James F. Davis. Who is Black?:
One Nations Definition. The one-drop rule was developed in antebellum south in
the United States and first written down in the first decade of the 20th century.
According to this rule, a person with even a tiny percentage of African ancestry
was considered legally black with all the resulting consequences. The rule was
developed to minimize the consequences of miscegenation between white
slaveowners and black female slaves (as the resulting offspring would not be
entitled to privileges connected to being related to the white master) and to assure a
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new white identity allowed many light-skinned people of African descent

an escape from slavery or, later, from other forms of institutionalized
racism. Obviously, the act of passing brought about freedom at a huge
expense and great risk. As Elaine Ginsberg writes in the introduction to
the anthology Passing and the Fictions of Identity: such an individual
crossed or passed through a racial line or boundaryindeed trespassedto
assume a new identity, escaping the subordination and oppression
accompanying one identity and accessing the privileges and status of the
other (Ginsberg 3).
The risk of being discovered as someone assuming a false identity was
an everpresent threat, greatest in the pre-civil war times under the fugitive
slave law. However, the practice of passing did not end with the abolition
of slavery, but persisted well into the 20th century, albeit altering its forms.
The anthology edited by Ginsberg analyzes instances of not only racial but
also gendered passingstories of women passing as men, for myriad
reasons, one of them being the possibility of accessing occupations and
activities unavailable to women, as in the story of Loreta Velazquez, who
cross-dressed as a man in order to take part in the civil war as a soldier, Lt.
Harry Buford (Young 181-217). Ginsbergs definition of passing
emphasizes the fraudulent assumption of privilege by the person who
was passing. With this definition in mind, the phenomenon of passing after
the abolition of slavery reveals the persistence of racial discrimination and
the existence of gender-based discrimination.
However, there also exist documented cases of reverse passing;
passing which involves the relinquishing of privilege, as in the cases of
passing for black or passing for female. The term itself still functions in
steady supply of slaves for work on the plantations. It was later used in the post
Civil War south to ensure segregation, often resulting in situations when a
phenotypically Caucasian person was classified as black via the one-drop rule.
Davis analyzes the various ways of dealing with miscegenation in other countries
and proves that the one-drop rule was specific to the United States. George M.
Frederickson writes in The Black Image in the White Mind: [R]aising the social
status of those who labored at the bottom of society and who were defined as
abysmally inferior was a matter of serious concern. It was resolved by insuring that
the mulatto would not occupy a position midway between white and black. Any
black blood classified a person as black; and to be black was to be a slave By
prohibiting interracial marriage, winking at interracial sex, and defining all mixed
offspring as black, white society found the ideal answer to its labor needs, its
extracurricular and inadmissible sexual desires, its compulsion to maintain its
culture purebred, and the problem of maintaining, at least in theory, absolute social
control (277).
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the transgender community to describe instances when pre-operational

male to female transsexuals manage to function as women in everyday
casual situations.7 A famous case of white to black passing involved the
journalist John Howard Griffin, who chemically altered his appearance
and travelled in the still segregated south, in the 1950s, as an African
American. Griffin described his story of passing in the book Black Like
Me, the publication of which brought about an outrage in Griffins Texas
community and forced him to relocate elsewhere. Griffins story shows
how the relinquishing of privilege8 can also bring about serious
consequences for the traitor, the one who willfully gives up his superior
position.
A brief summary of the conceptual framework of the classic passing
novel is needed in order to show how third wave feminist writers have
transformed the concept of passing and why it is a crucial concept for third
wave identity. One of the earliest passing novels is William Wells
Browns Clotel, published in 1853. The main heroine, who is the slave
daughter of Thomas Jefferson, escapes to the North, passes for white,
returns to the South to rescue her own daughter from slavery and dies a
tragic death during this attempt. The novel, although not coherent
stylistically, already exhibits some features of the post-Civil War passing
7
See, for example, Kate Bornsteins Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the
Rest of Us.
8
It should be mentioned that the assessment whether a white person passing for
black relinquishes privilege or actually takes advantage of the privilege he
possesses remains problematic, especially bearing in mind the history and
significance of blackface performance in America. Minstrel shows with white
actors dressed up as darkies were a popular form of entertainment in America
since the first half of the 19th century. Minstrel shows presented blacks as ignorant,
lazy and child-like. Susan Gubar presents a detailed analysis of the role of
blackface in American culture in her book Racechanges: White Skin, Black Face in
American Culture. One of the main arguments of Gubars book is that blackface
minstrel performances served to justify the oppression of blacks (by presenting
them as foolish and infantile) while at the same time forming a unified American
identity in the audience of the minstrel shows, an identity formed on the basis of
the racial white/black dichotomy. In Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the
American Working Class Eric Lott notices the class aspect of minstrel shows,
which were a form of entertainment prepared by poor whites for other poor whites.
Lott argues that blackface performances in the north in the years before the Civil
War reflected the racial conflicts experienced by the white working class and their
fears connected with the changing economy. Lott argues that blackface
performances helped unite the white working class with their superiors in their
fight against the common enemythe negro.
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novel boom. The main hero is the product of the relationship of a white
master and a black slave woman, a union which most definitely was not a
consensual one. The act of passing uproots her geographically and breaks
the ties with her closest familyin this case, the daughter. Although
successful in her new life, the protagonist is tormented by guilt for having
forsaken her family. Structurally, the tragic ending seems to serve as
punishment for crossing over the color line, for being a traitor to ones
race.
Later passing novelsincluding James Weldon Johnsons Autobiography
of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), Fannie Hursts Imitation of Life (1933),
Jesse Redmon Fausets Plum Bun (1933)play out a similar script, with
some variations. In each novel the main character successfully passes for
white, but feels guilt for willfully cutting himself or herself off from racial
heritage. Analyzing these novels in detail goes beyond the scope of this
chapter, but what is pertinent to my topic is that while necessarily
emphasizing the constructivist approach to race (because literature that
deals with borderline cases, by nature reveals how artificially boundaries
are established), the novels seem to present, in spite of Plum Buns subtitle
A Novel Without a Moral, a very essentialist moral. All of the protagonists
suffer for betraying the race. Furthermore, the narratives emphasize
some deep essence of blackness which forces passing characters into
constant vigilance, stemming from the possibility of being recognized for
who they really are. They also possess the mysterious ability of spotting
others who are passing. Blackness, the identity which is renounced, is
portrayed as the authentic one, while whiteness is the opportunistic, fake
identity.
The one exception to the script, and a sign of changes to come, is Nella
Larsens Passing. The novel is usually read through its ambiguous ending,
which seemingly conforms to the passing genre. In the ending the main
passing character, Clare Kendry, either falls or is thrown out of a window
by her friend Irene Redfield, also light skinned but identifying as black.
Regardless of the interpretation of the ending, the plot still seems to
conform to the scenario of the tragic mulatto,9 punished for her racial
9
The tragic mulatto or tragic mulatta was a stock character in 19th century
American fiction, to some extent also in 20th century fiction and movies. Tragic
mulattoes are presented as liminal figures, forced to make a choice between living
in the white or the black world. The choice, regardless of which one it is, is never
the right one and leads to the characters tragic demise. Some early detailed
analyses of tragic mulattoes are presented in Sterling Browns Negro Poetry and
Drama (1969) and Donald Bogles Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks
(1973). Sterling Brown writes that: White writers insist upon the mulattos
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transgression. Martha Cutter observes, in her essay Sliding Significations:

Passing as a Narrative and Textual Strategy in Nella Larsens Fiction,
that Clare Kendrys passing is different from that of characters in classic
passing narratives, because she does not pass into the white world
permanently, but keeps returning into the black one, changing the basic
principle of the passing narrativethat once you pass, there is no going
back. Clare Kendry is a character who cannot be pinned down and
dissected, because she is always on the move. Cutter writes:
Larsen raises passing to a subversive narrative strategy and to an artful
method for keeping open the play of textual meaning. [...] In the galaxy of
signs that is the novel Passing, Clare functions as a signifier whose
meaning cannot be stabilized, fixed, confined, limited; and passing
becomes the ultimate mechanism for creating a text that refuses to be
contained, consumed or reduced to a unitary meaning (Cutter 76).
In fact, according to Cutter, it is the attempt to secure a single identity

through passing that causes Larsens other characters (most notably Helga
Crane from Quicksand) to become entrapped within social definitions. It is
this uniform identity, requiring a constant performance, which constrains
the character. Passing as a subversive and dynamic narrative strategy
becomes an attempt to free a text from the limitations imposed on it by the
race-obsessed American culture; yet it is possible only within the very
same culture.
In third wave fiction the motif of passing occurs often, and it has been
reworked in a way which does not force the protagonists to conform to an
authentic identity, as in the classic passing narratives. Rather, it shows
how the constant shifting of intersecting identities allows protagonists to
grow and develop a third wave consciousness. Ginsberg writes that
[p]assing is a tactic that allows an individual creative subjectivity (11)
and indeed for generations passing, or even the possibility of passing, has
been at the root of the creative impulse of writers of passing novels,
usually light-skinned African Americans themselves, who could have
passed for white if they had only wanted to. Instead, their novels with a
moral allowed them to indulge in their fantasies without actually
unhappiness for other reasons. To them he is the anguished victim of a divided
inheritance. Mathematically they work it out that his black strivings and his selfcontrol come from his white blood, and his emotional urgings, indolence and
potential savagery come from his negro blood (145). More recently, critics have
examined how the figure of the tragic mulatto was a necessary component for
the construction of national identity in a nation facing westward expansion (for
example, Eva Allegra Raimon, The Tragic Mulatta Revisited, 2004).
107
committing the deed they so despised, and which, at the same time,
mesmerized them. For third wave feminist writers, living in a multi-ethnic
postmodern society, passing, sometimes willful and sometimes accidental,
is a reality of everyday life. Writing about passing as a reflection of
processes they experience themselves, and not as an elaborate forbidden
fantasy, has helped them in transforming the discourse of passing.
3.3. Rebecca Walkers shifting identities

Rebecca Walkers Black, White and Jewish is an important work not just
by virtue of the memoirs aesthetic value, but as the first full-length piece
of writing by one of the most important leaders of third wave feminism.
Walkers heritageshe is the daughter of renowned African American
writer Alice Walker and the Jewish civil rights activist Mel Leventhaland
history of activismshe is one of the founders of the Third Wave
Foundation and editor of To Be Real, one of the key anthologies of third
wave writingcreate expectations that are not easy to fulfill. The memoir
has been criticized by Jewish reviewersangry with the one-sided
representation of Jewish lifeand by the LGBT community, as downplaying
Walkers bisexuality.10 The books value lies in its representative
characterin a way, it is the ultimate third wave book. It is a memoir
written by a feminist activist self-identifying as third wave, a writer whose
heritage, understood as the history of her parents political activism, places
her firmly within the framework of feminist generations. Her mixed racial
heritage is yet another characteristic feature of the diversity of the third
wave as a movement which, together with her childhood experiences of
constant relocation and change, sets the scene for the instances of passing
which I would like to examine.
Black, White and Jewish is a Bildungsroman, set between Walkers
early childhood and her graduation from high school. The crucial event in
young Walkers life is the breakup of her parents marriage, their
subsequent geographical relocations and the shared custody arrangement
they reach regarding Rebecca. Walkers mother moves to the West Coast
where she pursues an artsy writers lifestyle in San Francisco, while her
ex-husband starts a new family, whose upward social mobility leads him
from Washington D.C. to Larchmont, an upper-class suburb of New York
10
See, for example, Julius Lesters review of Black, White and Jewish: Memoir of
a Shifting Self in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Fall 2003,
22.1: 136 and Austin Bunns Walker, in Her Own Shoes. Advocate, 27 Feb
2001, Issue 832: 65-66.
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City. Their childcare arrangement consists of shuffling Rebecca across the

continent every year or two to live with a different parent. And it is this
shuffling, sliding, shifting that the memoir describes.
The focus, admittedly, is surprising for a memoir of a feminist activist.
If memoirs of second wavers deal with the childhood and youth of the
authornot all of them do, many are accounts of the authors activism in
the womens movement11they focus on the experiences which formed the
author as a feminist, instances of discrimination, patriarchal family
arrangements or the lack thereof, the moment of the feminist click. For
example, Saturdays Child, a memoir by well-known radical feminist
Robin Morgan, editor of one of the most influential anthologies of
writings from the womens liberation movement Sisterhood is Powerful,
was published in 2000, long after the peak of the authors political
activism. In the memoir Morgan describes the influence of her status as a
child radio and television starshe hosted The Little Robin Morgan Show
and played Dagmar in the popular television show Mamaas a formative
experience for her feminism. Such memoirs by veteran feminists12 often
mirror the structure of the consciousness-raising novel. Most memoirs
written by second wavers also resemble the structure of the shorter essays
collected in third wave anthologies analyzed in the previous chapter, or
rather, the shorter and later pieces mirror the longer and earlier ones.
Interestingly, many of the most popular consciousness-raising novels of
the early 1970s are highly autobiographical, but are still structured, sold
and classified as fiction.
Clearly, Walkers memoir does not fit the second wave paradigm. The
preponderance and significance of autobiography for third wave aesthetics
has already been discused in the previous chapter, but it should be noted
that another representative feature of the third wave memoir is its lack of
focus on politics, or what may be viewed as lack of a visible
consciousness-raising elements in the structure of the work. There are
no feminist clicks, no activism, no organized womens movement. The
structure of the consciousness-raising novel, culminating with the
11
For example, In Our Time by feminist activist and theorist Susan Brownmiller,
Tales of the Lavender Menace by Karla Jay or accounts from the monumental
Feminist Memoir Project edited by Snitow and DuPlessis.
12
I use this phrase in quotation markes to refer to well-known second wave
activists. However, I have not coined the phrase itself. Since the late 1990s there
exists an organization called Veteran Feminists of America, which honors second
wave activists and publishes historical accounts of second wave feminism. Robin
Morgan is a member of this organization. The organization can be reached at the
web address: <http://www.vfa.us>
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protagonists realization of the political character of her personal

experience, is hard to spot in third wave memoirs. The events are not
arranged into a narrative with an overt political purpose, that of
converting the reader to feminism. Walkers Black, White and Jewish is
not explicitly preoccupied with politics, feminist or otherwise. Some of the
young writers whom I classify as third wave are not political activists
and feminist theorists. In their case, the absence of feminism as a
movement is understandable, because feminism as an organized movement
is not a part of their lives. However, it is extremely striking in the case of
Rebecca Walker, one of the more well-known activists. Not only is this
not a memoir of feminist activism, but the word feminism is not used
throughout the book. Without additional background information, it would
be impossible to guess that Rebecca Walker is one of the key figures in the
third wave of feminism in the United States.
Also surprisingly, Rebecca Walker puts very little emphasis on the
mother-daughter relationship in terms of the interactions between two
generations of feminists. Walkers mother Alice is present in the book as a
mother, not as a mentor or intellectual inspiration. She is slightly negligent
and extremely busyshe pays someone to go clothes shopping with
Rebecca and to attend the parent-teacher meetings at her school. Yet, the
book does not turn into a tirade about Alice Walker as the absentee
mother, guilty of her daughters traumatic childhood. Alice Walker is just
absent, at least most of the time. Yet, the mother-daughter relationship is
an important motif for third wave feminism; understood both literally and
as the relationship between the various generations of feminists. In
Walkers case, these two levels could be combined, because her mother
actually was a feminist writer and thinker. Yet, the memoir does not
discuss this. This complete absence of issues which Walker is involved in
in her adult life is poignant. This is not a story structured to entice the
reader to make the connections between the personal story being narrated
and the political situation of women as a group. Strangely, although it is,
as previously claimed, the most representative third wave memoir, it is not
meant to be representative at all, but an individual account of one
individuals twisted life. As Lisa Hogeland generalized the reading
strategies of her own generation and that of her students in Feminism and
Its Fictions, she read for identity, while the next generation reads for
difference. And Walkers memoir does not encourage reader
identification. What makes it typical of the generation is the shared
experiences of diverse forms of twistedness in the lives of third wavers.
And, in that way, Walkers book sketches the framework of third wave
feminist sensibility. In fact, although Walker does not present a feminist
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analysis of her life, some of the issues which Walker faces in her memoir
are those which formed third wavers as a generation. These include
political events, such as the Reagan presidency, though these are definitely
in the background, and, more prominently, pop-cultural fads and fashions
as well as personal experiences shared by numerous third wavers.
Experiencing the breakup of their parents marriage is a formative
experience shared by many third wavers; in Walkers case the significance
of the event was increased by her parents different ethnicities and the
nomadic lifestyle the event forced Walker to adopt.
Furthermore, if we go back to the steps for enacting Chela Sandovals
methodology of the oppressed, as described in the opening of this chapter,
our perspective on Walkers biography and the memoir itself may change.
I would like to argue that the memoir describes the development of
technologies one (sign-reading) and two (deconstruction or Barthesian
mythology) and leads up to three (meta-ideologizing), which paves the
way for technologies three and four, that is conscious and organized
oppositional activity. In a way, the memoir describes the education of a
future activist. And where it stops, activism begins.
The geographical shifts Walker maps throughout her childhood and
adolescence reflect the shifts in racial identity which she must cope with.
Although she describes herself as a movement child, the result of love
and a common struggle rather than of violence and rape which
characterized the heritage of the tragic mulatta, she still cannot help
being torn between the two worlds. It does not help that after the breakup
of their marriage, her parents settle in areas populated by their respective
racial communities. Thus, although Black, White and Jewish is not a
passing narrative per seWalker, although fair skinned, is not light enough
to pass as Caucasian and, furthermore, she is not technically forced to
renounce her blacknessshe must alter her behavior and speech to
correspond with the racial community of each of her parents, while living
with the respective parent. When her father sends her to a Jewish youth
camp, she tries to blend in, look as Jewish as possible, but the
uncomfortable feeling of not fitting in, of impersonating someone she is
not, never leaves her: When I am at camp I wear Capezios and Guess
jeans and Lacoste shirts, and I assume the appropriate air of petulant
entitlement. And yet I never get it quite right, never get the voice to match
up with the clothes, never can completely shake free of my blackness
(Walker 2001 180).
Walker feels she is too white around black people, or too black
around whites (271) and tries to overcome this by mastering the art of
code-switching, which is the most difficult task to accomplish in the
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linguistic realm. She notices that clothing and behavior also distinguish the
two communities she switches between (Guess jeans and Lacoste shirts at
Jewish camp and a gold chain and her boyfriends football jacket at
Washington High School in San Francisco), but those switches are
relatively easy to accomplish. The language she uses betrays her more
easily. Once Walker starts attending a private artsy alternative high school
in San Francisco, her black boyfriend Michael, who attends the public
high school, becomes suspicious: [H]e starts to call me half breed now
that I go to Urban, half breed because he says that my white comes out
when I am at Urban, when I slip and say like every other word (268). The
use of the word slip by Michael shows that he has internalized these
distinctions in the use of English, but also that he is aware, albeit
instinctively, of the constructed character of race, which becomes all the
more important when, as in the case of Rebecca Walker, one cannot rely
only on appearance. A slip is an error or oversight, something one must
consciously work on avoiding, because once a slip of the tongue occurs, it
reveals fears and desires located in the unconscious. In this case, what is
revealed is Walkers whiteness, a disqualifying fault in Michaels eyesyet
one which can go unnoticed because Walkers white father is not
physically present in her life in San Francisco.
The linguistic code-switching which teenage Walker instinctively uses
is an example of what Chela Sandoval views as one of the technologies for
enacting the methodology of the oppressed, specifically the first
technologysemiotics or sign reading. Her behavior could also be
called an expression of, using Anzalduas language, la facultad. At this
point, the chameleon-like linguistic adaptation to the environment is a
survival strategy rather than a conscious move aimed at changing the
world. Walker simply wants to fit in and tries to behave accordingly. Yet,
the fact that her use of black English is not perfect, that she slips and
reveals more about herself than she intended, already begins to turn her
linguistic performance into a subversive act. The subversive character lies
in what these slips revealthey expose the ideology of language,
problematize what was previously perceived as natural and transparent and
force both interlocutors to confront what they wanted to hide, their
growing distance from one another and the reasons for this situation. The
conversation between Michael and Rebecca moves beyond semiotics
into the realm of Sandovals second technologydeconstruction.
Through revealing how language constructs racial identities, these
identities begin to be deconstructed.
In Passing for White, Passing for Jewish: Mixed Race Identity in
Senna and Walker Lori Harrison-Kahan analyzes the connections
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between blackness and Jewishness as presented in the two writers works.

