Brace Center student fellow Jennifer Morgan ’09 wants to bring feminism back. Influenced by her mother, the media and her surroundings, Morgan spent her summer researching the history and ideals of feminism. She presented her research and theories about the topic at the Brace Center on Wednesday in “Whatever Happened to Feminism? The Paradoxical Decline of Feminist Self-Identification among Today’s Young Women.” During Morgan’s Lower year, she saw a movie at the Brace Center for Gender Studies titled “I Was a Teenage Feminist.” Morgan said the movie inspired her to pursue the topic of feminism. After the movie, Morgan asked her friends whether or not they identified themselves as feminists, and most answered no, despite their belief in equal rights for women. This paradox led Morgan to pursue the study of contemporary feminism and to explore why teenagers today seem afraid to call themselves feminists. “Why are women hesitant to identify themselves as feminists? Has feminism become the new ‘F-word’?” asked Morgan. In her presentation, Morgan first provided a brief history of feminism, explaining the first, second and third waves of feminism. Each wave occurred in a different time period, and each wave focused on a different aspect of equality for women. The first wave of feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on overturning the legal obstacles to equality and obtaining the ability to vote. Though traditional feminism has died out, Morgan said, “We shouldn’t view feminism as entirely dead. We should work to revive it. There is going to be a fourth wave of feminism sometime soon, and hopefully it will be our generation that starts it.” “Feminists today have lost that powerful group strength and group consciousness,” said Morgan. She continued, “Identification [as a feminist often] doesn’t begin unless you experience some kind of discrimination or you are presented with the supporting facts.” According to Morgan, the media portrays feminists as women who hate men and want to take over in society, a view with which she does not agree, saying that feminism is the movement to achieve equality of the sexes, said Morgan. Morgan said she wishes to strengthen the presence of gender-related events on campus, and she encourages students to attend more Brace Center and women’s forum events.
