Young Global Changemakers for a Feminist Future

By Gayle Kimball Ph.D.

Part 1 describes the history of feminism, current issues, and feminist tactics for change for a more equitable and healthy future.
Part 2 reveals the actual words and experiences of young changemakers from 12 countries.
Is the future feminist? Will equality and diversity replace domination? Our goal is to restore most of human history, which was egalitarian rather than authoritarian, since patriarchy has harmed us and the environment.
The book includes resources for feminist activists and includes what the author learned from developing the women's studies program at California State University, Chico.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9780938795179

Book preview

Endorsements

Kimball’s work highlights key voices in the global, multidimensional work of youth activism. In her collection, activists speak to important gendered issues, from violence to the climate crises, shaping their lives in diverse contexts, and the ways they act individually and collaboratively to make the world a better place. The inspiring accounts provide concrete strategies for addressing complex social and environmental issues today.

Dr. Lucy Bailey, Director of Gender,

Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, Oklahoma State University

Young Global Changemakers for a Feminist Future is an extraordinary synthesis of feminism today. It’s rich with intersectionality and diversity and Dr. Kimball unpacks some of the history around why this is the case. What is powerful is that instead of speaking for feminism today, she has fierce feminists speak for themselves. We are in great hands with these young changemakers and you will thrill to reading about each one of them.

Dr. Jeff Sapp, Professor of Education,

California State University Dominguez Hills

This book is on the right side of history. Patriarchy is passing away, and gender equity is a sign of the times. And yet, cultural evolution is so slow. By giving concrete examples of young people who are already leaders in various cultures, the book is an effective resource to motivate many others to engage and contribute, because nothing is more effective than leadership by example.  

Luis Gutierrez, editor of Mother Pelican: A Journal of Sustainable Developments

Graphical user interface Description automatically generated with medium confidence

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.

Dalai Lama XIV

The cover poster shows Agnes Chou (born in 1996) and refers to the Hunger Games film trilogy. It includes The Younger Games in English, along with Chinese characters. The poster was made for the Hong Kong democracy activists in Demosistō, which means people’s will.¹ Used with her permission.

I took the photos in the text at women’s marches in Chico, California. The democracy banner photo is from a climate march in San Francisco.

Cover design by Mathew Rubalcava

©Gayle Kimball, 2023

Equality=Press

[e-mail]

ISBN print 978-0-938795-16-2

ISBN eBook 978-0-938795-17-9

Library of Congress Catalogue Subject Headings

HM831-901 Social change

HQ1101-2030.7 Women. Feminism

Deep thanks to Lucy Bailey, Amanda Kingston, and Lindsay Myers for their profoundly helpful editorial suggestions.

Books by Gayle Kimball

Women’s Culture

Women’s Culture Revisited

Climate Girls Saving Our World

Brave: Young Women’s Global Revolution (2 vols)

Ageism in Youth Studies: Generation Maligned

How Global Youth Values Will Transform Our Future

Resist! Goals and Tactics for Changemakers

The Teen Trip: The Complete Resource Guide

How to Survive Your Parents’ Divorce

Answers to Kids’ Deep Questions in Photos

Your Mindful Guide to Academic Success: Beat Burnout

Everything You Need to Know to Succeed After College

50/50 Marriage

50/50 Parenting

Happy Marriages

A Global Dialogue on Masculinity

Calm: How to Thrive in Challenging Times

Calm Parents and Children: A Guidebook

Mysteries of Reality: Dialogues with Visionary Scientists

Mysteries of Healing: Dialogues with Doctors and Scientists

Mysteries of Knowledge Beyond the Senses: Dialogues with Courageous Scientists

Trilogy/trailer: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGlobalyouth/featured

https://visionaryscientists.home.blog

Essential Energy Tools: How to Develop Your Clairvoyant and Healing Abilities illustrated with 3 videos and 2 CDs

Quick Healthy Recipes: Literacy Fundraiser

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I Feminism Then and Now

Chapter 1: Generational Differences in Feminist History and Theories

Chapter 2: Current Feminist Issues

Chapter 3: Feminist Tactics for Change

Part II Young Feminists in their Own Words

Black Feminism

USA: Lateasha Meyers, Ph.D.