She also analyzes how social class works as an integral part of each of
Walkers identities. According to Kahan, Walker herself is not able to
theorize how class becomes an element of the equation, although she
instinctively feels drawn to the working-class lifestyle of her black and
Hispanic friends. Of course, she is aware of the fact that her fathers
family is well-off and represents the bourgeois lifestyle while her mothers
alternative life does not bring about material affluence. Yet, she views her
transcontinental travels as transporting her from one homogenous location
to another. For Walker the West Coast becomes irrevocably connected to
blackness, while New York signifies the bouregois lifestyle her fathers
Jewish family leads. Race, class and geographical location combine to
form one side of a complex opposition which shapes Walkers life: black,
poor, Californian vs. Jewish (here signifying whiteness), upper middle
class, suburban New Yorker. In turn, each element of the threesome
combination becomes represented in shorthand by blackness and
whiteness.
The affluence of Mel Leventhal is reflected by the neighborhood he
lives in, the people he meets, the schools his children attend, even the
summer camps he sends them to. The social stratification of the American
society makes it practically impossible for teenage Walker to meet Jewish
peers who are not well-to-do. It is likely that a child devoid of Walkers
California experiences would not have questioned this arrangement. It is
probably both Walkers budding political sensitivity and the fresh
memories of living with her mother which make her rebel against
Jewishness, as represented by her fathers family. Yet, as Harrison-Kahan
notes, Whether she acknowledges it or not, Walker is not disidentifying
with Jewishness, as much as with just one version of middle class
Jewishness. In affirming her own multiplicity, Walker ends up
overlooking the multiplicity of Jewishness itself (Harrison-Kahan 38).
Interestingly, she does feel a connection to what Jewishness used to
signify in the past. The only moments when Walker feels a positive
connection to Jewishness take place when the heritage of suffering and
discrimination is invoked. Walker feels sympathy, even empathy when she
reads The Diary of Anne Frank as a little girl, the kind of empathy which
transfers into fears for her own family:
When I get to the end of the book and read that Anne Frank was taken by
the Gestapo and killed, I feel something I have never felt before. I feel
terror and loss and like nothing can save me from the same death as
Annes. I imagine the Gestapo is going to come to my house and take me
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and my father and stepmother and put us in the back of a truck to

Auschwitz (Walker 2001 89).
Discovering this heritage of terror and suffering is a consciousnessaltering event for Walker, as evidenced by the objects she chooses to keep
with her throughout her constant moves, until adulthood: The Diary of
Anne Frank stays, the Derrida reader goes (167). But it is empathy based
not just on pride, especially as at the time when Walker reads Anne
Franks diary her knowledge of Jewish traditions is very limited, but
mostly on the history of victimization, a feeling of being the underdog and
the fear of being found out. She feels an instant connection to Anne
Frank, a girl who must hide her identity in order to survive; Walker feels
this is exactly what she is forced to do as well, although, of course, the
consequences would not be as dramatic. The significance the book
acquires for Walker suggests that an additional psychological phenomenon
may be occuringnamely displacement. The girls unresolved anxiety
about her own heritage, the fear of being found out as black is displaced
onto the fear of the Gestapo coming to take her Jewish family away.
It is difficult for Walker to understand the connection between the
heritage of the Jewish struggle and the present Jewishness she encounters
the Jewish dream to live in the suburbs, as close to Scarsdale as possible;
to have a Volvo or two in the garage next to the kids bikes and baseball
gear; to eat Dannon yoghurt and bagels every Sunday and light Shabbat
candles on Friday (207). She views Jewishness temporallythe good
Jewish heritage and the bad contemporary bourgeois lifestyle. HarrisonKahan proves that Walker is in fact rebelling not so much against
Jewishness as an ethnicity, but against Jewishness as middle class
affiliation. To prove this point she analyzes how Walker often identifies
with an ethnicity she has no biological connection toHispanics. In fact,
these moments can be described as the only instances of actual passing in
the memoir.
When the Leventhal family live in Riverdale, Walker becomes close
with Hispanic friends she met in the Bronx, she even has a Puetro Rican
boyfriend. The Bronx means being ready to fight. It means walking
around with my friends Sam and Jesus and Theresa and Melissa and being
seen as I feel I truly am: a Puertoriquena, a mulatta, breathed out with all
that Spanish flavor. A girl of color with attitude (198). Walker also tends
to identify with the Hispanic maids who clean houses for her Jewish
friends. Through this identification, she instinctively acknowledges her
affinity and respect for those who were not born into affluent families, but
had to struggle hard for everything they have achieved in life. It is easier
for her to express this affinity in ethnic, not class termsshe feels
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Puertoriquena, not working classbecause in the world as she has

experienced it, class divisions correspond with ethnic divisions. This is
clearly a stage, where Walker has still not gone beyond Sandovals first
technology, that is the sign-reading she engages in is still somewhat
instinctive, rather than self-aware. She sense certain connections, but
misses others and cannot reflect on her experience.
3.4. The mirror scenes

A different episode when Walker self-identifies as Spanish, as Walker-thenarrator later admits: an outright lie, deserves a closer look. The scene is
set at a suburban high school attended mostly by wealthy white teenagers
from Larchmont and black kids [...] from the wrong side of the tracks
(207). During the year she spends there, Walker socializes with the white
students. She meets her best friend, Lauren, in a girls bathroom, after both
of them slip out from classLauren from AP English and Rebecca from a
social studies class about the United Nations. The setting is one of girl-togirl intimacy. A high school bathroom is a place where many secrets are
revealed, where friends meet for gossip and engage in small acts of
rebellion against school authorities, like smoking or skipping classes.
Rebecca is washing her hands, very likely directly in front of a mirror,
where she can see a reflection of her face as she lies to her best friend.
When the question What are you? is posed, Rebecca answers: Im
Spanish, like from Spain (208).
Of course, denouncing her black ancestry is to some extent an act of
cowardice, a lack of courage to confront the well-bred and polite yet very
racist Larchmont students. It is also an attempt to fit in, as emphasized by
the language used by Walker, the infamous like which littered the
sentences of WASP teenagers in the 1980s. This is language which Walker
would certainly avoid when speaking to her boyfriend Michael in
California. Yet why Spanish instead of Hispanic? Ellen Mc Cracken, in
the introduction to New Latina Narrative, notes that Hispanics have
become the generic Other, so varied in looks as to be unclassifiable
through physical appearance, yet signifying difference and exoticism in a
way that Jews no longer do. Walker wants to emphasize difference, but at
the same time she wants to remain cool. Assuming Spanish identity, not
even Latino but a more sophisticated European version, is an easier way of
coping with Laurens racism than admitting to blackness. It is also a way
of accessing the glamour of Europe and differentiating herself from
Latin Americans. As Harrison-Kahan writes: Spanish is the closest
Walker can come to Hispanic while still retaining insider status
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(Harrison-Kahan 36). At this point, Walker is using the awareness of

ideology she has gained through skillful sign-reading (that is, it is
obvious to her that being black would stigmatize her in this environment)
not to subvert it but to achieve a personal gain. Being Spanish is by no
means a subversive repetition of ethnic identity.
The setting of this scene also suggests the irony inherent of the
narrators ethnic identification. Mirror scenes are poignant turning
points of many passing narratives and of cultural texts focusing on
blackface performances.13 The bathroom scene in Walkers Black, White
and Jewish is a playful re-working of such archetypal scenes. Like other
mirror scenes in passing narratives, it deals with fundamental questions of
racial identity. Yet, it is set in a high school bathroom, a milieu of
questionable social seriousness and the protagonists communicate with
each other using teenage suburban slang. Interestingly, Walkers Black,
White and Jewish is not the only significant third wave text to include a
mirror scene. Danzy Sennas novel Caucasia, which also deals with racial
identity and, even more openly than Walkers memoir, with racial passing,
includes a crucial mirror scene as well.
Caucasias main protagonist, Birdie Lee, is the daughter of a
Caucasian mother and an African American father. Birdie is light skinned
her white grandmother claims she looks Sicilianbut her full sister Cole,
three years her senior, is much darker, unquestionably African American
in appearance. The book opens with a description of a stormy period in her
parents marriage; with each parent engrossed in their own activities.
Birdies mother is helping the black power movement while Birdies
13
Scenes in which the main protagonist examines his reflection closely in the
mirror (and this examination often sparks an important turning point in the
narrative), often referred to as mirror scenes abound in literature of racial
passing, although they are not restricted to such works. In the article Mutiny
Against the Mirror Jenijoy LaBelle points to the significance of mirror scenes in
womens literature: [T]he mirror is inescapably oxymoronic. Some authors are
intensely aware of this oxymoron, but most tend to sublimate it by emphasizing
one pole or the other of the double identity of the image in the mirror. These
displacements and emphases become important elements in the characterizations
of women in literature and point to fundamental structures in the production of
female consciousness (LaBelle 53). Some of the most important passing
narratives also include mirror scenes. Examples include Jake Robin alias Jakie
Rabinowitz (played by Al Jolson) carefully examining his blackface image in the
mirror before making the decision to fulfill his dying fathers wish in The Jazz
Singer, John Howard Griffin analyzing his blackened reflection in the mirror in
Black Like Me, James Weldon Johnson searching for signs of black ancestry in his
face in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.
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father, Deck Lee, is working on an academic book about race. In this

context Birdie develops a very close relationship with her sister. The two
girls spend most of their time together, invent secret games, even a secret
language which they use when they do not want the adults to understand
them. Birdie does not distinguish herself from her sister, views the two of
them as one: Before I ever saw myself, I saw my sister. When I was still
too small for mirrors, I saw her as a reflection that proved my own
existence. [] That face was me and I was that face and that was how the
story went (Senna 5). The irony in this identification is located in the
difference of the color of the girls skin. Birdie cannot tell herself apart
from her sister, although strangers would not believe that the two girls
could possibly be related. Self-differentiation comes to Birdie with
subsequent interactions with outsiders, and, notably, the school system.
Birdie is sent to a private black power school, where she is teased by the
other children for her white appearance. After another humiliating incident
Birdie examines her own reflection in the mirror:
That night I looked at myself in the steamy bathroom mirror while I
brushed my teeth, the white toothpaste foaming onto my hand, making me
look like a rabid dog, and I tried to think what Sicilian meant by reading
my own face. I glanced at my sisters reflection behind me. She was also
brushing her teeth, only neatly. Her hair was curly and mine was straight,
and I figured that this fact must have had something to do with the fighting
and the way the eyes of strangers flickered surprise, sometimes
amusement, when my mother introduced us as sisters (Senna 29).
According to Lacan, when a child stumbles upon a mirror the child is

suddenly faced with an image of itself as whole, whereas it previously
experienced existence as a fragmented entity with libidinal needs. The
image itself in the mirror is described by Lacan as the "Ideal-I" (Lacan
1286). In Caucasia racial differentiation, or racial consciousness, is thus
located in the realm of the Lacanian imaginary into which a child passes
via the mirror stage; possibly also in the realm of the symbolic, as this
specific mirror stage coincides with the loss of the girls invented
Elemeno language and the acquisition of proper English. In Caucasia,
Birdie and Cole, when they are just several years old, communicate with
each other using an invented secret language which they call Elemeno.
They later lose the ability to speak this language. According to Lacan,
once a child begins to recognize that its body is separate from the world
and its mother, it begins to feel anxiety which is caused by a sense of
something lost. The demand of the child, then, is to make the other a part
of itself, as it seemed to be in the childs now lost state of infancy: It is
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this moment which decisively tips the whole of human knowledge into
mediatization through the desire of the other, constitutes its objects in an
abstract equivalence by the co-operation of others (Lacan 1289).
Therefore, the childs wish is impossible to realize and, ultimately,
functions as a reminder of loss and lack. The world before race, the
world in which Birdie and her dark-skinned sister were one is for her the
lost real, something she once had, wants to regain, but never will.
This loss is also played out in the plot of the novel. Birdie not only
loses her sister symbolically through the recognition of difference, but also
quite literally. The girls parents split and each one of them takes the
daughter who physically resembles the respective parent. This way Birdie
finds herself on the run with her slightly paranoid conspiracy-theory
driven mother and Cole disappears with the sisters father. The entire
second half of the novel is based on Birdies desire to regain her lost sister
and her own lost blackness.
Curiously, because Birdies self-recognition, based on the difference in
physical appearance, is so traumatic for her, and because she is raised by
her parents in the black power tradition, it is the phenotypically white
self which becomes repulsive for her. She perceives herself as a rabid
dog foaming at the mouth, disgusting and abhorrent, while her sister is
the neat one. This perception is a complete reversal of the typical
feelings of the passee, always on the lookout for the dangerous and wild
blackness just waiting to reveal itself, to spring up unexpectedly, to betray
the passees true self. The significance of this reversal can be perceived
most fully when Birdies comparison of her white reflection to a rabid
dog, foaming at the mouth is contrasted with passages from other
traditional passing narratives. In John Howard Griffins Black Like Me,
Griffin chemically alters his appearance to pass as black. After he darkens
his skin, he shaves his head and looks at himself in the mirror:
Turning off all the lights, I went into the bathroom and closed the door. I
stood in the darkness before the mirror, my hand on the light switch. I
forced myself to flick it on. In the flood of light against white tile, the face
and shoulders of a strangera fierce, bald, very dark Negroglared at me
from the glass. He in no way resembled me. The transformation was total
and shocking. I had expected to see myself disguised, but this was
something else (Griffin 15).
In this mirror scene it is the misrecognition (in the understanding of the

Lacanian meconaissance) of oneself as black which fills Griffin with
terror. Although Griffins aim is to discover the racism of others, he is
perplexed with the racism he uncovers within himselfthe sheer terror of
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seeing himself as a wild negro. In the case of Birdie Lee, it is the

whiteness within herself that causes fear and discomfort, which locates her
far away from civilization, making her wild.
Although this scene in Caucasia lends itself beautifully to a Lacanian
reading, it is also possible to analyze it using Chela Sandovals
terminology of the methodology of the oppressed. In this scene Birdie
becomes aware of the difference between herself and her sister, she learns
how to read the signs which were present earlier, but which she was
unable to decipher. The realization marks the first step in the enactment of
the methodology of the oppressed, that is semiotics of sign-reading.
3.5. Post-passing and postethnicity