USA: Helena Donato-Sapp (With her Papa and Dad)

Body Image, Safety, and Reproductive Rights

Rwanda: Patience Iribagiza

Ethnic Feminism

Afghanistan: Mulki Jan

Hungary: Weirong Li

Education Feminists

China: Alan Lorsan

India: Babar Ali

Turkey: Sevil Sahutoğlu

Uruguay: María Betania Flores González and Astrid Rigos Cazaux.

US: Diana Michelson

Post-Colonial Feminists

Kyrgyzstan: Nurzhan Estebesova

Sri Lanka: Rochana Jayasinghe

Media and Corporate Changemaking

Canada: Dani Gomez-Ortega

USA: Yelena Dzhanova

Conclusion

Feminist Bibliography and Resources

EndNotes

Introduction

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The appalling state of human leadership results in destruction of our environment and non-stop war and violence. Oxfam faults exploding inequality as poverty increases.² Since 2020, the richest 1% own almost two-thirds of all new global wealth. A record 340 million people need aid, according to the International Rescue Committee.³ Nine of every ten countries slid backward on the UN’s Human Development Index in 2021.⁴ Freedom House reports only 20% of the world’s eight billion people live in free countries, down from 46% in 2005.⁵ And many of the 20% face threats from authoritarian nationalists.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Index dropped the US to 41st, ranked between Cuba and Bulgaria.⁶ The US has the biggest wealth gap among G7 nations and income inequality has increased rather than decreased. The top 10% owns almost 70% of US wealth while the bottom half owns only 2%. It’s a flawed democracy, according to The Economist’s democracy index.

Patriarchy is defined by Gloria Steinem as a society that favors men. It’s built on women’s division and men’s solidarity, observed Nurzhan* in Kyrgyzstan. Mulki* reported that in Afghanistan, The pushback comes from the elders, from religious influences, and from the government, a patriarchal system that automatically pushes women back.

Iran is another example of an extreme patriarchy led by old men where the legal system favors men in all spheres: polygamy, divorce, child custody, (a woman legally counts as half a man), and travel. Government leaders are male, women sit at the back of the bus, and women are prohibited from some fields of university study. Hence, the uprising that began in 2022 is about much more than clothing laws. An Islamic state since the 1979 revolution, morality is stern and unappealing to youth.⁷ A quote from founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini plastered on billboards in Tehran states, The Islamic Republic is not about fun, it is about morality. There is no fun to be had in the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Background is given in Passionate Uprising: Iran’s Sexual Revolution by Pardis Mahdavi, 2019).

Patriarchal sexism is not a past problem confined to older generations. A high school student in California told me,

Society is patriarchal. As a male, everything has literally always been easy for me. That is not the case for anyone who is not like me in color, class, or gender. Our society’s truly deplorable bias towards women is a strain on our collective unconscious.

Filmmaker Michael Moore explained that white males are angry (as revealed in the blatant misogyny at the 2016 Republican convention⁸) because they fear that patriarchal control is over, led by this monster, the ‘Feminazi,’ the thing that as Trump says, ‘bleeds through her eyes or wherever she bleeds,’ who has conquered us. We see patriarchy in action in the rantings of well-known Gen Z bigot Nick Fuentes (born in 1998). Donald Trump refused to denounce him and invited him to dinner at his Florida club in 2022.

Fuentes describes himself as a race and gender essentialist and an Incel, a group of men who blame women for their being celibate. Fuentes said, having sex with women is gay.⁹ (In contrast, Rochana* in Sri Lanka, says, My main aim is to eradicate the essentializing of gender completely. She sees through a multifaceted gendered perspective.)

Fuentes is seen on the internet in the spirit of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, advocating that women not be allowed to use contraception or vote, and be required to marry in adolescence and wear veils in church. He advocates using jokes and irony to obtain plausible deniability, as when he cites the puppet character Cookie Monster. Fuentes is an anti-gay white supremacist who says he would like to see a Taliban-type dictator in the US. The politicians who denounce him focus on his white nationalism and anti-Semitism, astoundingly without mentioning his extreme misogyny. Another example of a well-known misogynist alpha male on the internet manosphere is Andrew Tate, age 36.¹⁰ He believes that females are barely sentient. Greta Thunberg put him in his place in a viral twitter exchange.

Since youth are most active in undermining harmful patriarchy to create a more equitable future, I interviewed young (under age 30) feminist activists from around the world. It’s vital to listen to those who are creating our future in order to understand their goals and strategies. This book’s three opening chapters provide a history of feminism (mostly in the US and UK), current issues, and feminist tactics, followed by the activists speaking in their own voices. Resources for activists are included in the endnotes and the Resources section.

Patriarchy isn’t working well but probably neither would matriarchy, since actual democracy and diversity draws more talent. As Patience* said in Rwanda, You have to be as diverse as possible to bring in different strengths to be able to get to wherever you want to be. As influential writer bell hooks noted, women leaders can be oppressive, just as men can be harmed by patriarchy.

We have militaristic US women politicians like Senator Joni Ernst who shot guns in her campaign ads (after riding a motorcycle to the site in a black leather jacket), Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene who called for martial law to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election, and far-right French politicians Marine Le Pen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Meloni’s campaign slogan emphasized her far-right nationalist identity: I am a woman, I am a mother [unmarried], I am Italian, I am Christian.¹¹ She has over a million Twitter followers, speaking against woke ideologies, cancel culture, diversity quotas for politicians, LGBT lobbies, and gender ideology. She admires Russian President Vladimir Putin’s defense of European values and Orthodox Christian beliefs. She’s also a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels, saying, "I don’t consider The Lord of the Rings fantasy."¹² She associates immigrants with orcs and dragons and sees the party she co-founded, Brothers of Italy, as little hobbits vs. strong leftist enemies.

One of the most powerful women in US history, the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is comfortable with patriarchal power games used for good. She said, Every morning, I put on a suit of armor, eat nails for breakfast and go out and do battle.¹³ A New York Times headlines her as a total badass, and a demanding control freak. (Actor Geena Davis—founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media—described her own journey to badassery in her memoir Dying of Politeness, 2022.) Yet, when a reporter asked Pelosi if she hated President Trump she got very upset, saying no, that she was raised Catholic and prayed for him daily.

With a mother’s twist on politics, she emphasized she fights for the children, the children, the children (she gave birth to five children in six years), as when she strong-armed passage of Obamacare health legislation—her proudest achievement since Obama didn’t believe she could do it. However, she doesn’t favor Medicare for all. In addition to her management skills and abundant energy fueled by chocolate, she frequently raised money for and campaigned in other Democrats’ districts so they owed her favors in the form of their votes. She learned this tactic from her politician father, helping keep track of who owed him a favor.

The future is female is a popular slogan in opposition to patriarchy, which refers to rule by the father or older male. In matriarchy, lineage is traced through the mother and young couples live with the bride’s mother. French politician Sandrine Rousseau observed, When I looked at my political party [liberal Greens], I saw it as a patriarchal organization, where men had the power. It was a new kind of violence.¹⁴ She added that the personal is political, such as who does housework, echoing a key Second Wave feminist theme.

Some religions today uphold patriarchy, although Jesus could be called a radical feminist because he discussed theology and traveled with women, violating old taboos. He never said women’s place was in the kitchen or that the husband was the head of the family. Muhammad’s first wife was a camel-driving businesswoman and his wife Aishah wrote scripture (hadith) and led an army in battle.¹⁵ The Buddha was also a revolutionary in accepting women into his monastic community, the sangha, ordaining them as nuns. He taught that women are as capable of obtaining enlightenment as men.