Later on in the novel, Cole is taken away to Brazil by her father and his
new black girlfriend, Carmen. Birdies mother, increasingly paranoid
about being wanted by the FBI for her revolutionary activities, decides to
run away from Boston and change her identity. The mother and daughter
team live on the run for two years and then settle down in a small New
Hampshire town. Sandy and Birdie Lee transform into Sheila and Jesse
Goldman, widow and daughter of Jewish intellectual David Goldman. The
Jewish identity is supposed to protect them from being discovered by the
FBI, while serving as explanation of Birdies slightly nappy hair and
darker complexion. Sandy buys Birdie a cheap star of David and the two
settle down in an idyllic rural landscape, where Birdie/Jessie engages in
horseback riding and flirting with boys, while Sandy/Sheila finds a new
love interest with whom she sets up house. During that time Birdie
successfully passes as white, although it should be noted that for Birdie
this is involuntary passing. It is Sandy who undertakes the enterprise of
passing. Being a child, Birdie is forced to go along with her mothers
wishes, even though she most definitely misses the life she used to lead.
After six years, haunted by memories of her sister, Birdie runs away from
home and sets out on a search of the lost half of her family. While staying
in Boston with her aunt Dot, she finds out that her father and sister have
long returned to the US and live on the West Coast. She flies there and
locates her father who, in turn, leads her to Cole. The novel ends with
Birdie and Coles long-awaited reunion in Oakland.
The few articles published on Danzy Sennas Caucasia focus on the
construction of race in the novel. Rightly so, as racial identity is clearly the
novels main theme. The conclusion scholars seem to agree upon is that
the main protagonist of the novel, Birdie, via her complicated personal
experience of race changes, comes to understand that race is socially
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constructed and, therefore, learns to look beyond race in her life. Sika
Alaine Dagbovie writes in Fading to White, Fading Away: Biracial
Bodies in Michelle Cliff's Abeng and Danzy Senna's Caucasia: Birdie
strives to think beyond race.[] She struggles to reject imprisoning labels
of color (Dagbovie 104). Interestingly, Daniel Grassian in Passing into
Post-ethnicity: A Study of Danzy Sennas Caucasia uses exactly the
same vocabulary to analyze the experience of Caucasias protagonist. He
writes: Birdie learns to look beyond color (Grassian 334) and this
realization [the realization that race is performative] allows Birdie to see
beyond race (328).
While Grassians conclusion that Sennas treatment of race in
Caucasia mirrors the understanding of race in David Hollingers Postethnic
America, is acceptable, the premise he uses (which is the same premise
implied by Dagbovies article) to arrive at that conclusion is not. Birdie
does not pass into post-ethnicity via looking or seeing beyond color,
she does not make strides towards an identity without ethnicity and racial
affiliation (Grassian 331). In fact, I would argue that the opposite
phenomenon takes placeyes, Birdies experience undeniably (and not
surprisingly) leads her to understand the performative character of race,
but this realization does not lead her into surrendering racial affiliation. On
the contrary, it helps her finally embrace it. Birdies escape from her
mother and her white boyfriend is the first step on the way to consciously
shaping her identity as a multiracial person. Birdies ethnicity becomes a
conscious choice, not an imposition, but by virtue of it being a choice it
becomes more, rather than less, real.
Grassian reads Birdies aunt Dot, clearly a role model and figure of
authority for Birdie, as refusing to submit to ethnic categorization (332)
and setting the example for her niece in escaping race. To justify this
reading, Grassian uses Dots conversation with Birdie: Im never
completely at home anywhere. But its a good place to be, I think. Its like
floating. From up above, you can see everything at once. Its the only way
how (315). Yet, what enables this attitude is Dots return to Boston from
India, prompted by the sounds of African American music she hears on the
radio. Dots departure for India represents her quest for a spiritual life
divorced from the physicality of matters like race. She is unable to pursue
that quest in the United States because of the omnipresence of racism and
the impossibility of cutting oneself off from issues of race, the
impossibility of living only in the realm of the spiritual. But her return to
the place she wanted to escape from signifies the need to reconcile
spiritual growth with her racial heritage. It is a conscious acceptance of
blackness and its political significane in America, not an escape from race.
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Grassian also takes at face value the message of Deck Lees book,
which Deck proudly shows to Birdie during their reunion as the fruit of
many years of his labor, his real child. The book, titled The Petrified
Monkey: Race, Blood and the Origins of Hypocrisy, analyzes the
constructed character of race. When confronted with his daughters life
story, Deck lectures Birdie on the impossibility of passing: Were all just
pretending. Race is a complete illusion, make-believe (391). Grassian
acknowledges that Birdie believes Deck to be right (Grassian 333),
while ignoring the obvious irony of the scenario in which the father, who
abandons his own child because of race, which he at that point understands
as physical similarity, lectures the long-lost daughter on the non-existence
of race. Birdies racial consciousness is informed by a paradoxical mixture
of theories of performativity (as espoused by her father and also as
experienced by her white-Jewish life in New Hampshire) and a belief that
performativity may be sufficient as a concept, but is not sufficient to
explain the intricacies of living race in the contemporary society. Neither
is the idea of taking equally from the various cultures one is genetically
entitled to, which, as Grassian implies, is what Birdie learns to do in the
end.
In fact, Senna is also the author of a satirical story/essay on
multiracialism, written around the same time as Caucasia was published.
In The Mulatto Millenium the narrator, Sennas alter-ego, imagines a
scenario in which mulattos institute a regime which aims at creating
racial harmony through the popularization of miscegenation. She scoffs
at the imaginary mulatto demonstration in which:
a lean yellow girl with her hair in messy Afro-puffs wore a T-shirt with the
words JUST HUMAN across the front. What appeared to be a Hasidic Jew
walked hand in hand with his girlfriend, a Japanese woman in traditional
attire, the two of them wearing huge yellow buttons on their lapels that
read MAKE MULATTOS, NOT WAR (The Mulatto Millennium 20).
According to Senna, the mulatto movement she parodies in the text,

would, in the long run, not lead to the elimination of discrimination based
on color, but rather to its strengethening through the promotion of
assimilation, the return of the old idea of American society as a melting
pot. Senna seems to be saying that seeing beyond color (JUST
HUMAN) is short-sighted and nave, though may also be as wellintentioned as the hippie movements solution to all world problems
(Make Love, Not War).
This story pertains not only to the idea of multiracialism in general, but
also to the attempts to introduce a multiracial category on the 2000 US
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census in particular. The idea of a separate category was not well received
by civil rights groups; it was looked upon as an attempt to decrease the
visibility and the numbers of African Americans by lumping the mixed
blacks together with other people of mixed ethnicity. Another third wave
writer, Lisa Jones, daughter of African American writer and activist Amiri
Baraka and Jewish-American writer Hettie Jones, commented on the
census issue in 1994, arguing that the multiracial movement was not out to
empower people by connecting them to their heritage, but rather by
divorcing them from the politics and history of blackness in a way which
makes them think they have advanced on the social ladder through
assimilation: Race is not seen as a political/economic construct, a
battleground where Americans vie for power and turf, but a question of
color, a stick-on, peel-off label. If there is an end goal to the census
movements efforts, it appears to be assimilation (Jones 57).
In The Mulatto Millenium the narrator is mocking the idea that any
group of people is superior to another just by virtue of ethnic origin, the
idea of fighting essentialism with essentialism, which, as it seems to the
narrator, the multiracial movement is doing. The narrator of the story
encounters a woman preaching biracial superiority: Ever wonder why
mutts are smarter than full-breed dogs? (The Mulatto Millenium 14).
Senna cannot agree with the idea of biracial superiority as a theoretical
concept, but also does not think the theory could be transferred onto real
life. The concept of mixed is better is a utopian one in American society
which, while taking pride in its diversity, sports a history of racial
categories unheard of in other parts of the world, but which, in a general
overview, amount to the crude idea that any mixes with white spoil the
whiteness.
Grassian correctly notices that Birdies racial anxiety is heightened in
the presence of other multiracial people:
As she ages, Birdie only becomes conscious of her racial identity when she
sees other ethnically mixed people. When she is amidst ethnically
homogenous groups, Birdie becomes a chameleon, taking on the attributes
of the majority in order to protect herself from being ostracized or from
social scorn (Grassian 322).
One of these people who remind Birdie of the fact that she is passing is a
mulatto student at her school in New Hampshire. Samantha was a
foundling and for a long time remains one of the least popular girls in
school, awkward in her actions and her appearance. But there comes a
time when Samantha undergoes an amazing transformation, turning from
an ugly duckling into a swan and immediately gaining in popularity. She
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finally accepts her body, becomes comfortable in it, spreading an aura of

coolness around the school. Yet, Samanthas coolness is not the result
of her mixedness, but of the conscious recognition of the blackness within
her, the discovery that black is beautiful leads directly to Samanthas
beautification. Other children, though recognizing the change Samantha
went through, classifly her as black, not assigning a separate mixed
category to her. When a black boy, Stuart, starts attending the school, it is
a common expectation of the students that he and Samantha become a
couple, which reveals that the New Hampshire schoolchildren have not
only internalized the one-drop rule (Samanthas black blood outweighs
the white blood), but also prescriptions against miscegenation (black
dates black). Interestingly, Samantha defies those expectations, is not
interested in Stuart and begins dating a Caucasian boy. Samanthas story,
although a minor one in the plot of the novel, becomes next to Aunt Dots
plot, an example of a postethnic and third wave attitude to race, a
milestone in the development of Birdies own race-consciousness.
The last scene of the book, in which Birdie sees the face of a mixedrace girl on a school bus in California, is yet another one which, I argue,
Grassian misreads in his article as Birdies outright affirmation of an
identity without racial affiliation, while in fact it speaks of Birdies
acceptance of blackness as a voluntary but crucial affiliation. Birdie has
just spent the night with her sister Cole, reunited after six years of
separation. She goes out to the corner store and, as she is walking back to
Coles apartment, she notices a school bus full of children.
They were black and Mexican and Asian and white, on the verge of
puberty, but not quite in it. They were utterly ordinary, throwing
obscenities and spitballs at one another the way kids do. One face toward
the back of the bus caught my eye, and I halted in my tracks, catching my
breath. It was a cinnamon-skin girl with her hair in braids. She was black
like me, a mixed girl, and she was watching me from behind the dirty
glass. For a second I thought I was somewhere familiar and she was a girl I
already knew. I began to lift my hand, but stopped, remembering where I
was and what I had already found. Then the bus lurched forward, and the
face was gone with it, just a blur of yellow and black in motion (Senna
413).
Grassian argues that [I]n this final vision, Birdie learns to look beyond
color. She prevents herself from identifying with the mixed girl who looks
like her and in the process rejects racial categorization. The last image of
the blurring of colors is a fair representation of Birdies mindset
(Grassian 334). However, what happens in this passage is not total
disidentification. Birdie does recognize the girl as similar to herself,
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primarily black (black like me) and secondly mixed (a mixed girl), she
wants to wave to her as a gesture of solidarity stemming from her newlydiscovered racial consciousnessthis is a gesture she would not have
offered if the scene was set a few months earlier in New Hampshire, a
gesture she did not offer to Samantha. Yet, she realizes that the gesture is
not necessary at this time and place, the bus full of colorful children from
multiple ethnic backgrounds and not the all-white New Hampshire
landscape. Birdie has accepted the blackness within her, as represented by
her reunification with Cole, and is therefore not paralyzed by anxiety
anymore in the presence of other mixed people.
But this attitude is not the result of the repudiation of racial affiliation.
Arguably, what accounts for the optimistic tone of this novels ending is
Birdies reconciliation with Cole and with the part of her heritage she was
forced to suppress while passing. Similarly, Walkers memoir ends with
Rebeccas name change. She officially changes her name from Rebecca
Leventhal to Rebecca Leventhal Walker, a symbolic acknowledgment of
the African ancestry represented by her mothers last name. Clearly,
identifying as black, which is what the protagonists of both the third wave
passing narratives I have discussed ultimately do, is a political decision. It
can be read as logical progression from sign-reading and deconstruction,
Sandovals first two technologies of the methodology of the oppressed,
to the third one, that is meta-ideologizing. This technology challenges
dominant ideology not by speaking outside of it, but within it, in a way
which subverts it. In the case of both these texts, the characters/narrators
undergo parallel processes of development. First, they develop something
of an instinct, a knack for how racial ideology works (sign-reading),
then they become more aware of how racial ideology functions in complex
settings (deconstruction) and, finally, rather than attempting to step
outside of this ideology, to look beyond race, they remain within it, but
their appropriation of that ideological identity category constitutes a
subversive repetition rather than a straightforward identification.
It is also an act of the symbolic recognition of the role African
Americans have played in American history and an appreciation of their
achievements. Sennas narrator in The Mulatto Millennium explains
why she, as a child, identified as black:
Black people, being the bottom of the social totem pole in Boston, were
inevitably the most accepting of difference; they were the only race to
come in all colors, and so there I found myself. [] Let it be clearmy
parents decision to raise us as black wasnt based on any one-drop rule
from the days of slavery, and it certainly wasnt based on our appearance
[]. Instead, my parents decision arose out of the rising black power
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movement, which made identifying as black not a pseudoscientific rule but
a conscious choice. You told us all along we had to call ourselves black
because of this so-called one drop. Now that we dont have to anymore, we
choose to. Because black is beautiful. Because black is not a burden, but a
privilege (The Mulatto Millennium 16).
On the other hand, as Senna-narrator recounts her experiences of growing

up, she also expresses an anxiety she had about contacts with mixed race
children, her need to prove her blackness: [Mulattos were] something to
be avoided. I veered away from them. [] Instead, I surrounded myself
with bodies darker than myself, hoping the color might rub off on me
(17). Although she does not state it clearly, it is obvious that some change
must have taken place in her subjectivity between the time she describes
and the time when the observations were written down. Much like
Caucasias Samantha discovers power in her blackness but does not
choose it as a defining factor of her life (and sacks Stuart), thereby
customizing her construction of blackness, Sennas coming to terms with
her heritage does not turn her into a zealous fanatic of the black cause,
and it makes her suspicious of the fanaticism of the mulatto cause as
well. Rather, her experience of race allows her a certain kind of
detachment. In an interview for Nextbook Danzy Senna casually admits to
being mistaken for Israeli or Arab all the time: In cabs, the drivers think
Im whatever they are. (Senna in Comninos 1). Clearly, this does not
bother her.
While I may not agree with Daniel Grassians reading of Sennas
Caucasia as a novel in which the main character makes strides towards
an identity without ethnicity or racial affiliation (Grassian 331), I do
agree with the importance of linking the novel and, more generally, third
wave writing about racial/ethnic identity to David Hollingers concept of
postethnicity. In Postethnic America Hollinger tackles criticism waged at
late 1970s and 1980s American multiculturalism by proposing the
alternative concept of postethnicity as the future vision of America. He
proposes a society of citizens with multiple and overlapping voluntary
affiliations. He prefers the term affiliation over identity to emphasize
performative and temporary aspects. Hollingers postethnic society is one
based not on biology and physical appearance, but on (revocable)
conscious consent. In other words, for many reasons one may choose to
emphasize or slight affiliations with certain groups and these choices may
change over an individuals lifespan.14 Hollinger argues that such a
14
Hollinger is, of course, not the first theorist to write about the choosing of
identities in America. Hollinger himself acknowledges Mary Waterss Ethnic
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perspective would be more conducive to political action aimed at the

greater good of the nation, not just at realizing particular interests of
various identity groups:
A postethnic perspective thus resists the pluralist temptation to depict
society as an expanse of internally homogenous and anallogically
structured units [], [it] is alert for opportunities to construct global
solidarities capable of addressing ecological and other dilemmas that are
global in their impact (Hollinger 13).
Interestingly, the example Hollinger uses to provide an example of the

differences between the multicultural and postethnic perspectives is that of
Alex Haley, author of Roots. In the chapter Haleys Choice and the
Ethno-racial Pentagon Hollinger wonders why Haley chose to trace his
ancestry back to Gambia via his mothers roots, rather than explore the
Irish heritage of his father. Not surprisingly, he reaches the conclusion that
Haley did not have a real choice, because if he had taken the second
option, he would have not only been scoffed at by Irish Caucasians but
also treated as a traitor by African Americans. Hollinger uses this case to
prove the point that while the United States is endowed with a nonethnic
ideology of the nation; it is possessed by a predominantly ethnic history
(Hollinger 19). In a postethnic America, the vision Hollinger champions, a
person of Irish-African ethnicity could march in a St. Patricks day
parade without anyone finding it a joke (21). A postethnic America
would offer Haley a real choice. Both Walker in Black, White and Jewish
and Birdie Lee in Caucasia make a choice similar to Haleys in that they
ultimately decide to emphasize affiliation with the African side of their
heritage. What makes their choice different from Haleys is, paradoxically,
the voluntary character of their affiliation. It is not an affiliation which is
imposed on them by lawmakers or by their families. Sadly, this
voluntariness does not result from the changed structure of the American
society, but from the color of their skin, their ability to pass. They are not
living in a postethnic America, which remains a theoretical concept, but in
a racist reality where self-identifying as black, if one has any African
heritage, is a decent political decision, a way of enacting the third
technology of the methodology of the oppressed.
Options, which analyzes how and why third and fourth generation immigrants
from Europe choose to identify as minorities rather than just as Americans.
However, Hollinger notices that such choices are not available to immigrants of
non-European origin.
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Yet, postethnicity is an important concept for third wavers, and, for

activists, a goal to be achieved through political and social change. A
postethnic society would be one in which all the steps of the
methodology of the oppressed have been enacted, the final result of the
process of emancipation of the oppressed.
What makes these passing narratives truly different from the
traditional ones is not just a reversal of the process of passing, but also
the understanding of the concept of race which the process leads to, or
which results from the everyday experiences of the characters. Both Senna
and Walker transform their tragic mulattas into characters who are not
tragic, but witty, observant and self-aware, whose racial heritage makes
them sensitive to issues not only of race, but to injustice and oppression in
general. They are more perceptive observers of the society due to being
constantly in-between. Yet, they are active subjects shaping their own
lives. While they evidently take pride in embracing their identity as
African Americans, such a decision is also an example of Sandovals
meta-ideologizinga strategic move which appropriates dominant
ideology with the goal of benefitting minority groups, and not, as was the
case in traditional passing narratives, a decision based on succumbing to
the strength of essentialism. They may use their experiences of living in
the society as racialized subjects to advance the cause of democratics,
the fourth technology described by Sandoval en route to coalitional
consciousness. Democratics is the use of the three preceding technologies
(sign-reading, deconstruction and meta-ideologizing) not just for survival,
but for active change.
Adrian Pipers performance Calling Cards is an excellent example of
how this technology works. Piper, a performance and conceptual artist,
who is very light-skinned but of African American ancestry and
identifying as black, used the misperception of her race to confront anyone
who uttered a racist remark in her presence. This is the text printed on the
cards:
Dear friend,
I am black.
I am sure you did not realize this when you made/laughed at/agreed with
that racist remark. In the past I have attempted to alert white people to my
racial identity in advance. Unfortunately, this invariably causes them to
react to me as pushy, manipulative, or socially inappropriate. Therefore,
my policy is to assume that white people do not make these remarks, even
when they believe there are no black people present, and to distribute this
card when they do.
I regret any discomfort my presence is causing you, just as I am sure you
regret the discomfort your racism is causing me (Piper 1986).
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What makes this gesture different from just meta-ideologizing is its

obvious outward direction, it is not a technology located solely within the
subjects consciousness, but steps outside and reaches towards the other.
Sandoval differentiates between technologies of inner psychic resistance
and outer social praxis. Democratics is the first one of the outer
technologies. What should be emphasized about the methodology of the
oppressed at this point is that although the individual technologies may
refer to the interests of a specific minority group, the cumulative use of
these strategies should help in establishing coalitional consciousness and
improving not just the situation of individual groups, but lead to a more
complex reversal of power relationships. In this way, the apprent lack of
political and feminist content in these two third-wave feminist texts
becomes significant. They are an account of the development of the
successive steps of the realization of the methodology of the oppressed,
specifically the inner technologies. These paved the way for outer
technologies. From this perspective it should not come as a surprise that
after the period described in Black, White and Jewish Rebecca Walker
became a prominent third wave activist.
3.6. Passing and class: Dorothy Allison