Rochana* in Sri Lanka said, I think all religions have a very restrictive patriarchal element to them. Religions lack enough women’s voices, especially in Islam, observed Nurzan* in Kyrgyzstan. With a Jewish father, Yelena* states that in the US, In the Jewish religion, there are still elements of patriarchy and sexism, the parts that I fight against. Dani* pointed out that the religious right has much power in South America—as it does in the southern states in the US. (The activists didn’t mention Catholic Liberation Theology, which has a progressive impact in Latin America.¹⁶)

Carol Gilligan and Naomi Snider maintain in Why Does Patriarchy Persist? (2018) that patriarchy lasts because it’s a psychological defense against loss. Journalist Charles Blow says a cult developed around Trump as the trickster and rule-breaker who expressed the anger of working-class people.¹⁷ Trump identified his symbols of patriarchal power in his sale of $99 digital trading cards, explaining that, America needs a superhero. The cards portray him as Superman, astronaut, sheriff, hunter, boxer, fighter pilot, race car driver, elephant and horse rider, golfer, and holding a football while wearing a suit. In response, two Gen Y comedians posted honest cards.¹⁸

We may think of patriarchy as an historical given, but we have gone backward in terms of gender equality, as discussed in A Global Dialogue on Masculinity. For over 95% of human history (150,000 years), we were egalitarian hunters and gathers like the present-day Hazda in Tanzania (seen in videos¹⁹), or the Pila Nguru in Australia, or the Piraha in Brazil.²⁰ Although homo erectus appeared about two million years ago, patriarchy only appeared around 10 to 12 thousand years ago.

For most of human history, we traveled in leaderless small bands following the game and food sources. One sex was not considered superior, although our ancestors valued the protein in meat contributed by hunters. Respect was earned by exhibiting useful skills by either sex. There was no such thing as rape, and divinity wasn’t seen as male, as explained in an account of living with small bands of the Kalahari San Bushmen by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas in The Old Way: A Story of the First People.

A similar description of Neolithic society, Forgotten World by Raymond Barnett, reports on egalitarian villages that are peaceful and matrilineal. He relates that around 7500 BC, urban centers developed in the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia. They lasted for 10,000 years until around 2,500 BC with the rise of patriarchy, warfare, and exploitation of the environment.

Drawing on archaeologist Marija Gimbutas’s work, Riane Eisler describes in The Chalice and the Blade (1987) the matrifocal Neolithic societies that thrived around the Mediterranean without warfare, such as Crete’s Bronze Age Minoan civilization. Although their research was questioned, archeologist Ian Hodder confirmed that in the archeological discoveries of Çatalhöyük, a large Neolithic site in what’s now Turkey (thriving around 9,000 years ago with around 2,000 houses), gender equality existed with no sign of warfare for over 1,000 years.²¹

Other peaceful egalitarian and early cities are described in The Dawn of Everything by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow. For example, from 4100 to 3300 BC, prehistoric cities in what is now Ukraine and Moldova were planned in circles divided into districts with assembly meeting buildings. Their other examples of ancient egalitarian societies are Teotihuacán in Mexico and Minoan Crete.

Despite these human roots in gender equality, our written history is about wars, inequality, and political power struggles. Graeber and Wengrow advocate a current urban revolution along peaceful and democratic prehistoric patterns. Examples of books that address how to achieve this are Imagining Sustainable Cities by Stephen Wheeler and Christina Rosan, 2021, and Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under White Sky: The Nature of the Future (2021).

Soon after President Trump’s inauguration in 2017 with his attack on political correctness, Hillary Clinton said at a MAKERS conference, Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that, yes, the future is female.²² The phrase was often used during her campaign for the presidency. The slogan began in 1972 with lesbians who opened a feminist bookstore called Labyris in New York City, with the phrase as their logo.²³ A search on Amazon reveals the phrase on many items with the variation the Future of the Galaxy is Female and Girls Run the Galaxy.

The goal of the 2022 Women’s March Convention was to strategize for the fight for a feminist future. Partner organizations included Black Feminist Future and UltraViolet, groups that aim to disrupt patriarchy. In a pitch for campaign donations for November 2022 elections, Cecile Richards, co-founder of Supermajority, advocated that A woman-led, woman-powered, values-based future is possible. The NGO (non-governmental non-profit social organization) Plan International’s pitch to donors is Who Runs the World? Girls. OXFAM uses the slogan The Future is Equal.

In her book Fierce Feminine Rising (2020), British author Anaiya Sophia predicts that change is coming in the new age with the sacred Dark Mother, as the old dualistic age is crumbling, and balance will prevail. Much earlier, psychoanalyst Carl Jung said we need the archetype of the Great Mother to correct the imbalance of the Great Father in western civilization. A more recent Jungian approach by Australian David Tacey teaches how to discover a new integrated post-patriarchal equilibrium,²⁴ necessary to break unchecked masculine rule of power, conquest, and domination. Tacey recommends that men read feminist writings like this one to gain perspective. Is a feminist future a possible and desired alternative to the inequality and destruction led by the patriarchs and their imitators?

Youth Activists

Since youth are by definition our future, what do we know about Generation Z, currently at the forefront of youth activism? Gen Z was born from 1995 to 2009 and Gen Alpha from 2010 to 2024—but dates vary.²⁵

I talked with a class of around 30 first- and second-year students at CSUC, many of them still teens about their generation. Student Mandy Meyerson added the italicized comments below. Most of them knew someone who was anxious and depressed, and over half of those young people were taking medication. Only a few of the class averaged over eight hours of sleep during the weekdays, which can be depressing.

Although some call them snowflakes, students explained that their pervasive anxiety is due to the fact that they were born after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, felt the fallout from the 2008 recession—when some of their parents struggled to find jobs and tuned out as parents—bitter division between red and blue political ideologies, school shootings that make school an unsafe place, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the young women students carry pepper spray to protect against possible attacks. Facing economic difficulties and high housing costs in the US, almost one-third of Gen Zers aged 18 to 25 is resigned to living with their parents.²⁶

Having had smartphones since they were little, they’re often exposed to this depressing news. The CSUC students said they had to grow up too fast and too much is expected of them, like fixing the broken world they were left with, even at their young age. The underlying problem we all face is climate change (Britt Wray titled her 2022 book Generation Dread). As the head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres said, we face Collective action or collective suicide.

In terms of the effect of social media, a young woman student explained she doesn’t care how many likes she gets, but she does feel diminished when she sees a woman who has the kind of body she wishes she had. The young women mentioned seeing the effect of internet influencers in terms of clothing choices and products they buy, especially among sorority members. They mentioned FOMO. They felt the need to jump onto trends in Fear Of Missing Out. (A Brooklyn high school student, Logan Lane started a Luddite Club to boycott smartphone use and social media and her movement is spreading.²⁷ Simple flip phones are back in vogue.)

The guys said that they may feel competitive with the men they see on social media with expensive possessions, like vehicles. Men still seem to be judged as success objects and women as sex objects. Two women in the class with twin brothers both reported that the girls are expected to be more mature, do administrative work such as make appointments, and be more responsible about school work and housework because boys will be boys. This is a global theme that justifies and perpetuates inequality.

Yelena* says her younger brother gets to do anything he wants, while her parents were stricter with her. This may help explain why women in the US are more likely to attend university and graduate. The young women felt that they need to work almost twice as hard as men to be successful in today’s world. 