As I outlined the genealogy of the term passing in American culture and
literature in the first part of this chapter, I mentioned that, although
originally used in the context of race, the meaning of the term has
expanded to include other forms of transgressive appropriations of power.
I have been arguing that this chameleon-like adaptation to ones
surroundings, involving a usurpation of privilege, is both a trademark
theme of third wave feminist fiction and a defining feature of third wave
sensibility. It is the endings, the finales, among other factors, which make
third wave passing narratives different from classic passing narratives.
The experience of passing does not lead to the characters ultimate
downfall, but, on the contrary, becomes fundamental for the development
of survival skills in the contemporary American society, what Gloria
Anzaldua calls la facultad and Chela Sandoval incorporates in the
methodology of the oppressed, and a sensitivity to recognizing
oppression in all its forms. Ultimately, it becomes a tool to develop a
hybrid identity, or, using David Hollingers terminology, a step towards
postethnicity.
This does not mean passing is an easy process, a playful masquerade or
a game of dress-up, because due to the fear of the consequences of being
found out. These qualities of third wave passing can be discerned not
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only in writings by mixed-race authors or in fiction dealing with the theme

of race mixing, but are also of primary importance for third wave writers
of Anglo heritage. Passing as a survival strategy and a way of developing
ones identity is an important theme in the works of Dorothy Allison.
Allison, born in 1949, is not a third wave feminist by date of birth, but her
works most definitely exhibit features of third wave aesthetic sensibility,
including the exploration of passing in the context of class. Allison does
not refuse the label of a third wave writer and has been anthologized in
Irene Zahavas early (1996) short story collection Feminism3: The Third
Generation in Writing.
Passing in the context of class may seem to be a a misuse of the term,
as ones class affiliation can actually change, although demographic data
proves that social mobility in America is more myth than reality. Still, the
possibility itself leads to the main problem with the theorizing of class
specifically that the realm of theory falls outside the scope of the working
class experience, and those studying the working class from within the
academia are, automatically, not currently working class themselves. The
point is succinctly presented in Michelle Tokarczyk and Elizabeth Fays
volume Working Class Women in the Academy, which analyzes the inbetween status of academics of working class origin. The same is true of
literature; most writers of working class origin are technically not working
class anymore by the time they start writing. Yet for Dorothy Allison the
fact of having been born in a working-class poor family has been the
defining event of her biography. For her, class affiliation is shaped mostly
by childhood experiences. She writes in Skin, a volume of personal essays:
The central fact of my life is that I was born in 1949 in Greenville, South
Carolina, the bastard daughter of a white woman from a desperately poor
family, a girl who had left the seventh grade the year before, worked as a
waitress, and was just a month past fifteen when she had me. That fact, the
inescapable impact of being born in a condition of poverty that this society
finds shameful, contemptible, and somehow deserved, has had dominion
over me to such an extent that I have spent my life trying to overcome it or
deny it. (Skin 15)
For Allisons characters, attempts at achieving a semblance of

conformity to mainstream social values, attempts at realizing the American
Dream, acquiring a college education, a respectable white-collar job, are
rebellions against class affiliation, but also against the system which
assigns that affiliation. These rebellions are often outwardly successful
ones, but never complete. The end result is always an overtaking fear, a
feeling of being out of place and of being discovered for who one really
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is. In her memoir Allison writes about her own college days: Dont let me
lose this chance, I prayed, and lived in terror that I might suddenly be seen
again as what I knew myself to be (Two or Three Things 45).
For Allison, class is not just annual income and educational level but
also, if not primarily, a set of behavior patterns, including ways of dressing
and thinking. Allisons characters, when entering the outside world,
become aware that emphasizing their heritage and ways through which it
is manifested invites ridicule and dooms them to failure. In order to assure
a better reception to increase their chances of success, they try to blend in,
pretend to be middle class, change their behavior. If done with the utmost
care, the process makes them pass as middle class. In a piece included in
the volume Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature Allison recounts
how she tried to pass in college: I copied the dress, mannerisms,
attitudes and ambitions of the girls I met in college, changing or hiding my
tastes, interests and desires (Skin 22).
Yet for Allisons characters, passing is not just a typical teenage desire
to be a part of the hip crowd. It is irrevocably tied to feelings of shame,
humiliation and anger of an immense magnitude. When the family of
Bone, the main character of Bastard Out of Carolina, moves yet again
after they are unable to pay the rent for their apartment, Bone is enrolled in
a new school. There, when asked by her teacher to introduce herself, she
invents a middle class name and background:
The first day at the district school the teacher pursed her lips and asked me
my name, and that anger came around and stomped on my belly and throat.
I saw tired patience in her eyes, a little shine of pity, and a contempt as old
as the red dust hills I could see through the windows of her classroom.
Whats your name now, honey? the woman asked me again, speaking
slowly, as if she suspected I was not quite bright. The anger lifted in me
and became rage.
Roseanne, I answered as blithely as if Id never been called anything
else. I smiled at her like a Roseanne. Roseanne Carter. My familys from
Atlanta, just moved up here. (Bastard 67)
The rage Bone feels is her reaction not only to the contempt, but also to
the pity in the teachers voice. Her attempt at passing for someone else, a
successful one as we later find out, is not motivated purely by a desire for
privilege, though as Bone says, she enjoyed a brief popularity at school,
but is a direct escape from the pity she receives as the child of those who
do not exemplify the American Dream.
Despite the prevalence of the myth of the self-made man, Allisons
characters learn that achieving success in the real America, if one is born
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poor, requires accepting charity. This is a skill which they have trouble
mastering and a necessity to which they react violently. The main
character of the short story Steal Away, a young working-class student
attending college on a scholarship, enters into a relationship with her
sociology professor who has red hair, forty shelves of books, four
children and an entirely cordial relationship with her ex-husband (Trash
83). The students initial fascination is shattered when she learns that the
only reason why the teacher is taking an interest in her is charity. Your
family is very poor, arent they? My face froze and burned at the same
time. Not really, I told her, not anymore. She nodded and smiled and
the heat in my face went down my body in waves (Trash 83). Again the
attempt to pass as middle class results from the characters problems with
accepting charity, from pride and from the desire to be treated not as a
representative of a type, though this time the type which the character
represents for the second person in the interaction is different than in
Bones encounter with the school teacher. There, the teacher had assumed
Bone to be white trash, here the professor is turning to a Dickensian
mythology of the honest and humble poor, which functions as motivation
for the ego-boosting acts of kindness performed by the more fortunate.
In Skin Allison writes about how problematic that myth was for her:
There was a myth of the poor in this country, but it did not include us, no
matter how hard I tried to squeeze us in. There was an idea of the good
poorhard-working, ragged but clean, and intrinsically honorable. I
understood that we were the bad poor (Skin 18). The families of Allisons
characters are not the mythical poor, necessary for the preservation of the
American Dreamafter all, there should always be someone who can
advance through hard workbut the real poor who end up pregnant at
fifteen or in jail by sixteen, who drink alcohol, party hard and sexually
abuse their step-children. They are the poor who perpetuate the cycle,
generation after generation. As Allison writes in her memoir of the women
in her family: We were all wide-hipped and predestined. Wide-faced
meant stupid. Wide hands marked workhorses with dull hair and tired
eyes, thumbing through magazines full of women so different from us they
could be another species (Two or Three Things 33).
As Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz point out in the Introduction to
White Trash: Race and Class in America, white trash is the only racial
slur which is still in use, perhaps not in academic writing but most
certainly in everyday conversations between members of the middle class
(Newitz and Wray 1). Being born white trash is a heritage one should
want to abandon, a strange concept in todays multicultural society.
Consequently, Allisons characters develop a combination of pride and
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self-loathing, visible in both of the passing episodes I have described.

Allison writes about herself: The women I loved most in the world
horrified me. I did not want to grow up to be them. I made myself proud of
their pride, their determination, their stubbornness, but every night I
prayed a mans prayer: Lord, save me from them. Do not let me become
them (Two or Three Things 38).
Possibly the most interesting way in which the desire to advance in the
social hierarchy and the rage against the middle class are juxtaposed is in
Allisons short story Steal Away, where the scholarship student to
whom the sociology professor rather insincerely extends her charity is
obsessed with stealing. She steals all sorts of things, becoming very
effective and efficienttoilet paper from the Burger King restroom,
magazines from the lower shelves at 7/11, and sardines from the deli
(Trash 81). She does not only steal what she needs for survival; she steals
everything in a methodical frenzy of accumulating material possessions.
The heroine also steals books, from libraries and from her professors
offices. She not only steals them, but devours them with what Renny
Christopher and Carolyn Whitson in Toward a Theory of Working Class
Literature call a kind of guerilla intellectual terrorism engaging in a
silent debate with the original readers by crossing out their notes and
adding her own. She takes revenge on the sociology professor by stealing
her books as well : On her desk there was a new edition of Malinowskis
The Sexual Life of Savages. I laid my notebook down on top of it, and took
them both when I left. Malinowski was a fast read (Trash 84). In addition
to how this obsession quite literally embodies the concept of stealing
knowledge, the irony of this particular choice of object to be stolen
requires emphasis. The main heroine and her family are savages, subjects
of scientific description, not personal contact. More is to be learned about
them from a book than from a lunch date which the sociology professor
forgets about several times in a row. Stealing things from the professors,
members of the middle class, is a way of using them without becoming
them. Using the language put forward in Methodology of the Oppressed,
what the heroine engages in is a form of meta-ideologizing, although not a
clear cut example. The character is not just appropriating hegemonic
ideology, but actually taking physical possession of this ideology through
illegal means. Most definitely, she is not stealing it in order to consume
the product innocently, but rather to learn the enemys language. She is,
therefore, re-working it in a subversive manner. Furthermore, becoming
what was expected of her, that is a thief, is a way of appropriating that
shameful identity in a conscious manner. And it is a gesture which others
like her clearly recognize.
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The shocking ending of the story proves this point. The characters
parents come to attend her graduation and take her back home. They are
utterly bored throughout the ceremony and visibly uncomfortable in the
setting of the academia. As they are getting ready to leave, the girl
impulsively decides to steal a vacuum cleaner and two wooden picture
frames Id stashed behind the laundry room doors that I knew would
perfectly fit into the Pontiacs truck (Trash 85). To her parents smiling
approval, she loads the stolen goods into the trunk. When they reach the
entrance to the campus she makes her father stop the car: I climbed out
and pulled the commemorative roses off the welcome sign. I got back in
the car and piled them into my mamas lap (86). The gift of stolen roses
shows her need to demonstrate that it is still us against them, a
declaration of resistance to class assimilation. The main character makes it
clear that acquiring her new degree has not changed her real self but
only taught her the art of deception, a skill clearly admired back home.
It is this ability to deceive which earns the mothers admiring comment:
Quite something, my daughter (86). Deception can be a skill held in
high regard by members of oppressed groups, exactly because it
demonstrates the deceivers ability to use hegemonic ideology in an
advantageous manner. It also proves that dominant ideology is not inhaled
without reflection, but used for a concrete purpose: that of improving the
position of members of the minority group.
Several other stories by Allison, including the short story Im
Working On My Charm revolve around deception as a necessary survival
skill of the poor. In Im Working On My Charm the deception is double.
The need to pass as a charming gentile girl from the south brings about
recollections of the main characters experiences of working as a waitress
with her mother, when conforming to the Yankee tourists expectations of
how southerners speak earned her extra tips. A co-worker advises,
Sweets, you just stretch that drawl. Talk like youre from Mississippi and
theyll eat it up. For some reason, Yankees got strange sentimental notions
about Mississippi (79). In this story the heroine actually works at passing
as the stereotype of the southern hillbilly.
Another skill deeply ingrained in Allisons characters is a strong
distrust of authority of any kind, a very different lesson than the one taught
to middle class children. In Bastard Out of Carolina it is the officials in
the city hall who stigmatize Bone as soon as she is born by stamping the
word illegitimate in red letters at the bottom of her birth certificate.
Bones mother, Anney, makes regular visits to the county courthouse
attempting to plead with the authorities, trying to exchange Bones birth
certificate for a new one. She is turned down each time by the employees.
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Her wish is only realized when the courthouse, the source of authority and
law in the county, burns down, along with all the documents stored there.
The explosion of good humor among Bones family members is
unanimous: [Mama] blew at the sparks again, whistling into the phone
and then laughed out loud. Halfway across town, Aunt Ruth balanced the
phone against her neck, squeezed Grannys shoulder, and laughed. Over at
the mill, Aunt Alma looked out a window at the smoke billowing up
downtown and had to cover her mouth from giggling like a girl (Bastard
16). A blow to the system of authority which classifies them as white
trash is cause for celebration. Class is not only behavior, it is also a
shared set of values. A strong distrust of the values commonly accepted as
important in middle class society is crucial for the forming of a fear of
being discovered for who one really is which Allison writes about in her
memoirs and which is a topic that comes up repeatedly in other stories of
upward social mobility.
Bastard Out of Carolina, Steal Away and most of Allisons other
works are also a provocative and in-your-face settlings of accounts with
the myth of the good poor and a confrontation with the stereotypes of
white trash. It is as if Allison is making a defiant statement: So you
think poor people steal? Here you are. They steal with their parents
approval. So you think they try to cheat the system? They celebrate
when it fails. On a side note, this is also Allisons strategy for dealing
with the lesbian themes in her fictionunapologetic, stark and defiant. Her
lesbian characters do not replicate any of the politically correct ideas
about lesbians. Just as her working class characters are not the poor of
Charles Dickens, her lesbian characters are not created to send a positive
political message to mainstream readers about how nice and unthreatening
lesbians are.
Nonetheless, the values and skills which the upwardly mobile
characters learn at home are not just the art of deception and a distrust of
authority, but also the power of the extended family network and family
solidarity. In You Nothing But Trash, an article analyzing the concept of
shame in Bastard Out of Carolina, J. Brooks Bouson traces how Allison
interweaves scenes of Bones abuse by her stepfather with episodes of
respite and safety in which Bone stays with members of her extended
family, such as her Aunt Ruth or her Aunt Raylene (Bouson 118). It is the
lack of this kinship support system which Allisons upwardly mobile
characters miss the most after they enter middle class life and which, more
often than not, pushes them to attempt reconciliation with the families they
grew up in. It is never an easy and unproblematic approval, a total and
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unconditional acceptance of ones family, but a gradual coming to terms

with the problematic legacy of working class origin.
3.7. Conclusion
Works by the three writers analyzed in this chapter share features which
make it possible to classify them as third wave. They all deal with the
formation of contemporary womens subjectivity in the borderlands.
Living in the borderlands, being a hybrid, are the shared experiences for
most third wave subjects, although the exact mixtures which go into
creating their hybrid identities are never the same. The subjects which
emerge from this process not the cognitively autonomous subjects of
Western philosophy, but are constantly in a state of flux and becoming.
The subjectivity of the characters is shaped by numerous overlapping
cross-identifications, rather than by the type of either/or binary affiliation
characteristic of second wave feminism. Subjects of third wave literature
are hybrids or mestizas, even if there was no actual race-mixing in their
familys heritage. They grow up in a world where they cannot take identity
for granted, but need to constantly negotiate who they are and which
aspects of their identity they choose to emphasize at a given time. The
social and geographical mobility of life in the contemporary United States
constantly forces them to reaffirm or change their affiliations. Economic
circumstances force Bones family to move to a different state, the
character in Steal Away is the first in her family to go to college, the
divorce of Walkers parents creates a need for the girls transcontinental
travels, and Birdies mothers sets off on a paranoid flight from the FBI
all these occurrences force the characters to renegotiate their identities in
ways which may not have been possible if they were living in a different
time, in a different place.
As this chapter shows on the example of passing narratives, these
multiplicitous subjects create narratives which reflect the changes in
subjectivity, moving away from simple binary oppositions to more
complex combinations. As Chela Sanvodal argues in Methodology of the
Oppressed, these third wave feminist citizen subjects often realize certain
technologies, with the aim of changing power relations in a way which
would empower those who are oppressed. The third wave passing
narratives analyzed in this chapter overtly realize the first three of
Sandovals technologies of the methodology of the oppressed : signreading, deconstruction and meta-ideologizing. These are all inner
technologies, visible on the level of the development of the characters
subjectivity. Yet, it can also be argued that the existence of texts which are
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preoccupied with revealing how third wave feminist subjects function in

the world forces into being the fourth technology of democratics, that is
the first outer technology which reaches out to other citizen-subjects with
the intention of achieving socal change. In many ways, the existence of
books such as the ones analyzed is exactly the same gesture as Adrian
Pipers handing out of Calling Cards to people who utter racist remarks.
Although these texts are not as overtly political as second wave texts were,
their very existence is sufficient for encouraging political changes in the
consciousness of the readers.
CHAPTER FOUR
REVOLUTION GRRRL STYLE NOW:
MICHELLE TEA AND THE POST-PUNK QUEER
AVANT-GARDE
we write tell-all books

about our rotten childhoods
the bad food
you fed us
-the coat-hanger
beatings
can i process
my bad relationship
with america,
can we go to couples counseling
can we sit down and talk about
all this
bad energy?
Michelle Tea1
4.0. Introduction
This chapter combines an analysis of the work of writer Michelle Tea with
background information on the riot grrrl movement, a radical strand within
third wave feminism, originating in the punk music scene. It should begin
with a disclaimer stating that Tea was never a formal member of a riot
grrrl chapter, even though her politics, style and general background
reflect the ideas of the movement, and even though reviewers often
describe her books as providing an inside look into the riot grrrl and
queercore communities. The reasons for Teas lack of formal involvement
in riot grrrl are easy to understand after even a brief glance at the
geographical/historical factors in her biography. She was born and raised
1
Michelle Tea. The Beautiful. The Beautiful: Collected Poems. San Francisco:
ManicD Press, 2004. 14.
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on the East Coast while riot grrrl developed on the West Coast, and she is
slightly older than most of the riot grrrls. Yet, looking at Teas work with
the background knowledge of the riot grrrl movement gives it a certain
ideological and aesthetic grounding. Respectively, Teas work is one of
the few literary glimpses available into the radical third wave communities
of the late 1980s and 1990s. Referencing the scarcity of materials available
on the movement Julia Downes notices in her article on riot grrrls that a
spectre of mystery haunts those interested in documenting and writing
about riot grrrl. It feels like an unwarranted invasion into the safe spaces of
female youth, like reading that hidden diary, decoding a secret myth, or
eavesdropping on a slumber party (Downes 12). The movement has left
behind a lot of volatile DIY publications, but no official history, even
though, as some claim, it was the most radical fringe of the third wave
and, certainly, in its heyday, the most numerous. Tea is in no way an
official historian of Riot Grrrl, but the word eavesdropping is an
excellent description of what she manages to achieve. With the observant
eye of a documentary maker she captures herself and her punky and
radical characters in their most private and intimate moments.
4.1. The Riot Grrrl movement

In one of the first inquiries into the politics and style of the Riot Grrrl
movement, the article U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth Subcultures and
the Technologies of the Third Wave, Ednie Kaeh Garrison describes the
purpose of the movement as feminist consciousness raising within the
punk subculture and the positive encouragement of women and girl artists
and cultural producers (155). In 1991 a group of young women active in
the punk scene on the West Coast (specifically, in Olympia, WA)
organized to protest sexism in the music underground and named
themselves Riot Grrrls. The word grrrl, as Laurel Gilbert and Crystal
Kile write in Surfergrrls:
coined by Bikini Kill singer and activist Kathleen Hanna, is a spontaneous
young-feminist reclamation of the word girl. It has proud analogies
among many groups of women; in fact, grrrl was at least partially
derived from a phrase of encouragement popularized by young American
black women in the 1980s: You go, guuuurll! As we all know, when it is
not being used to describe a woman under sixteen, the word often takes on
pejorative, infantilizing overtones, suggesting silliness, weakness,
insubstantiality (quoted in Garrison 141).
Revolution Grrrl Style Now
139
As I have discussed it in the previous chapter, meta-ideologizing, or the

subversive appropriation of ideological forms, is a trademark third wave
strategy. Reclaiming of the word girl by the Riot Grrrl movement
consisted in the skillful and playful manipulation of cultural imagesthe
combination of pink skirts and combat boots, knee-high girly socks and
body piercings. In its reluctance to become involved with mainstream
media, the Riot Grrrl movement, in addition to the women-only punk
bands and a girl-positive concert scene, also spawned a Do-It-Yourself
(DIY) publishing scene. It began with fanzines of bands like Bikini Kill
and Bratmobile, but the scope of the zines later expanded to address issues
beyond the music industry. Zines were often produced using school
copying machines, mailed out to friends who later redistributed them to
their friendsall in an attempt to foster the spread of information while
democratizing publishing possibilities. Some zines were only one-time
publications while others transformed into magazines which are still being
published today, for example, Hip Mama and Bitch. In 1997 texts taken
from some of the most popular zines (some titles include: Diabolical Clits,
Pucker Up, Brat Attack) were collected in the volume A Girls Guide to
Taking Over the World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution.
The origin story of Riot Grrrl bears a strong resemblance to that of the
radical wing of second wave feminism. Both Riot Grrrl and radical
feminism had their roots in broader countercultural movements. Many
second wavers came to feminism through the SDS (Students for a
Democratic Society) and other leftist organizations, where they experienced
discrimination. In the fight for a supposedly common cause, they were
relegated to brewing coffee, preparing refreshments and taking notes at
meetings. The outrage of the originators of Riot Grrrl with the
discrimination they experienced on the indie-punk scene was a similar
motivator. They did not wish to become the groupies of male punk bands,
they wanted to create music themselves. The performance tactics
employed by the Riot Grrrls (and the groups inspired by the movement
such as Radical Cheerleaders) actually resemble the types of actions
undertaken by the various radical groups in New York, such as W.I.T.C.H
(Womens International Conspiracy from Hell). The main difference, of
course, is that the legacy of music and song lyrics replaced the legacy of
manifestos and political theory and that the internet, e-mail, online
discussion forums, digital technologies replaced street actions and
mimeographed leaflets.
In addition to the music itself, the punk influence is most clearly
visible in the movements aesthetics, the aesthetization of its politics and
the problem of achieving balance between the two. The punk music scene
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originated in the US in the late 1960s, though punk as a subculture

developed in 1970s Britain. The term itself is the reclamation of an insult
directed at those who did not fit in,2 just like the Riot Grrrl movements
use of the term girl constituted a challenge to the words signification of
weakness and fragility. As Leblanc writes in her account of punk girls,
Pretty in Punk, punks adopted the apocalyptic undercurrents in the air,
transforming the Rastafarian rhetoric of revolt against Babylon stylistically
into a nihilistic refusal of British society (Leblanc 37). One of the most
visible ways of realizing this revolt was through dress. Early punks
codified the trademark punk style by using accessories that connoted low
status (dog collars), sexual perversion (bondage clothes), banality (fake
leopard fur), or degeneracy (rubber clothes). In addition punks subverted
culturally valued objects connoting tradition (the tartan kilt), conformity
(the school jacket and tie), and authority (police and storm trooper
uniforms) (40). The trademark punk hairstyle, the mohawk, the use of
safety pins and garbage bags as decorative accessories also exhibited
punks rejection of mainstream beauty standards, an attitude all the more
radical when embraced by a girl than by a boy.
This rejection of female beauty standards through the use of mockery,
irony and parody is a strategy which Riot Grrrls took over from punk and
embellished with a dose of playfulness, previously unknown to punks.
While body piercings and bright haircolors were a valid expression of
rebellion for punks, no self-respecting old school punk girl would have
ever put on anything pink or used lipstick. Riot Grrrls, while contesting
the culture that produced them, espoused it in ways in which 1970s punk
girls would not have dared to. Riot Grrrls contestation of popular culture
came from deep within that culture in a way which would have been
unthinkable for second wave feminists in the 1960s. It is hard to imagine a
critique of marriage coming from someone happily married or to expect a
woman with strong pro-life views to attend an abortion rally. Yet, it is the
third waves strong grounding in popular culture which neutralizes these
contradictions. Third wavers obsessively question the very ideologies that
formed them.
In Riot Grrrl this questioning was highly visible on the level of
aesthetics, especially in zines which often literally transformed popular
2
Leblanc quotes McNeill, author of Please Kill Me. The Uncensored Oral History
of Punk, on the origins of the term punk: It was what your teachers would call
you. It meant that you were the lowest. All of us drop-outs and fuck-ups got
together and started a movement. Wed been told all our lives wed never amount
to anything. Were the people who fell through the cracks of the educational
system. (McNeill in Leblanc 35)
141
visual imagery in a subversive way. In an article on the writings of the

movement Red Chidgey writes:
Whilst each zine is ultimately a product of its creators time, skill and
agenda, common visuals occur within riot grrrl zines. Stock graphics
include kid-photos (often the author as a young girl); reclamation of soft
porn images and sexual epithets (the marker pen use of BITCH,
SLUT, and WHORE on the page rather than the mid-rift); gig photos;
cartoon imagery; pro (fat) girl drawings and comics; crossings out; and
doodles of hearts, stars, anarchist As, and womens symbols. Images are
ripped off from ephemerally sourced publications such as newspapers,
magazines, store catalogues, old etiquette guides and childrens books
(Chidgey 117).
The subversive transformation of the imagery often resulted from

commentary added to the images, from how they were reworked and
adjusted, but sometimes it was simply the result of taking the image out of
its original context and placing it in a zine. An etiquette guide for young
ladies is going to signify something completely different on the shelf of
Barnes&Noble and when placed within the pages of a black and white
xeroxed zine titled, for example, Brat Attack. The use of DIY tactics, so
evident in the production of zines, but also in the creation of clothing and
music (one of Riot Grrrls main goals was the creation of music by girls,
for girls) is also carried over from the punk scene. In fact, it was British
punks who were responsible for perfecting the form of the homemade
zine. Leblanc writes: Zines and advertisements for punk shows shared a
cut-and-paste homemade aesthetic that came from their designers lack of
resources, art school backgrounds, and access to photocopiers (Leblanc
38).
It is also important to note that Riot Grrrl was a subculture embraced
by white girls, often (though not exclusively) of working class origin.
Although anti-racist activity was firmly on Riot Grrrls agenda, and the
movement itself began as a response to race riots,3 Riot Grrrl remained a
mostly white phenomenon, similarly to punk. Other features of punk taken
over by Riot Grrrls include the specific forms of rebellious behaviorthat
3
Julia Downes writes: It was in May 1991 that race riots erupted in Mount
Pleasant. An African-American policewoman had shot a Latino man, however
contradictory stories circulated about whether the man had lunged at her with a
knife or whether he was actually shot whilst handcuffed. This incident sparked
three days of intense civil unrest as hundreds of youth fought police in the streets
and looted the neighborhood requiring massive police mobilization and the use of
tear gas to defuse the situation (Downes 25).
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is, an embrace of total disdain for social norms and conventions, of

behavior considered improper and even violent which, in the case of Riot
Grrrl turned into a revaluation of female aggression. Leblanc writes about
British punks as espousing and propagating many of the undesirable
aspects originally associated with the term punk. Unlike previous
subcultures, however, punks deliberately cultivated an image of violence
(39). Punks became notorious for their violent behaviors at concerts (the
pogo dance in the mosh pit) and the violent language permeating the
song lyrics. The words repeated most often in pop and even rock songs are
words connected to love and relationships. If anyone carried out a
statystical analysis of punk songs, surely the most often repeated words
would be kill and die. Riot Grrrls took over the punk rhetoric of
aggression and added the female component, as visible in song lyrics and
even the names of the bandsthe most famous band being named Bikini
Kill. This strategy is supposed to foster a feeling of self-confidence and
self-worth among girls, while projecting an image of female solidarity to
the outside world. This female solidarity, or grrrl power and grrrl love,
the concepts Riot Grrrl is most famous for and the ones which were the
most spectacularly coopted by mainstream culture, consists of the creation
of a safe space for girls within the movement, combined with a
threatening, aggressive attitude supposed to fend off intruders who want to
invade that space.
Riot Grrrls uneasy relationship with the media replicates the dilemmas
experienced by second wave feminists and some of their strategies, such as
the refusal to talk to male journalists and give interviews to mainstream
publications. While fearing that coverage in mainstream media may lead
to the commodification of the movement and its ideas, Riot Grrrl leaders
were also aware that media coverage could allow the movement to reach
out to girls who would not have learned about it otherwise. Indeed, both
the hopes and the fears were realized. As Julia Downes writes,
commenting on the media frenzy which spawned dozens of articles about
Riot Grrrl in the summer of 1992 in publications ranging from Sassy, The
New York Times and Rolling Stone to Playboy: media coverage was
initially crucial as riot grrrl found a wider audience and inspired the
creation of riot grrrl chapters across America. However, the coverage also
removed and/or ridiculed the radical and political aspects of riot grrrl
(Downes 30).
The main feature which led to the commodification and the later
(second half of the 1990s) demise of the movement was the fact that it
turned out to be too sexy and too aestheticizedin other words, too
tempting as a possible source of profit. While the second wave had its
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media icons like Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer, the sexy and
heterosexual feminists who flirted with the media but were often criticized
from within the womens movement, the radical rhetoric and radical
political claims of the movement combined with its visual features (no
make-up, pants, hairy legs etc) castigated second wavers as abnormal,
crazy and repulsive. They may have been scary, they may have been an
object of uncanny laughter, but they were certainly never perceived as
attractive, as objects of sexual desire. Young riot grrrls wearing combat
boots, pink mini skirts, red lipstick and pronouncing concepts of grrrl
love could easily, after a bit of strategizing and image softening, be
turned into soft porn heroines generating an income for major record
labels. The general direction of third wave feminism, with Naomi Wolfs
concept of power feminism and Elizabeth Wurtzels nude acts on the
cover of her book, facilitated the process. Various pop girl bands began
forming in the mid 1990s capitalizing on the idea of girl power, while at
the same time watering it down to the message of girls going shopping
together and having fun. The Spice Girls have probably become the best
known example of the mainstreaming of the concept of girl power. In
1996 they recorded their hit single Wannabe, released by Virgin
Records, and launched their career by singing, clad in skimpy outfits, the
supposedly empowering words: if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get
with my friends.
In some ways it can be seen that Riot Grrrls rootedness in popular
culture is what made it vulnerable to commodification in the first place.
However, the process of commodification is not unique to Riot Grrrl, but
has been the fate of numerous countercultural movements, including the
punk scene Riot Grrrl originated from (with brand name clothing
companies offering expensive clothing stylized as punk).4 Garrison writes
that the ability to intertwine politics and style is a risky and necessary
tactic in a cultural-historical period marked by the logic of late capitalism
in which the commodification of resistance is a hegemonic strategy.
(Garrison 143). As will become evident from the analysis of Teas
writings, not only outside cooptation is to blame for the movements
4
An interesting argument regarding the commodification of countercultural

movements is presented by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter in Nation of Rebels:
Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. The authors are two professors of
philosophy who used to be involved in the punk scene as adolescents. Their main
claim is that consumerism is motivated not by conformity but by competitiveness.
When certain products become markers of rebellion, not owning them
automatically becomes a mark of conformity. Thus, cooptation into mainstream
culture is inherent to all countercultural movements.
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demise, although it most certainly plays a role, but also insiders attitudes.
Tea seems to be suggesting that the original concept of grrrl power may
have been closer to the Spice Girls than its authors claim.
4.2. Introducing Michelle Tea

Michelle Tea (1971) is possibly the most prolific writer of her generation,
having published 4 full-length books of fiction/memoir, a book of poems,
a graphic novel, and having edited several collections of essays and
stories. She has been active on the spoken word circuit (also known as the
open mic scene) in San Francisco and was one of the founders of an allfemale spoken word act Sister Spit, with which she has given
performances all across America. She has also recently founded the nonprofit Radar Productions, which stages queer-centered literary events in
the Bay Area. Born in a working class family in the impoverished town of
Chelsea, Massachusetts, at the age of 20 she was a college dropout with, as
it seemed, no perspectives for a career, still living with her parents and
holding short-term waitressing jobs. At about that time Tea came out as a
lesbian. In her early twenties she started doing sex-work in Boston and
moved to San Francisco at the age of 23, where she again began by
supporting herself as a sex-worker, but also became involved in the queer
community.
Teas first two books, The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate
Corruption of One Girl in America (1998) and The Chelsea Whistle
(2002), were written as autobiographical vignettes, mostly intended to be
presented as spoken word pieces during open mic events. She had a
habit of writing at night, in bars, keeping a notebook of topics which could
be developed into prose vignettes. The pieces written at that time and
devoted to her life in San Francisco were later published as her third book
Valencia. Passionate Mistakes was published in 1998 by Semiotext(e),
which, as Jennifer Drake writes, placed Tea in the company of
Semiotext(e)s vanguard writersKathy Acker, William Burroughts, Chris
Kraus, Eileen Myles, David Wojnarowiczappropriate company for Teas
story of growing up poor, goth, Catholic, and female (Drake 2006). When
asked about her literary influences, Tea always begins by listing Eileen
Myles, a contemporary poet closely connected to the punk movement and
a collaborator of Allen Ginsberg.5 Next comes Dorothy Allison with
whom Tea shared both life circumstances of growing up poor, white and
5
Myless first poetry reading took place in the legendary CBGBs punk club in
New York City in 1974.
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queer, and a very distinct type of in-your-face openness and honesty for
describing topics resulting from those circumstances.6
In many ways, Tea can be viewed as the ultimate third wave writer,
who not only mixes political activism with writing in her life, but also
writes about this process. Passionate Mistakes was reviewed in The
Nation, interestingly by Teas guru Eileen Myles, as a gem of endangered
narration from a loud and highly marginalized subculture, in particular the
third wave of feminism... (Myles 1999). Teas activism is impressive in
scope and very third wave in its intersectionality. She is full of energy and
constantly working on new projects, which include organizing art shows,
spoken word events, editing anthologies, promoting works by new
promising artists and similar endevors. Most recently (in 2007), she
reactivated Sister Spit, the queer-feminist road show, and toured the US
with this group of poets, spoken word artists, performance artists and hiphop musicians.
4.3. The working class heroine

In The Chelsea Whistle Tea takes the readers back to her childhood in
Chelsea, Massachusetts, a town five minutes from Boston that might as
well have been five hours, five days (CW 1). The 1970s and 1980s were
for Chelsea and its inhabitants a time of spiralling depression,
hopelessness and material deterioration, a scenario not unique to Chelsea,
but typical of many East Coast cities transitioning from an economy based
on industrial production to one based on services. The childhood
experiences of Michelle Tea, as described in the book, when viewed in the
context of intersections of gender and economy, are an almost exact
representation of the complexities described by Heywood and Drake in
their article Its All About the Benjamins: Economic Determinants of
Third Wave Feminism in the U.S. In the article Heywood and Drake, in
an innovative manner, describe the generational experience of third
wavers from an economic point of view. Using statistical data they point
6
Tea is often asked about her influences in interviews and the names which she
keeps repeating include: Eileen Myles, Diane Di Prima, Dorothy Allison, Nan
Goldin (photography), Sylvia Plath and numerous names associated with the San
Francisco spoken word scene and virtually unknown anywhere else (e.g. Anhoni
Patel, Jennifer Blowdryer, Matt Bernstein Sycamore, Marvin K White). For more
information see interviews with Tea in the August 2004 issue of BookSlut
(available online: <www.bookslut.com/features/2004_08_002954.php) and the
May 2004 issue of AfterEllen (available online: <www.afterellen.com/archive
/ellen/People/michelletea-interview.html).
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out that although the gender gap in wages still exists in the American
society, it is actually the most pronounced in the highest wage brackets,
while the wages in the lowest brackets are low regardless of the gender of
the employee. Heywood and Drake also notice that the coming-of-age
years of the third wave, that is the late 1970s and the 1980s, were a period
of economic crisis which sent entire working class/lower middle-class
families into economic hardships; third wave feminist thinking, then, is
informed by the fact that the majority of Americans have experienced
relative gender equality in the context of economic downward mobility
(Heywood and Drake 2006 230).
Michelles family situation in The Chelsea Whistle is an almost exact
representation of Heywood and Drakes thesis. Michelles parents both
hold low paying entry-level jobs. Her father is a post-office worker, while
her mother starts out in retail and decides to take night classes to become a
nurse, which she eventually succeeds at. Clearly, the fact that Michelle
grows up in a double income family is in no way connected to the gains of
the womens liberation movement, but is an economic necessity,
something which Heywood and Drake write about in the context of
families trying to achieve upward social mobility (Heywood and Drake
2006 230), but true also in the case of working class families which are
simply trying to make ends meet. For Michelles family, money is usually
tight and the only help the family can rely on in times when it is tighter
than usual comes from family members, most of whom also live in
Chelsea and all of whom are in similar economic circumstances.
Michelles grandmother, whom she affectionately calls Nana, works as a
cashier at Gorins Department Store. It is she and her husband who take in
Michelles mom Louise with her two daughters after Louises husband
demands they move out, following a series of increasingly violent fights
which eventually lead to their divorce. Louise and the children spend only
a short time together with the grandparents, as the landlord quickly catches
on that there are three extra people living in the apartment and raises the
rent, forcing Louise to move out.
In the chapter on Walker and Senna I analyzed mobility, understood
primarily in the geographical sense, as one of the defining experiences for
third wavers. The divorce of Walkers parents and the resulting custodial
arrangement force Rebecca to shuttle from the East Coast to the West
Coast and back, with airports becoming engrained in her mind as one of
the defining locations of her childhood. Additionally, the upward social
mobility of her fathers new family results in a series of smaller moves,
from the urban Bronx to the upscale suburb of Scarsdale. The political
activism of Birdie Lees parents, or the increasing paranoia of her mother,
147
however one wants to read the reasons for the decisions she makes,
coupled with the parents divorce also force Birdie and her mother to live
on the run for several years.
The mobility experienced by Michelle and her poor working-class
family in The Chelsea Whistle is of a different kind, although it is also a
significant formative experience for Michelle. First of all, the moves are
carried out on a smaller scaleusually within Chelsea. Neither Michelles
family nor the families of her friends own any of the properties they
occupy. Even Michelles grandparents, people who should have, by
American standards, accumulated enough money to afford at least the
most humble house by the time their children are grown-up, are also
renters. This situation results in a lack of housing stability, connected to
constant relocations taking place within a clearly defined geographic area
and the neverending shuffling of families between the same available
rental properties. Often, the moves are enforced by the landlords personal
reasons. The first house which Michelle remembers living in was owned
by a firefighter and his numerous family. Michelles family occupied the
downstairs apartment, but when one of the firefighters daughters, Debbie,
got pregnant, they were asked to move out, so she could live downstairs
with her new family. Other moves are forced by the familys economic
circumstances and the inability to pay the rent: We moved to the next
town, Everett. A real ascent from shitty Chelsea, though we soon moved
back (CW 25). Getting out of Chelsea, a phrase often repeated
throughout the book, is a dream and an aspiration of most residents,
though, as can be seen from the example mentioned above, the dream is
usually impossible to realize for economic reasons. The dream thus
remains reserved for the younger generations, with all parents wishing that
at least their children will one day get out.
One of the results of the futility of this dream, that is the reality that
hardly anyone ever made it out, is the extended family network within
Chelsea. Michelles childhood passes among countless cousins, aunts and
uncles and, of course, grandparents. Chelseas residents were a mixture of
people of Irish, Polish, Puerto Rican and Cambodian descent. The two
Caucasian ethnic groups, additionally unified by a shared religion and a
history of oppression, formed a very homogenous mixture, often
intermarrying. Michelles mother was Irish and her father, in the memoir
Dennis Swankowski (Michelle Teas real last name is Tomasik), was
Polish. The cousins formed playgroups and spent hours roughhousing in
the streets. The adult generation enforced a certain code of ethics on the
family members who did not conform. Of course, certain vices, especially
among men, were considered to be acceptableespecially drinking and a
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certain amount of domestic violence. However, when one family member