This changemakers book includes interviews conducted in 2021 and 2022 with 15 young feminists from 12 countries with intersectional identities, various sexual orientations, and several with learning disabilities. (Two more interviewees didn’t want to be in print so I quote them without names when pertinent.) I also refer to my video interviews with other young global activists. The featured activists range in age from 13 to 30 (born from 1991 to 2009) and most are Gen Z. Eight of the activists created their own organization for equality and another is thinking about it. They view feminism as a learning process, a journey, and some include their parents in the educational process.

Three of the activists were assigned male at birth and one of them is now a trans woman. The most significant pattern, half of them grew up in families with no brothers, perhaps providing them with more freedom and more expectation to achieve. Rochana* is one of those girls and she also went to an all-girls school in Sri Lanka where they didn’t think in terms of gender because you get your ‘girl’ identity when you are conscious of a ‘boy’ identity. Four of the activists are immigrants or first-generation in their countries. Six are teachers and one is a school counselor, five are students (the North Americans in their 20s are also employed), three work at NGOs, and two work for corporations.

The activists were nominated by members of the Women’s Studies listserv, or colleagues around the world whom I met doing research for previous books, or through internet searches. The basic questions are online.²⁸ I also draw on my decades of changemaking and teaching at California State University, Chico as its first Coordinator of Women’s Studies.

The three background chapters are rather US-centered, but more global issues are covered in Brave: Young Women’s Global Revolution, which draws from over 4,000 surveys and interviews with young people from 88 countries. Volume 1 analyzes themes and Volume 2 describes regional youth viewpoints. Climate Girls Saving Our World represents activists from 31 countries.

The interviews are organized by the focus of their activism and a summary of their themes is listed at the beginning of Part II. An asterisk by a name in the first three chapters indicates it’s one of the 15 activists. Although astrological types are not scientific, I include them as a quick way to identify personality traits of the interviewees.²⁹ Background information is available online as cited in the endnotes.

I invite you to share your changemaking experiences at https://globalyouthbook.wordpress.com or by writing to [e-mail].

Part I

Feminism Then and Now

Chapter 1

Generational Differences in Feminist History and Theories

Are Women More Compassionate?

Why are girls and women at the forefront of climate, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the election of liberal politicians, and other progressive movements? Women-led movements arising around the world herald a profound shift that changes everything, according to Osprey Orielle-Lake, Leila Salazar, and Lynne Twist in an address at a Bioneers conference for the environment. ³⁰ They pointed to the women leading the Green Energy Revolution in Africa, protecting the Amazonian rainforest, and peacemaking in Liberia.

A feminist climate renaissance is described in All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, an anthology by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson. They describe women as rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. Wilkinson relates the feminine to life-giving energy and working with living systems rather than trying to conquer them. Johnson advises understanding the climate crisis as a leadership crisis, dominated by the patriarchy.

Environmentalist Paul Hawken (founder of Drawdown) identified the top solution to the climate crisis; It’s not a solar panel. It’s a woman, because educating girls leads to family planning, access to resources for women farmers, and more.³¹

In 2009, the Dalai Lama said at a Vancouver Peace summit, Western women will save the world, and described himself as a feminist.³² He was surrounded by three female Nobel peace laureates and other peace activists like Irish president Mary Robinson. He explained, You put boys together, they make war. You put women together, they make peace. Women are the leaders of the future. He also believes women are more nurturant and compassionate than men.³³

Can we make such generalizations? I explored hopeful understandings of compassionate women’s nature in Women’s Culture: The Women’s Renaissance of the Seventies, in its sequel Women’s Culture in a New Era, and in Brave (Volume 1). I call this the women are wonderful approach. We could argue that men are more physically violent, as indicated by the fact that women are only about 10% of US prisoners, and men are more likely to be sexually abusive and to be mass shooters.