crossed the threshold of what was generally considered acceptable, others
would step in to discipline the troublemaker. Denniss brother Joey
married a red-haired Irish woman named Janey. Joeys bad habits
quickly escalated and the family stepped in to help Janey:
Thus began the drama of Janeys phone calls to my mother, when Id get
kicked out of the kitchen, where the telephone was, and my mother would
hunch her head around the phone, her long brown hair soundproofing the
conversation. Janey was in despair, because Joey was drunk, Joey was an
asshole, Joey was a Swankowski. My father would yell at Joey. Youre
fucking married, Joe! hed yell. Things had to be bad if my father was
schooling Joey on marital responsibility. If my dad was sent in to rescue
him, it had to mean that Joey was beyond help (40).
The resolution of Joey and Janeys story is never revealed in the memoir,
however, the functioning of the family self-help network is shown as the
most effective institution of social control. The two are not sent to
counselling, rehabilitation, and no one joins a self-help group. Problems
are solved the old-fashioned way. Joeys older brother steps in and
disciplines his sibling. The grandparents house becomes a refuge for the
Swankowski women when fights between Dennis and Louise heat up.
Nana, who is Louises mother, supports her daughter and makes sure that
she and the girls are not being physically abused: Nana asked, Does your
father hit your mother? Did you ever see him do that? (203).
The relationship between Michelle and Nana is a very close one and
clearly the most unambiguously positive relationship she has with any
family member. Nanas love is unconditional and strong, she is a person
Michelle can rely on when others reject her: [Nana] loved me, even when
she stopped loving my hair once I stripped away its shine, stopped loving
my clothes once they descended into thrift-store morbidity, black upon
black, ancient lacy things last worn by Italian widows. She still loved me
(202). One of the greatest childhood traumas for Michelle is Nanas death,
as can at least be assumed from the mystery surrounding the event. Nanas
sickness is described in one chapter, the shortest one in the book, only
eight pages long. The chapter seems to bear no logical connection to the
preceding one, relating Michelles first sexual experiences, and the
following one, about her suspicions connected to her stepfather. In the
chapter titled Radioactive, Michelle describes a trip on a hospital bus
which she and Nana take to attend one of Nanas chemotherapy
treatments. Nana is dying of lung cancer. The last interaction between
Nana and Michelle in the chapter is the sharing of a cigarette in the
149
hospital cafeteria. The episode is a sort of initiation ritual, an initiation into

adulthood, smoking with the grandmother as a sign of Nanas recognition
of Michelles maturity; an initiation into death, as both of them must be
aware of the irony of sharing a cigarette with a person dying of lung
cancer; and a kind of recognition of the hard-knock life which awaits
Michelle, her connection to her family and the lifestyle she takes over
from them: Nana smoked Benson & Hedges, Papa smoked L & Ms and
Pall Malls. Ma smoked Vantages and Will smoked Newports, with the
miniscule shreds of fiberglass that tear up your lungs and leave you feeling
fresh and minty. I started with Parliaments, moved on to Marlboros, and
by then had settled into the more feminine Marlboro Lights (184). The
chapter stops abruptly, without providing the reader with information on
Nanas death. Several chapters later the narrator casually drops a sentence
referring to how Nana died. The sentence is placed in the middle of a
completely different storyline, one about Michelles crush on leather-clad
guitarist Nikki.
In spite of all the hardships described, there is no tragic tone in Teas
memoir. This is not a story of hard times and abuse, which can be
attributed mostly to the fact that all these events serve as background
information for the main theme which, in the first part of the book, is the
morbidity of childhoodthe first sentence of the book reads: Childhood
is morbid. The heroine does not question the financial and familial
arrangements of people surrounding her, she simply describes them as part
and parcel of her childhood experience, as the only world known to her.
Divorce, domestic violence and alcohol abuse (Dennis, the Polish father is
an alcoholic, as is his entire Polish family) are mishaps classified on the
same level as bad teachers, arguments with friends and conflicts with
neighbors. There is a rupture, at times, between Tea the narrator who is
capable of ironic distance and an analytical approach to her past, and
Michelle the heroine who simply lives through these events without the
possibility of reacting in an intellectually sophisticated manner. In fact, the
morbidity of childhood, according to Tea seems to be the childs lack of
agency and dependency on others. This is highly visible in the description
of the events leading up to Louise and Denniss divorce. After a final
fight, which takes place in the middle of the night and involves the
smashing of telephones and physical violence, Dennis confronts his
daughters and gives them some instructions:
Dennis had talked to me and Madeline on that last night, as he threw us
from his house. He told us that if we ever saw him walking toward us, we
should cross the street, because he would not say hello to us. He would not
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be a part-time dad. Me and my sister listened and nodded dumbly. The
awful acceptance of childhood. I miss nothing about it (CW 93).
The perspective in this passage is clearly that of the adult Michelle, but the
childs inability of speaking up for herself is conveyed very strongly.
The dirty and dilapidated environment of Chelsea neighborhoods in the
1970s is reported on with painstaking detailovergrown backyards, mud
puddles, siding peeling off the houses, a dirty creek flowing through the
town, littered with plastic bags: The trash bags intrigued and thrilled me,
I was certain they held heinous secretsa litter of soggy kittens, a
butchered girl body. What else would someone wrap in a trash bag and
dump in a creek? Not trash (38). All of these discarded objects and rundown places held an almost magical appeal for the kids, who took
possession of the abandoned areas and transformed them with their
imagination: When it rained, their yard would flood and you could run
through the deep puddle and pretend it was a beach. We laid towels beside
the dirty water and tanned, floated toys in the muck (CW 26). The worst
part of the dilapidated town, the projects, was the most mysterious and
somewhat frigthening as the location where the poorest of the citys poor
lived. The uniformity of the buildings created fantasies of losing oneself in
a labirynth of buildings and corridors, all of them exactly alike. All parts
of the run-down city provided the children with space for exploration,
while the notorious absence of adult supervision, connected to the
economic necessity of a double income household and parents often
holding more than one job, offered them the freedom needed to explore
that space and allowed them to develop their imagination. The children
growing up in Chelsea, although obviously aware of the existence of a
cleaner, brighter, more affluent world within close geographical proximity,
just on the other side of the bridge, do not seem to resent the
environment.
They are, however, acutely conscious of the differences between the
social classes and the minute details in appearance which make one unable
to pass as middle class. One of these details which repeatedly appears in
Teas memoir, is teeth. Young Michelle quickly learns to recognize social
class on the basis of a persons teeth. When, as an adolescent, she has a
crush on Steph, her new girlfriends teeth are one of the few attributes
which are included in her brief description of Stephs appearance. Steph
was a very privileged person who believed that by becoming a dyke she
negated all that, the sex we had canceling out her well-cared-for teeth and
that way moneyed girls carry themselves (266). In Passionate Mistakes
the same girlfriend is presented using a different name, Liz, but the
description immediately reveals that Steph from Chelsea Whistle and Liz
151
are the same person: Liz had perfect teeth, straight and white as her
Connecticut upbringing that held dentistry to be a necessity, not the luxury
it was for my family (PM 26). Meanwhile, another girl Michelle meets in
Passionate Mistakes, Kelly had hair past her butt and teeth that were
rotting in her head. It really threw you when she smiled. They were
crooked and brown, hanging in her mouth like a giggle. I have a love for
women with fucked-up teeth. Working-class girls who couldnt afford
dentists (PM 70). These subtle signs become not only marks of
recognition, but even marks of distinction, Kellys teeth are something of a
badge of honor testifying to the hardships she survived as a child.
4.4. Tea and the discourse of recovery

Just as in The Chelsea Whistle Tea avoids the trap of capitalizing on the
destitute conditions of her childhood to evoke pity in the reader, she also
manages to escape the restrictions of another genre, which both Passionate
Mistakes and The Chelsea Whistl,e the second book perhaps even more so,
could have easily turned into, that is a memoir of childhood abuse. The
Chelsea Whistle has all the plot elements of trauma literature in its most
popular pulp version, which has been dubbed, not by literary critics but by
the publishing industry which is reaping the financial benefits of the
popularity of this genre, misery literature (or mis lit).7 These plot
elements include a childhood fraught with extreme poverty, lack of
stability and emotional support and, most importantly, sexual abuse.
Shortly after the divorce of Michelles biological parents, her mother
marries Will, who is a male nurse at the hospital, with a biker past and a
7
The term mis lit was coined by Liz Bury in an article in Bookseller Magazine
(Liz Bury. Tugging at Heart Strings. Bookseller.com 8 April 2007. June 18 2007
<http://www.thebookseller.com/in-depth/feature/34722-tugging-at-heartstrings.html>). In the article Bury describes the phenomenal popularity of a group
of memoirs which exhibit striking similarities in character and plot development
and dubs them mis lit. According to the statistics Bury recounts, 11 of the top 100
paperback bestsellers in Britain were mis lit memoirs, with a combined sales of 1.9
million copies. As a result of the boom, the book market is being saturated with
mis lit memoirs, with five to ten books being published each month. A typical mis
lit memoir sells about 60-90,000 copies, but the most popular ones top the charts
with over 500,000 copies sold (for example, Julie Gregory Sickened: The Story of
a Lost Childhood sold over 550,000 copies by 2007). Most mis lit books are sold
in paperback and the majority of such books are placed on display in supermarkets,
rather than in bookstores. However, major chain bookstores have accommodated
the fad by creating sections such as Painful Lives (Borders bookstores) and
Real Lives (Waterstone).
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pot-smoking habit. Not much time passes before Michelle begins to be

troubled by sounds which she hears at night outside her bedroom,
floorboards creaking and heavy breathing. When the girls are in their teens
Madeline discovers holes drilled in the walls of their bedrooms and in the
bathroom door. It becomes obvious that their stepdad has been a peeping
Tom, spying on his daughters in intimate situations.
Mis lit memoirs usually retell the heros (who is to be viewed as
synonymous with narrator and author) traumatic experiences of childhood
abusemost often sexualwhich usually escalate over the years to end with
a dramatic account of breaking-free of the abuser. They skim over the
narrators years of denial of the experience to focus on the gradual process
of healing and therapy, completed with some spiritual and redemptive
experience. The term mis list conceptually and even phonetically
resembles chick lit, a genre discussed in more detail in Chapter I. The
resemblance suggests that the reader should expect a story which shares
some characteristics of chick lit; a story that is not serious literature,
nothing formally sophisticated or innovative (therefore it is not even called
literature, but infantalized as lit), user-friendly, emotionally involving
and aimed at the female reader. In Chapter II I made the thesis that the
writings of the third wave of American feminism have been strongly
influenced by the contemporary memoir boom in combination with the
influence of the self-help movement of the 1980s. Many of the narratives
anthologized in the most popular third wave volumes could be marketed, if
published in extended version, as mis lit memoirs, although their
publication predates the first use of the term.8
8
In Mis Lit: Is This the End for the Misery Memoir? published in The Daily
Telegraph, Ed West notes that although the term mis lit may be new, the genre
itself is not. West traces the origins of the genre to a memoir published in 1836 The
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, Or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nuns Life in a
Convent Exposed about the sexual abuse of nuns in a convent in Montreal by local
priests. The genre as it is codified today came into existence with David Pelzers
1995 A Child Called It and Frank McCourts 1996 Pulitzer Prize winning Angelas
Ashes. The same psychological explanations used by contemporary scholars to
describe the popularity of various types of sensationalist literature can be used to
explain the popularity of this genre. It is possible to go even further and see the
same mechanisms at work accounting for the popularity of American captivity
narratives. Both these genres were/are read mostly by females, which, in the case
of captivity narratives, as some critics (see, for example, Annette Kolodnys
Among the Indians: the Uses of Captivity) explain, provided a scenario in which a
woman could break out of the traditional passive feminine role. At the same time
captivity narratives also played on a womans maternal instincts, strengthening her
desire to protect her children. Similarly, mis lits focus on abused children (most
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An interesting example of a third wave writer who is very powerfully

drawn to the mis lit genre is Elizabeth Wurtzel. Wurtzel has enjoyed an
almost mainstream popularity as the author of two somewhat scandalizing
and very third wave books, that is Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women and
The Bitch Rules, a spoof on dating advice books, specifically Fein and
Schneiders The Rules, which present surefire ways to trap a husband.
Both these books are written from the perspective of what can be
described using Naomi Wolfs termsand the two women are certainly
very much aware of the others workpower feminism. In Bitch Wurtzel
criticizes the restrictions placed by society on women regarding what is
considered proper behaviorsubmissiveness, politeness, respect for
authority. Wurtzel argues that the only way for women to achieve true
liberation is by turning around their own personal lives, taking charge,
being assertive and aggressive. Sexuality is an important element in
Wurtzels rendition of power feminism, as evident from the title of the
book, which attempts to reclaim the slur word denoting an immoral
woman and turn it into a badge of honor. A nude photo of Wurtzel on the
cover is supposed to prove the point. Bitch and The Bitch Rules paint a
picture of Wurtzel as a consciously scandalizing, self-assured and
confident woman, who knows what she wants from life and how to get it,
whether it is a book deal, a lover, or blonde highlights.
However, Wurtzel is also the author of two memoirs which reveal a
completely different image of the writer. Prozac Nation (1995) records
Wurtzels struggle with depression, while the later (2002) book is a very
long and detailed account of her addiction to Ritalin, a drug she began
taking to help her with the depression. The addiction to Ritalin led to a
serious cocaine habit, which intensified while she was working on Bitch
covers depict the sad face of an abused child) also account for the genres
popularity among white middle-class stay-at-home mothers. The horrific abuse
suffered by someone elses child in the book gives the woman self-confidence as a
mother. Interestingly, both captivity narratives and contemporary mis lit, with the
growth of the popularity of each genre respectively, began to be fraught with the
same phenomenon, that is the publication of completely fictional accounts
marketed as true stories. The best known cases within the mis lit genre concern
the greatest bestsellersKathy OBeirnes Kathys Story: A Childhood Hell Inside
the Magdalene Laundries (2005), which describes the narrators traumatic
childhood abuse at the hands of the Magdalene nuns (as has now been proved
OBeirne never set foot inside a Magdalene laundry), Misha Defonsecas Surviving
with Wolves which relates the narrators incredible story of hiding from the Nazis
among wolves (2003) and Benjamin Wilkomirskis Memories of a Wartime
Childhood (1997), a harrowing account of a Jewish childs survival at Auschwitz
(while in fact Wilkomirski spent his childhood safely in neutral Switzerland).
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and which finally forced her to go into rehabilitation therapy. Although

there is no overt theme of childhood abuse in either of these memoirs, the
main feature of the mis lit genre, that is the attempt to evoke pity in the
reader for the protagonist, makes up for this omission. The reader is
expected to feel sorry for Wurtzel, who, in turn, is portrayed as absolutely
powerless when faced with her problems. In the depression memoir she is
completely misunderstood by friends and family (interestingly, her mother
is described as an exceptionally unsympathetic person), but at the same
time becomes dependent upon them for getting through everyday
activities. In the addiction memoir, the general framework is similar
Wurtzel is victimized and misunderstood. It does not matter that she is
rich, pretty, a Yale graduate and successful professionally. She is
miserable and expects compassion. There is no way of determining which
of Wurtzels many faces is the closest to reality, not to mention that in
contemporary life-writing studies such a question is considered void
anyway, but it is interesting that throughout her work Wurtzel creates two
contradictory personas: the confident and self-assured power feminist
and the weak and miserable addict.9
If Tea had wanted the evoke readers pity, she could have achieved this
effect much more easily than Wurtzel. In contrast to Wurtzel, she actually
had been poor and abused as a child. However, Tea not only manages to
escape this trap, she does this so effortlessly that the possibility of reading
9
This is also a good time to mention Rebecca Walkers newest book, published in
late 2007, a bit too late for a complete analysis of the book to be included here.
The book, also written in memoir format, is titled Baby Love and is supposed to
chronicle Walkers journey into motherhood. However, it quicklyalready on the
second pageturns into a story of Rebeccas rocky relationship with her mother: I
had a tempestuous relationship with my mother, and feared the inevitable kickback
sure to follow such a final and dramatic departure from daughterhood. Rebecca
Walker presents Alice as a despot and their relationship throughout Walkers
childhood and adolescence as emotionally abusive. Alice Walker remained cold
and detached while young Rebecca continued pining for her attention. Rebecca
Walkers interpretation of the very same situations which she describes in her story
Lusting for Freedom in Findlens Listen Up!, specifically the sexual encounters
she had as a teenager, changes from viewing them as expressions of joyful
experimentation with sexuality to dramatic cries for her mothers attention.
Rebecca Walker clearly wants to be seen as neglected and abused emotionally. The
mis lit framework of this memoir is completeshe gradually comes to realize her
victimization, seeks healing (through Buddhism) and finds regeneration in giving
birth to her son, Tenzin. Walkers memoir, similarly to Wurtzels two books, is an
excellent example of third wave writers propensity for turning to the mis lit
framework.
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her book as a mis lit memoir probably does not cross the readers mind.
Firstly, the abuse, similarly to poverty, never becomes the memoirs
primary topic. It keeps reappearing in different parts of the memoir, just as
a whirlwind of other topics do, never completely taking over as the main
storyline. This already breaks the established mis lit pattern of escalating
abuse, a painful escape, confrontation and redemption. There is no
confrontation between the girls and Will in The Chelsea Whistle and in the
chronologically later (though written earlier) Passionate Mistakes the
reader learns that some form of confrontation has taken place, but it is
never openly described. Will, the abusive stefather, is also presented as a
generally likeable character, clearly an improvement over Michelles
Polish biological father, whose relationship with his daughters was
extremely cold and detached. Meanwhile, Will cracks jokes, dresses in
leather and smokes potall of these features adding up to the girls
perceiving him as cool and appealing: Wed never had someone as cool
as Will inside our homethe blurry green tattoos he got in jail, his old life
in the square, drugs and fistfights (CW 129). Yet, the most visible
difference in Teas treatment of abuse from the typical mis lit memoir is
her attitude towards the idea of overcoming childhood abuse trauma
through 12 steps-type self-help ideas for spiritual healing and recovery.
Michelles childhood is permeated with self-help culture, she describes
herself as fed on hysteria and TV talk shows and trashy teen paperbacks
about heroically abused girls (CW 202). The saturation of 1980s culture
with popular psychology is such that even in working class dilapidated
Chelsea everyone seems to have a therapist with whom they work
through their issues. Interestingly, this era of the emergence of popular
psychotherapy concides with the divorce of Michelles parents. The oldstyle pre-divorce way of solving family problems consisted of crisis
interventions by family members who confronted the offender or person
experiencing emotional problems. In the post-divorce 1980s world, this
role is taken over by psychotherapy. Michelles sister Madeline has strong
fears of nuclear war, which her therapist explains as a fear of
abandonment that haunted her psyche after Dennis discarded us (CW
219). Such terms as dysfunctional, denial, repression become table
talk in Michelles environment and, at least for some time, account for her
own default explanations of various behaviors and feelings. Michelle is so
familiar with the discourse of popular psychoanalysis that she even
wonders whether she is not imagining the entire situation with Will,
because she herself is such a sex-obsessed pubescent girl that she might
actually want to have sex with her dad: My mind warmed into some
Freudian calisthenics. Paranoia as warped desireI really wanted Will to
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be spying on me. Wished for him to. Maybe my brain thought things it
kept even from me. Wasnt that the essence of psychology? (CW 211).
This immersion in popular psychology accounts for yet another rift
between Michelle-the-character and Michelle-the narrator. The narrator
clearly exhibits a certain ironic distance towards these incredible stories of
abuse and magical cures for recovery and looks back with awe and
incredulity on how easily she has accepted self-help discourse as the
ultimate authority in explaining the world. The narrator traces how young
Michelle unwillingly witnesses the increasing participation of friends and
family members in the victim culture of the self-help movement. Her sister
Madeline sees a psychotherapist, even Will, her actual abuser is a
recovering alcoholic who regularly attends AA meetings:
Will was going to meetings, and he even had a therapist. He told me that
talking about it made my mother uncomfortable, which was why he never
mentioned it at home. But he was doing the work, and was on the step
where you say youre sorry to all the people you fucked with while you
were drunk, and he wanted to apologize to me (CW 240).
It is never openly acknowledged by the narrator, but in the course of

Passionate Mistakes and The Chelsea Whistle it becomes obvious that
Michelle begins to view self-help theories with an increasing dose of
suspicion, as far-fetched explanations which often only mask the real
reasons behind someones behavior, preclude confrontation and, most
importantly, allow the subject of the self-help process to claim victimhood
as a prized identity. In Michelles relationship with Will, his alcoholism,
which she has always perceived as an endearing and completely harmless
habit, has nothing to do with the real reason why he should be apologizing
to her. Yet, his status as a recovering alcoholic prevents the possibility of
confronting him about the issue of abuse, because such a confrontation
could possibly set him back in his recovery from alcoholism.
Passionate Mistakes provides an even better example of how victim
culture serves to mask the real problems in a relationship. After a time of
working as prostitutes in Boston Michelle and her girlfriend Liz decide to
move to Phoenix. Michelle provides the funds for the trip from her
earnings as a prostitute, with the assumption that after their big move Liz
would earn their living for some time, while Michelle would be able to
give up prostitution. During this time of changethe move to Phoenix is
Michelles first cross-country tripboth girls turn to self-help books:
Me and Liz had that book The Courage to Heal. We were obsessed with it,
we studied it. You know how people turn to religion in times of crisis. I
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needed dogma, something solid and sure. Theres that whole part of The
Courage to Heal that says maybe you were molested but you blocked it out
and thats why youre so fucked up right now. That was our favorite part.
Liz would try to convince people they had been molested (PM 153).
The explanation provided by Michelle-the-narrator seems logical with

relation to the life situation of the girls and is coherent with Rappings
analysis of the self-help movement, as presented in Chapter II. One of
Rappings theses is that the popularity of the self-help movement in the
1980s can be partly explained through the unsettling of gender norms in
the 1970s. In this case, the turn to self-help ideas is necessitated through a
major life change and, of course, facilitated by the popularity of the
movement at that time. Nonetheless, it seems that even at this point in her
life Michelle-the-character is aware of the compensatory character of the
explanations provided by the book and does not embrace them as wholeheartedly as her girlfriend does. However, Liz is not to be deterred and any
counter-argument put forward by Michelle is explained by Liz as evidence
of her being in denial. The violent character of Michelles fantasies is,
according to Liz, clear evidence of the fact that she was raped in
childhood: Rape fantasies, violent fantasies too. Get a clue Michelle, you
were obviously raped! Liz was so annoyed with me. She had those
fantasies too. We began a campaign aimed at getting the violence out of
our pussies (PM 155). Michelle, not willing to risk the dissolution of her
relationship with Liz, half-heartedly agrees to confront her biological
father, the assumed rapist. By this time Dennis has completely disappeared
from her life and finding him proves to be a challenge. When she does
confront him, he is, understandably, outraged and slams the phone. Liz at
first tries to pressure Michelle into confronting him properly, but soon
her own recovered memories of abuse take first stage: Liz had a series of
visions. She had a vision of her recently dead grandfathers penis bobbing
before her, and she remembered that she had been raped by him from
infancy until age eighteen (PM 161). According to the self-help book
both girls have read, this revelation placed Liz in the beginning of the
Emergency Stage, which in turn, required the removal of all forms of
stress from her life to enable the healing process to begin. The removal of
stress necessitated a break from streetwork, which meant that Michelle
was once again required to support both of them.
At this point, it is obvious that Michelle does not believe in Lizs story
and sees through it as an excuse for Liz to get out of working and an
opportunity to enjoy the privileges offered by her fake status of being a
victim of rape. Yet, recovery discourse is granted huge significance in
environments as diverse as working-class Chelsea and the artsy lesbian
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circle which Michelle is associated with in her twenties, where respect for
another womans experience is an axiomatic assumption. This assumption
is so strong that it precludes any kind of discussion about the experience
and its cultural and political implications, making empathy and silence the
only desired responses. This is how Michelle describes the sharing of Lizs
story of sexual abuse among her group of friends: it was this solemn
sacred thing and we felt her pain and the pain of all women and she was
like this catholic saint who had survived horrible torture and was now
holy (PM 103). This attitude expressed in this passage is clearly parallel
to the story recounted by Gina Dent in the article Missionary Position,
which is analyzed in more detail in Chapter II, along with other theories of
feminist confession. After summarizing an incident when a general
question related to a personal confession made by another participant of a
feminist conference Dent was attending outraged the speaker and the
audience, Dent tries to theorize the incident. She concludes by arguing that
confession, even when performed in a public context (in the case of
Michelles girlfriend Liz the context is semi-public) creates expectations
of sacredness and intimacy.
Tea not only manages to avoid the trap which many of the third wave
authors described in Chapter II fall into, that is, she does not structure her
story as a typical recovery narrative, she also notices the dangers resulting
from the assumption of such discourse as neutral and objective. It is
significant that both in Dents article and in Teas memoir the language
used to describe confession recalls religious discourseholy, sacred,
saint, visions, dogma. Dent and Tea are making the same observation,
namely that the role of the recovery movement, and confession as its
structural element, has become dangerously close to that of religion. What
makes Teas ironic distance to the recovery movement very third wave is
the acknowledgment of her own entanglement in this culture. Structurally,
this is enabled by the distance between the adolescent Tea-character and
the adult Tea-narrator, but it seems that at times, like in the situation
described in Passionate Mistakes involving Lizs recovered memories of
rape, even Tea-character becomes aware of how the recovery perspective
skews ones perception of reality, while at the same time choosing to play
along with Lizs story and not confronting her directly.
4.5. Revolution grrrl style now:

Tea and third wave activism
Teas greatest strengths as a writer lie in her ability to reflect on popular
culture, while remaining completely immersed in it. She acknowledges her
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numerous desires to be a part of some important movement, what I dubbed

in Chapter I third wave nostalgia, all the while emphasizing the dangers
inherent in surrendering ones identity to a group identity and her own
character traits which preclude the realization of such desires. In the first
chapter of Passionate Mistakes Tea describes her emotions at an INXS
concert: I just could not toss myself into the context of those girls.... This
had always been my curse in my desire to be a groupie, my refusal to
become part of the shrieking mob (PM 9). This seemingly contradictory
attitude of simultaneous involvement and detachment is visible not only in
Teas treatment of the groupie lifestyle and recovery discourse, but also in
her description of her own activism in the feminist movement. She is one
of the few third wave writers who actually tackle the issue of feminist
activism in their works, though as is the case with other topics Tea
explores, it never takes center stage.
Tea has been called an icon of the third wave (by no other than her
poetic guru Eileen Myles) and she just as often embraces this label as she
rejects it. As a writer, she claims to follow the maxim of remaining true
to the story:
I feel kinship to all these different communities, but I dont necessarily
assume Im part of their world or that they will feel a kinship back. In my
writing I am not trying to make anyone happy or toe any particular line. I
like those moments where I hit on something that may not be acceptable. I
like that because I like things being really complicated and contradictory. I
dont feel like theres anything I cant say. For example, if I say something
true that happens to not be feminist, then thats just a place where
feminism doesnt help me. Same thing with queer or working-class
perspectives. Anything can turn into a dogma, and the more dogmatic you
are as an artist, the more your arts going to suck. You have to be true to
the story (Drake 2006).
As regards actual feminist activism in her stories, Teas character is clearly

the most involved in the womens movement of all the characters created
by the third wave writers analyzed so far. However, Michelle becomes
active in radical third wave groups not strictly because she is outraged at
the exploitation of women. For her and for other girls from her peer group
involvement in feminism is as much a statement of political beliefs as a
fashion statement and a vehicle for enriching social life. Michelle
describes the women she met at an abortion clinic defense action as
wonderful loud-mouthed girls who were also unafraid to wear their
queerness as a fashion accessory (PM 80). The clinic defenses described
operate among the radical girls as clubs and parties do among Michelles
mainstream friends. They are something of a social circuit, a place for
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meeting new people, socializing with friends and impressing them with
ones appearance, clothing and actionsI saw her [Juniper] once, at an
abortion rights demonstration where everyone walked in a giant circle
chanting and holding signs. [] I hated what I was wearing. If Id known
I was going to see her, Id have dressed a lot better (CW 237).
In Passionate Mistakes abortion clinic defenses operate as the gateway
to third wave activism; if a girl wants to get involved in feminist activities
and is not sure how to do that, the easiest answer is to come to a clinic
defense.10 Interestingly, these actions attract the local queer community,
that is women who are the least likely to need abortion services
themselves. This could be viewed as an example of the cross-sectionality
of third wave activism and would probably be explained as such by the
third wavers involved in this activity. It cannot be denied that abortion
rights are one of the few issues prominent on the often muddy third wave
agenda and that, historically, the assault on the Roe v. Wade decision in the
10
It is a historical fact that the late 1980s and early 1990s marked a period of
intensified violence against abortion providers, connected with the rise of the
radical right and sparked by the anti-choicers frustration with the failure of
introducing a total ban on abortion. In the 1980s anti-choice groups began staging
protests in front of abortion clinics, photographing the women visiting the clinics
and trying to obstruct the operation of clinics in various ways (chaining the doors
to clinics shut, physically blocking the entrances). In response, pro-choice groups
such as NOW and NARAL, began organizing counter-demonstrations, often called
clinic defenses, and so-called escort services for assisting women with getting
through the crowds of protesters. The largest and best known anti-choice group
involved in organizing protests in front of abortion clinics was Operation Rescue.
OR (renamed Operation Save American in 1997) was founded in 1988 by Randall
Terry. The largest protest organized by Operation Rescue involved a continuous
two-month long sit-in in front of an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas in 1991,
called Summer of Mercy. The group is also suspected of acts of violence
towards abortion providers and directed at the property of abortion clinics. The
most drastic acts of anti-choice violence include several murders of abortion
providers. The first such murder, the assasination of Dr. David Gunn, took place in
1993 and more than 10 providers were killed in the US in the 1990s. The increase
in clinic violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to the passing of the
Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act by the Clinton administration
in 1994, which regulated the distance of the protesters from the clinic entrances. In
general, the protests in front of clinics and clinic defenses were a highly visible
part of the culture wars going on in the US in the 1980s, possibly because of all
the drama involved and the media attention garnered by both sides. For more on
the history of the abortion wars see, for example, Rickie Solingers Abortion
Wars: A Half Century of Struggle or Cynthia Gorneys Articles of Faith: A
Frontline History of the Abortion Wars.
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late 1980s led to an amazing outburst of feminist activism, leading to the

largest ever march in support of choice in Washington D.C. However, in
this case Michelle-the character senses that the actual reason for her own
and her groups involvement is not the need for community building, but a
desire to participate in an activity considered to be controversial and
radical as well as an opportunity to be involved in a confrontation. In fact,
what attracted Michelle to Liz, who later became her girlfriend was Lizs
confrontational attitude: One of them [the queer girls], Liz, became my
girlfriend. I had met her at the abortion clinic on Boyleston Street, I had
liked her right away because she was such an awful bitch to the christians
(PM 80).
In the background of Passionate Mistakes Tea sketches a framework of
differences between second wave and third wave styles of activism,
probably the only such account in a full-length creative work.The clinic
defense actions which she participates in are organized by second wave
feminists from NOW, older, middle-class and clearly influenced by tactics
of non-violent activism. The women from NOW, who for Michelle and
her friends represent the entire older generation of feminists, want to
operate within the parameters of the law. They are interested in being
perceived by the media as calm and reasonable, not as crazy radicals. The
groups of younger queer girls who become involved in the protests want to
manifest not only their involvement in the cause, but their opposition to
the tactics employed by the second wavers. It becomes a badge of honor
among them to aggravate the older women. Michelles attraction to the
string of girlfriends she meets at the clinic defenses is also based on how
radical they appear and this radicalness is evaluated through contrasting
them with the NOW women. Liz was doing all the things the women
from NOW, who had appointed themselves as leaders of the whole
shebang, told you not to do, like taunt them verbally, call them slimy little
assholes, accuse them of molesting their children, slamming into them and
then facetiously apologizing, asking the women if theyve ever
experienced orgasm (PM 80). Steph, Lizs alter ego from The Chelsea
Whistle, a Connecticut-born suburban-raised middle-class girlfriend (with
great teeth) was:
the angriest girl, the loudest, hoarse from screaming murderous threats at
Christians, and on the official shit-lists of all the professional feminists
from NOW who were trying to look reasonable for the press cameras.
There was Steph in her bra, strutting up to old, praying men and spitting, I
bet you want to fuck me, dont you? Or do you like little boys? Steph oozed
terrible, righteous anger, and I fell in love with her immediately (CW 258).
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It is not coincidental that Michelle uses the term righteous anger to