Observers often compared former female leaders like Angela Merkel in Germany and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand and their response to the Covid epidemic with inept male leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. They note that young women lead the climate change movement, our most pressing problem. A former president of Chile (and the first woman president elected in South America), Michelle Bachelet observed in a report on women in politics in Latin America, If many women go into politics, it changes politics.³⁴

As Prime Minister, Ardern said she practiced a new form of politics where kindness and compassion are not seen as weakness.³⁵ As a teenager, she joined the Labour Party because she wanted to help end child poverty. In a documentary titled Live to Lead (which includes Greta Thunberg and Gloria Steinem), Ardern said you can be both empathetic and strong. She believes many women have a confidence gap, but she overcame hers by her sense of duty driving her to take action. Patience* confirmed, Growing up as a girl in a patriarchal system, my confidence about striving to achieve my dreams was always at the edge. Ardern’s anxiety about not doing enough motivated her to take action, and become prime minister at age 37, just as it motivates some anxious young adults to vote in the US.

Cherokee chief Wilma Mankiller believed in Gadugi, working together for the community. In a just country, she would be president, said Gloria Steinem: She was always inclusive and she personified the balance between men and women. She saw people as equal.³⁶ Steinem emphasizes the importance of human connection through sharing our stories.

The belief in female superiority and male fragility is illustrated by Diana* who said at age 16, I hate to say that females are more compassionate than men, but that’s the research. A Climate Girls activist, Nadia (US) said that women have this secret connection to the land and the earth and we’re the ones who face different oppressions around the earth. They believe marginalized people are more likely to work for change and want to be a voice for the voiceless.

The climate activists tended to view boys as more afraid of being teased and say boys would rather play sports than organize. Charlotte (UK) observed, I think boys definitely associate activism with hippies or being gay. Teenage boys sometimes worry so much about their appearance, said Sevin (Turkey). Catarina (Brazil) observed, Sometimes boys think that saving turtles and saving nature is just a girl thing. Julia (France) referred to male fragility. Hannah (US) learned in high school that, Toxic masculinity means guys want to try to be cool and follow a generic male stereotype. Unfortunately, activism can seem more ‘feminine,’ while girls are more driven by being compassionate and loving.

Some anthropologists report that all-women’s coalitions tend to be smaller and more egalitarian and that women leaders are more empathy-driven, while men have a greater tendency to self-promote and to exaggerate their competence.³⁷ Scientists argue over our physiological differences, but social scientists tend to say gender roles are socially constructed rather than caused by essential biological differences.³⁸ As Albie, a young male character in the TV series White Lotus said, Gender is a construct. It’s created. Some scientists report that women tend and befriend in response to stress, while men engage in fight or flight.³⁹

Gloria Steinem explained that women have a special ability to make connections between people: Women are not more peaceful than men, but we don’t have our masculinity to prove—so we are and will be good peacemakers, as they have been in Ireland and Liberia. Steinem commented that she had never seen so much activism in her 86 years. (An overview of types of activism is provided by The Goodnewspaper and a coach for activists developed an activist archetype personality quiz.⁴⁰)

Women in Europe and other Western democracies are more likely than men to lean left in their votes.⁴¹ A Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics poll reported that women voters are more likely than male voters to favor an activist government, such as one providing healthcare for all.⁴² A Pink Wave of women registering to vote Democrat was triggered by the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs decision against national abortion rights, similar to the youth voter wave triggered by the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting. Campaign slogans included, Roe, Roe, Roe your vote, referring to the overturning of 50 years of precedent for privacy rights first established in Roe v. Wade in 1973.

However, stereotyping any group can be limiting and inaccurate even if the descriptions are positive. Despite a common belief that women are more peaceful, a review of psychological studies of men and women in the US concluded that gender differences are small.⁴³ Women may be more aggressive than men when they think they’re anonymous or they’re just more indirect. Men active in groups like the National Organization of Men Against Sexism are committed to overturning patriarchy.⁴⁴

We are all flawed humans like the mean girls in Helena’s* middle school, or US women soldiers who tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (Aziza Ahmed offers a critique of dominance and cultural feminists in the context of Abu Ghraib⁴⁵) or the unacceptable number of women who engage in child abuse according to US government data.⁴⁶ Ahmed quotes feminist Barbara Ehrenreich who said, What we have learned from Abu Ghraib is that the uterus is not a substitute for a conscience and menstrual periods are not the foundation of morality. Matriarchy is not the answer; egalitarian societies as practiced for most of our history are the solution. We can’t go back to living in small migrating tribes, but we can aim for the urban revolution called for by Graeber and Wengrow in The Dawn of Everything.