describe the reason for her attraction to Steph. As I have shown in Chapter
II, religious discourseand this is the context from which the term
righteous anger originatesis often tightly intertwined with the rhetoric
of radical social movements and, in the case of third wave feminism often
provides the formal structure for narrative, for example, in the genre of
feminist conversion narrative. Of course, in the context of the abortion
debate, the use of religious rhetoric is a clear reappropriation, as it was the
pro-life side which utilized religious language first, especially apocalyptic
imagery and the form of the jeremiad.11 A powerful tactic used in the late
1980s and in the 1990s by the pro-choice side is that of justified, righteous
anger, basically understood as a form of indignation which appropriates
the values of the opposing side and uses them in order to justify certain
claims. In an article published in the volume Homofobia po polsku
[Homophobia. Made in Poland] Tomasz Basiuk argues that a person
expressing righteous anger is trying to convince others to a certain
interpretation of events; trying to define the situation in a new way, which
could be accepted by them (Basiuk 189).12 It is highly debatable whether
accusing the protesters, as Steph did, of homosexuality is likely to
convince them of the pro-choice sides claim, but it most certainly
capitalizes on the shock created by a reversal of values. Using righteous
anger successfully, that is in a way which amplifies the users convictions
and thus makes the argument stronger, requires an unwavering belief in
the righteousness of the cause one is arguing for. Actually, the tactic is not
11
For more on the rhetoric of the religious right in the abortion conflict see Carol
Masons Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics. In this
book Mason traces how the use of biblical imagery related to war and doom
rhetorically facilitated and justified the gradual formation of a paramilitary pro-life
culture. Meanwhile, in Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social
Change Celeste Condit analyzes how both the pro-life and the pro-choice
movements tried to influence public discourse on abortion using specific rhetorical
strategies. The use of apocalyptic imagery, as Condit argues, was one of the more
influential strategies introduced by the pro-life movement in the 1980s. It also has
to be mentioned at this point that religious imagery is particularly charged in the
American context, where, as numerous critics have argued, certain religious
literary genres (the jeremiad, the sermon, the conversion narrative) and specific
tropes and figures (city upon a hill, promised land) have been crucial for the
formation of American national identity (see, for example, Perry Millers Errand
Into the Wilderness and Sacvan Bercovitchs The American Jeremiad).
12
Translation mine, original in Polish: Kto wyraa suszny, uzasadniony gniew,
ten stawia na przekonanie innych do pewnej interpretacji wydarze; stara si
zdefiniowa sytuacj w nowy sposb, ktry mgby zosta przez nich przyjty.
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the exclusive invention of the third wave of feminism, it has been utilized
by radical second wave feminists as well, 13 but the second wavers
Michelle and her friends come into contact with are appalled by such
behavior.
As Michelle tries to negotiate her place within third wave feminism
she seems to have a problem with not feeling righteous enough. She
finds righteousness, understood as a very deep belief in the ideas one
publicly professes, very sexy and is physically attracted to those who
exhibit it, but cannot escape the feeling that there should be something
more in her connection to the feminist and queer movements:
I was training to be a Pink Panther, a homo Guardian Angel. I very much
believed in the cause but it was more of a social/sexual vehicle. The more
experienced Panther girls would use me to demonstrate different selfdefence moves, flipping me onto my back and digging a knee into my
chest while I panted up at them, completely in love (PM 83).
During her brief attempt at going to college she takes a womens studies
class and finds it frustrating, because she just wanted to have sex and it
wasnt going anywhere (PM 62).
Teas memoir never generalizes, it is not a treaty about third wave
feminism but a personal story with pictures of several radical social groups
in the background. However, the scarce statistical data on the subject of
why young women joined the Riot Grrrl supports the conclusion that
Michelle may not have been the only one who became involved in third
wave feminism as a social/sexual vehicle. In Pretty in Punk Lauraine
Leblanc analyzes the motivations of teenage girls joining the punk/riot
grrrl subculture which, as I wrote in the opening of this chapter, can be
classified as a node of third wave feminism. Leblancs account is a
sociological study, based on several dozen interviews. She notices that the
language used by girls to describe their relationship with the new
subcultural group, is very often that of familial kinship, for example,
adoption, family, sisters. (Leblanc 71). The girls also often talk
about previous experiences of rejection by other peer groups, especially
13
Righteous anger as a rhetorical strategy has also been used by other (nonfeminist) groups. In the article mentioned above Tomasz Basiuk shows how the
strategy of righteous anger was used by the gay community (from the 1970s
until the 1990s) to draw attention to the silence surrounding the topic of AIDS.
Basiuk views the shock tactics employed by ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash
Power), consisting of staging die-ins, street performances and various acts of civil
disobedience as examples of righteous anger.
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mainstream high school culture and the feeling of being embraced and
welcomed by the new one. Leblanc mentions attraction to the music,
style, and lifestyle (79) as other reasons. The appeal of the aesthetics of
third wave feminism combined with an innate desire for acceptance by a
peer group may have been the primary reasons for becoming involved in
feminist groups for other teenage girls as well, not only Michelle.
This is not to say that lifestyle and clothing were not a significant
element of second wave womens identification with the feminist
movement. Yet, certainly the stigmatization and social rejection connected
to professing feminist ideas was stronger in the 1960s. The script for many
third wavers, as seen in Teas memoirs, was that of primary stigmatization
and exclusion from mainstream peer groups (resulting from broadly
understood differencein appearance, social status etc.) and the warm
welcome countercultural feminist groups offered to such rejects, as long
as certain ideological criteria were met by the aspiring new member.
Michelle hides her feelings of ideological inadequacy from the
sisters and tries to increase her level of rigtheousness by associating
with the most radical girls in the group, such as Steph/Liz. Yet, her
involvement is never complete and she is never fully honest even with the
girls she is closest with. The radical character of the groups actions
fascinates and repels her simultaneously. She is awed with the energy
emanating from the girls, but there are moments when she suspects that
even for them the political aspect of the activism is mostly an excuse for
finding an acceptable (rigtheous) outlet for their aggression: You know, I
dont think its [sexism] the single most important problem, Georgia
confessed to me plainly one night drinking, and I was shocked. It wasnt? I
was so filled with love for all these revved-up girls with their
overanalytical minds (CW 259).
In The Chelsea Whistle Steph organizes an almost paramilitary group
which takes revenge on men who have, in various ways, insulted women.
The acts of revenge are without exception physical: stalking the culprit,
attacking, beating him and shaming him, often by mocking his masculinity:
When a woman says no, what does she mean? Steph grabbed his head. No,
he mouthed. She means NO! Steph affirmed, and we all started chanting,
No, No, No, No, bringing our fingers down at him like a legion of scolding
teachers, a move wed learned from ACT-UP radicals, who would
surround their targets and chant Shame! in a similar fashion. A flock of
witches fussing over an evil cauldron. The friction of our voices, out
energies, spiralled into a thick cloud above our heads. (261)
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Incidentally, shaming is yet another strategy of expressing righteous anger,

revived in the late 1980s by groups such as ACT-UP and, of course, with a
long history of use since the time of the first settlements in America.
Interestingly, in the history of America public shaming was often directed
against women who had violated social norms connected to sexuality, as
described in Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, thus the fact that a group of
young women uses this type of punishment against men is yet another
reversal of values and an attack on the victims perception of his own
masculinity. The public character of the shaming becomes an important
aspect of community building among the witnesses of the event. It
strengthens their own values by making them participate in a spectacle
which otherwisethat is, if they did not share the value affirmed by the
spectaclewould resemble a crime. The only way to avoid feeling guilt
when witnessing a spectacle of public shaming is to share the values of the
community administering the punishment.
The attitude of the woman who has been abused or insulted to the idea
of revenge is of no importance to the righteous group. In fact, some of the
victimized girls oppose the idea of the groups physical intervention. Katy,
one of the girls whose honor Steph and her group tried to rescue, begged
Steph to leave the boy who had felt her up in a club alone, but the
avengers were relentless: It wasnt about Katy. It was about women (CW
260). Michelle participates in these acts mostly as a spectator, with awe
and admiration, but also with the awareness that the scale of the revenge
by far exceeds the severity of the offence. Interestingly, the type of
behavior and the rhetoric used by these third wave groups to justify it,
exemplifies what they most despised about the second wave: their lack of
a sense of humor and a seriousness which makes itself prone to mockery.
4.6. Conclusion
The radical feminist actions described by Tea in her memoirs can be seen
as the putting into action of the ideas of power feminism as presented by
Wolf, or Wurtzel in Bitch and the riot grrrl movements concept of girl
power, mostly in the sphere of the revaluation of female aggression and
the connection between power and sexuality; Michelle is physically
attracted to the most aggressive girls in the group. The ironic comment
which Tea seems to be making as she is presenting the various tales of
revenge and aggression is that the behavior can and does become an end in
itself, not resulting from the desire to achieve political change, but from
the desire to find an outlet for excess energy generated by boredom: By
then me and Liz were psychotically feminist and we got in a big fight with
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Miss Fame right on Commercial Street, for comments she made about
Hillary Clinton at the March on Washington. It was pretty ridiculous.
Mostly it was Liz needing to start trouble and me not knowing what to do
(PM 89). Politics fills the void created by the lack of other bonding and
community-building activities, but treated simply as that, as an activity to
counter boredom and increase ones social standing, it becomes ridiculous.
The appearance and behavior of the girls described in the fight scenes are
reminiscent of the kick ass type cartoon characters, such as the
Powerpuff Girls, though they actually predate them.
Third wave feminism at its best realizes the concept of being involved
in an issue and somewhat ironically detached at the same time, in a way
which would have been inconceivable for the previous generation. And
Tea does this very well herself. By drawing an insiders picture of the
movement, Tea is mocking the very values she espouses; the obvious selfirony is one of the strongest points in both the memoirs. She paints a
picture of herself as the not-so-perfect feminist, yet it seems that in the
typology of feminists she draws in her books, the category she represents
is the most sympathetic and certainly the most honest one. The few girls
who are involved in the movement purely out of righteous anger are
presented as somewhat ridiculous in their behavior, clearly insensitive to
the needs of others and incapable of self-reflection. The vast majority of
the girls are in the movement for reasons that have more to do with
expanding their social life than with politics, although not all of them are
aware of that. The classic third wave response to accusations of
incoherency is the belief in the value of contradiction, but in reality an
aesthetics of contradiction is much more viable than a politics of
contradiction, which explains why Teas books read amazingly well, but it
reveals a rather bleak perspective for the development of the third wave.
Clearly, the very features which make Tea an outstanding writer and stylist
are the very ones which made her fail as a third wave street activist, at
least this seems to be the message of these two memoirs. However, it
cannot be forgotten that Tea is currently a successful activist, although the
profile of her activism has changed since the events described in The
Chelsea Whistle and Passionate Mistakes. A switch from the militant
street-type activism to cultural organizing has allowed her to utilize her
greatest strengths without compromising the radical political message.
CONCLUSION
Taking the lead from Jennifer Drakes brief description and

classification of third-wave feminist writings presented in The Womens
Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism, I analyzed
representatives of each of the main trends listed by Drake and
supplemented my readings of fiction and memoirs with an analysis of the
discourse of third-wave anthologies. I was looking for similar themes,
ideological assumptions, shared aesthetics sensibilities, narrative styles
and devices. I also looked at how third-wave literature reflected the
ideological differences between the second and the third waves of
feminism in the United States. I examined whether and how feminist
literatures refutes postfeminist claims. I was not disappointed with the
wealth of ideas the resources studied provided for a comparative analysis.
I did, however, complete the task with a weakened sense of the
coherency and intellectual strength of third wave arguments than I initially
felt when embarking on this project. The inquiry into the theoretical tenets
of the third wave, as performed in Chapter I, through the analysis of the
main theorists of this movement, and in Chapter II, through the analysis
of short first-person narratives, revealed how the third wave is riddled with
internal ideological contradictions and how strongly it is influenced by the
movements it wishes to refute; postfeminism, the recovery movement etc.
The third waves response to such accusations is the trademark embrace
of contradiction and the championing of its inclusive character. While
this strategy may work on the aesthetic level, it simply does not make for a
clear political agenda, as evidenced by the contents of one of the first third
wave anthologies Third Wave Agenda.
An analysis of the third waves relationship to the preceding generation
of feminists reveals the third waves reliance on media portrayals of
second wave feminism rather than an in-depth independent inquiry into the
ideas championed by the mothers. This negligence is often explained
through the anti-academic dimension of the third wave, the idea that third
wavers are rescuing feminism from the academia and taking it back to the
streets. In the end, the third waves reluctance to engage with second wave
theory can result in the rehashing of old arguments, in reinventing the
wheel, or, as Gloria Steinem puts it in her introduction to To Be Real in
readers over thirty-five feeling like a sitting dog being told to sit
168
Conclusion
(Steinem in Walker, xxii). And while the claim that feminism needs an
ideological update, that it must become aware of recent theoretical
concepts of subjectivity, power and body politics, is certainly fundamental,
the update delivered by the third wave seems to be rather superficial and
can be boiled down to: We must all accept and celebrate our differences.
A look at the politically radical wing of the third wave, riot grrrl,
brought about questions of the ease with which rebellion is commodified
by the media and by the capitalist economy, as well as questions of the
very possibility of true rebellion. In spite of riot grrrl leaders distrust of
the media and their extreme caution in engaging with the corporate world,
the ideas of riot grrrl were, nevertheless, stolen, diluted, repackaged and
sold without any profit for their original creators and without due credit
being given. It makes one wonder whether this course of events could
have been prevented if riot grrrl leaders had been better aware of the
second waves uneasy relationship with the media, the strategies which
failed and the ones which proved successful.
The third wave is, however, much stronger in aesthetics than it is in
politics and this is why fiction, poetry, music and the graphic arts are so
well suited for conveying third wave sensibilities. Questions of
subjectivity, as explored by Walker and Senna, lend themselves to a
deeper analysis and a comparison with older concepts of identity
formation, while Teas vignette-style short prose pieces, when published
in book form, convey the chaotic, frantic, urgency of the times and ideas
she is describing. This politics of style also allows the third wave, or at
least certain nodes within it, to function effectively as a community,
providing family-like support, a feeling of safety and acceptance, as
evidenced by Leblancs sociological research on girls in the punk music
scene.
Ironically, this aesthetic appeal, the perceived coolness of third-wave
feminism can also be detrimental, as shown in Teas insiders look into the
early punk-feminism movement. She shows the community as being
divided into several groups, ranging from poseurs, those who are in the
movement for its aesthetic appeal and the escape from boredom it
provides, to those who are involved in feminism for truly ideological
reasons. There are also all categories of girls in-between these two
positions. The idea that the true poseurs are the only ones with enough
self-irony and self-detachment to admit to their true motivation creates a
bleak political perspective for the movement, but the clearly postmodern
self-irony which can be observed in Teas narrative style is admirable and
well-executed.
169
My project has not resulted in a simple either/or aesthetic evaluation

of third wave literary production, in a tool for categorizing literature, or in
the discovery of a single underlying assumption of third wave writings. I
hope, however, that I have managed to reveal links between various
contemporary literary and cultural phenomena and to explore the myriad
influences on third wave feminism in the United States.
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INDEX
abortion, 63, 75, 159, 160-162
Allison, Dorothy, 12, 98, 127- 134,
144
Anita Hill vs Clarence Thomas case,
18, 19, 25, 51-32, 66
Anzaldua, Gloria, 4, 21, 23, 97, 100,
101, 111, 127
Bastard Out of Carolina, 98, 129,
132, 133
Baumgardner and Richards, see
Manifesta
Bender, Aimee, 14
Black, White and Jewish.
Autobiography of a Shifting Self,
13, 39, 76, 107-111, 113-115
Borderlands/La Frontera, 97, 101
Breedlove, Lynn, 13
Brown, William Wells, 104
Butler, Judith 4, 16, 21, 100
Catching a Wave.
Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st
Century, 8, 21, 61
Caucasia, 13, 39, 49, 115-120, 122,
124, 125
Chambers, Veronica, 46, 47, 52, 53
chick lit, 2, 14, 36, 152
Clotel, 104
coming out story, 83, 86, 87-89, 91
consciousness-raising, 68, 72-74,
76-77, 90, 92, 108
consciousness-raising novel, 69, 72,
74, 108
conversion narrative, 82
Dagbovie, Alaine, 119
Danticat, Edwidge, 12
Denfield, Rene, 20, 24, 28, 30
divorce (as generational
experience), 52, 107, 110, 117,
134, 146, 147, 149, 151, 155
double entanglement, 7, 8
Drake, Jennifer, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19,

144, 145, 146, 159, 167
erotics of talk, 70, 72-74, 79, 92
Felski, Rita, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 81,
83, 84, 89
feminist confession, 59, 68, 72
feminist conversion narrative, 83,
162
Feminist Revolution, 63
Findlen, Barbara, 45, 61, 67, 68, 80,
81, 83, 88, 90, 91
Friedan, Betty, 17, 30, 56, 83, 84
Gilligan, Carol, 26
Grassian, David, 119, 120, 121, 122,
124
Greer, Germaine, 5, 24, 143
Griffin, John Howard, 104, 115,
117-118
Harrison-Kahan, Lori, 111, 112,
113, 114
Henry, Astrid, 16, 19, 22, 23, 27,
28, 36, 37, 38, 39, 56
Heywood and Drake. see Third
Wave Agenda: Being Feminist,
Doing Feminism
Heywood, Leslie, 11, 16, 17, 18, 20,
25, 28, 31, 45, 145, 146
hip-hop feminism, 15, 45, 46, 47,
49, 52, 54, 56, 57
hip-hop lit, 54, 55
Hogeland, Lisa, 73, 74, 75, 76, 90,
109
Hollinger, David, 119, 124, 125, 127
It Changed My Life, 83, 84
Jen, Gish, 13
Jones, Lisa, 31, 46, 49, 52, 53, 121
Kaplan, Carla, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74,
75, 79, 92
Keys, Alicia, 51, 54
Klein, Naomi, 9
la facultad, 100, 101, 111, 127
186
Larsen, Nella, 105, 106
Listen Up! Voices from the Next
Feminist Generation, 45, 61, 67,
80, 81, 83, 90, 91
Manifesta, 1, 16, 20, 21, 31, 38
McRobbie, Angela, 6, 7, 9, 10, 29
Methodology of the Oppressed, 98,
131, 134
mis lit, 151, 152, 154, 155
Morgan, Joan, 5, 62, 64, 108
Myles, Eileen 144, 145, 159
Neal, Mark Anthony, 41, 46
New Mestiza, 97
Packer, ZZ, 13
passing novel, 104, 105, 106
Piper, Adrian, 126
pornography, 5, 7, 20, 25, 26, 63
Postethnic America, 119, 124
postethnicity, 124, 126, 127
postfeminism, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 14, 18, 167
Prozac Nation, 153
Queen Latifah, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56
Radical Feminism, 62, 63
Rapping, Elayne, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81,
82, 86, 157, 180
Rich, Adrienne, 26
righteous anger, 161-163, 165, 166
Riot Grrrl, 9, 15, 31, 137, 138, 139,
140, 141, 142, 143, 163, 168
Roiphe, Katie 20, 24, 28, 30
SaltN Pepa, 50
Sandoval, Chela, 4, 98, 99, 100,
101, 102, 111, 118, 126, 127,
134
self-help movement, 68, 77, 78, 79,
80, 152, 156, 157
Sisterhood is Powerful, 62, 63, 64,
108
Skin
Talking About Sex, Class and
Literature, 128, 129
speakout, 75
Spelman Controversy, 57
Steinem, Gloria, 20, 38, 56, 143,
167
Index
The Chelsea Whistle, 13, 76, 144,
145, 146, 147, 151, 155, 156,
161, 164, 166
The Female Eunuch, 24
The Feminine Mystique, 30, 56, 83,
84, 85
The Passionate Mistakes and
Intricate Corruption of One Girl
in America, 13, 76, 144, 145,
150, 155, 156, 159, 160, 161,
166
The Womens Movement Today, 11,
17, 25, 167
third wave
activism, 5, 16, 66, 101, 160
and punk postmodernism, 13
anthologies, 18, 61, 62, 66, 67,
68, 76, 82, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89,
90, 91, 92
confession, 71, 75, 81, 82, 85,
86, 89, 90, 91, 92
fiction, 11, 12, 13, 100, 106
multicultural literature, 13
nostalgia, 38, 39, 47
zines, 62, 73, 139, 140, 141
Third Wave Agenda: Being
Feminist, Doing Feminism, 8,
24, 28, 37, 53, 61, 67, 68, 89,
167
Third Wave Foundation, 11, 107
Third World Feminism, 96, 97
To Be Real. Telling the T ruth and
Changing the Face ofFeminism, 36,
38, 61, 66, 67, 75, 83, 91, 92, 107,
167
Tompkins, Jane, 60, 65, 66
tragic mulatto, 105, 110, 126
victim feminism vs. power
feminism. see Wolf, Naomi
Walker, Alice, 19, 53, 107, 109
Wolf, Naomi, 10, 17, 20, 24, 25, 26,
27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 35, 143, 153,
165
Wurtzel, Elizabeth, 10, 30, 143,
153, 154, 165

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