Young women activists are motivated by their experiences of subordination, their sense of justice and kindness, and some believe they are more caring and are therefore more likely to work for equality than boys and men. They also express concern and admiration for younger kids; for example, Diana’s* environmental work is fueled by her younger brother not being able to go outside on polluted days. Nurzan* also says, The younger generation are my main source of inspiration. Some men observe there’s a boy crisis leaving them behind in education and therefore in career achievement. A New York Times article questions Are Men OK?⁴⁷ This only reinforces the belief that young women are needed to step up to the plate, just as Greta Thunberg says adults unfairly look to youth for hope.

Wave Concept

Feminism is defined as a belief in gender equality. It’s the radical notion that women are people, said British suffragist Rebecca West. It’s not a philosophy, or theory, or even a point of view. It is a political movement to transform the world beyond recognition, according to Ami Srinivasan.⁴⁸

The feminist wave concept is criticized for ignoring what happens between the historic waves and implying that problems are solved at the end of a wave. However, there are clear themes led by different generations: First Wave—suffrage. The Second Wave, led by the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers, provided psychological analysis of sexism—including that the personal is political rather than an individual problem—and pushed for equal opportunity legislation.       

The Third Wave was led by Gen X who emphasize diversity and intersectionality rather than general categories or binaries like global sisterhood vs. patriarchy. The Fourth Wave is led by Gen Y/Millennials who organize online against sexual harassment, etc. The Fifth Wave is led by Gen Zers like X Gonzales (formerly Emma) who are angry and anxious about the state of the world they’ve inherited with the destruction of the environment, violence—including school shootings—and increasing inequality and poverty. Yelena* remarked that the Second Wave of feminism no longer really applies.

The author of Against White Feminism, Rafia Zakaria charges that the wave concept represents a way of looking at history primarily through the lens of white and Western women rather than including knowledge and expertise that comes from women’s lived experiences.⁴⁹ British author Lucy Delap points out that social movements defy linearity. Feminist politics were often traversed by other distinctive or local campaigns and concerns.⁵⁰ For example, women got the vote in 1896 in New Zealand but don’t have it now in Saudi Arabia, except for local elections as of 2015. (But many restrictions were placed on women candidates.⁵¹) In the US, southern states such as Georgia pass laws to make voting more difficult for people of color and students.

Also, rights may not stay won, such as loss of access to abortion in the US, Poland, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc. Some organizing themes remain over decades, such as work for peace or socialism and increasing global communication. Delap observes that old tactics of, chalking pavement, hunger striking, parody and satire, songs, zines, and books remain an active part of today’s feminist politics.⁵²

In 2014 the NWSA (National Women’s Studies Association) criticized a common problem in academia:

A deferral model wherein transnational, intersectional, and decolonial lenses are taught later on, to complicate earlier frames and lenses, which can tend to remain more gender universal or US-centered, presenting concepts—such as feminist waves or whiteness—that upper-division courses go on to correct. ⁵³

A young member of the London Feminist Network said, I hate all this bullshit about the Third Wave because it implies Second Wave goals have been achieved, but we’re nowhere near the next stage, like, we’re still trying to get basic rights.⁵⁴ Zinia Mitra used the term in her book titled Fourth Wave Feminism, Social Media and Activism but notes that the wave concept ignores in-between periods and the strong thread between waves. That said, I organize feminist history by generational waves with the understanding they have fuzzy borders.

First Wave: The Vote

The vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have, according to