Photo from whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com, showing a young attractive Asian girl standing before her wall of feminine art and holding up a handwritten sign that says I need feminism because society teaches us don't get raped rather than don't rape.Peter Boghossian often claims feminists today don’t care about the third world. That’s bullshit. In fact, almost everything he ever says about feminism today is bullshit. This article is a corrective. It’s time to clean the Augean stables.

Feminism is often badly understood by people who don’t study it well or don’t read widely among contemporary feminist authors. This is because the feminism culturally communicated to people is largely a mythical creation of feminism’s enemies, rather than what is really going on among feminists themselves. Much as the atheism communicated culturally to a large percentage of people (in the US, maybe as much as half the population) is largely a mythical creation of Christians, rather than what is really going on among atheists themselves. Jews and people of color face similar obstacles to understanding, as what “other people” know about them is often the promulgated stereotypes of racists and anti-semites, rather than reality. And when people just repeat what they’ve absorbed from their culture, they often have no idea how inaccurate that cultural knowledge is.

That’s why it’s important to check.

Cultural knowledge is often wrong. Religion itself, for example, is the most prominent example of cultural knowledge. That’s why Christian apologists struggle so hard to fabricate and disseminate false claims about history (from faked quotes of the Founding Fathers to a fictional history of science). For an analogy, comedian David Cross once joked about his experience with “cultural knowledge” of Jews in the South as a young man…

All the parents see you as is a Jew; I’m a Jewish kid. I’m like a fucking alien to them, you know, I’m a freak…so If I slept over a friend’s house, I’d always have to deal with these questions in the morning, like, you know, Mom coming in going <southern accent> “David, I’m so sorry to have to ask you this, I’m so sorry, um…I’m fixing to make breakfast for everybody and I certainly wanna include you…and I’m just having some questions I was hoping you could answer…do y’alls people eat oatmeal?” What? Yeah. Is there something in the Torah that says we shouldn’t eat oatmeal? “No, it’s just that I don’t know much about y’alls people, that’s all, I just don’t know–I know y’all hate Jesus! I know y’all hate Jesus, that much I do know…aand, I know y’alls have seven Jew bankers that control the world’s money supply, right? In a bunker somewhere about a mile into the earth’s core? Is that right? Yeah? And y’all do dances in the woods, y’all wear cloaks and do secret services and burn potions and whatnots, and y’all have horns–that’s all I know about y’alls people!”

Photo from whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com, showing a woman in her living toom holding up a writing pad on which she has written in decorated words I need feminism because when I say I believe in feminism people think I hate men, burn bras, and want everything but equality.He’s joking, of course (sort of). But feminism is similarly disparaged with fictional stereotypes promulgated by its opponents. Which become what everyone assumes is true. Because they don’t check. (See Carrier, “The Curious Case of Jaclyn Glenn” and “How to Do Men’s Rights Rightly,” and in “Why Atheism Needs Feminism,” if you want detailed examples and perspective.)

In my talk for the Secular Student Alliance in 2014 I discussed “Practical Logic,” in which I explain (among much else that is relevant to sound practical reasoning) how and why one of the easiest ways to err in any argument or process of reasoning is to not look for concrete examples of any generalization you are asserting (or worse, to cherry-pick examples, rather than surveying an objective sample of them to see if your generalization actually holds, or has too many exceptions to). I said Peter Boghossian’s discussion of feminism in chapter 8 of his Manual for Creating Atheists is a paradigmatic case of this kind of error, and even used it as an example in my talk.

I’ve said enough on that already (last week in Why Atheism Needs Feminism). I believe that chapter would be much improved by providing examples of any of the contemporary feminists he believes he is describing there, and presenting their claims by quoting them and citing the context of those quotes (or at least citing where they make the claims he attributes to them). In the effort to add that material, it would also be hoped that he would survey the whole field of contemporary feminist writing, to test whether his characterizations are actually typical or not. I suspect from my own experience with feminist literature that his characterization is at best of a fringe subset of feminists and not at all representative of feminism today as a whole.

Photo from whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com,  showing a man holding up his sign saying I need feminism because the toxic masculinity which hurts me is a product of the same system that makes women submissive to men.Last year I co-taught a course with Boghossian on his book, and when we got to that chapter in the syllabus, the following (and the above) is what I presented the class by way of demonstrating almost everything he claimed in his book about feminism is false. He didn’t interact on the matter, so I don’t know what he thought of it. But since I won’t likely be co-teaching a course with him again, it’s time I published this for everyone’s benefit, and as a corrective to his book.

We are now in what is increasingly coming to be called the Fourth Wave of feminism. If you aren’t already up to speed, I highly recommend some readings. Ealasaid Munro of Glasgow University summarizes some of the aspects of Fourth Wave Feminism. And Jennifer Baumgardner of The Feminist Press at CUNY not only briefs Fourth Wave Feminism (adding to Munro) but situates it in the context of the prior three waves of feminism (providing a good primer on what these periodizations of feminism mean and how feminism as an idea and a movement has evolved over time). And Kira Cochrane of The Guardian provides a thorough journalistic profile of the characteristics of Fourth Wave Feminism, including, for example, its growing interest in the issues affecting women in the Third World (and women immigrants and minorities).

As Elizabeth Delacruz and Joanna Rees write in “A Short History of the Women’s Movement in the US” about what characterizes what is now often being called fourth wave feminism:

Feminists today have a far reaching and global perspective. Contemporary feminists from all over the world and from diverse racial, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds now shape the work of and debates within the women’s movement. Feminists are facile with digital and social media. And they maintain a strong connection to environmentalism. Core issues comprising feminist activism worldwide include the ongoing fight for women’s self-determination, reproductive rights, affordable health care, family well-being and childcare issues, the right to education, to own property, to participate in political life, ending sexual and domestic violence, and employment equity.

Photo from whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com, a young woman in the dark holding up a paper with the handwritten statement that I need feminism because during my training in a hospital I told two male doctors that I wanted to be a cardiac surgeon but they burst into laughter and said, What? A girl?One of the fourth wave’s features is increasing integration of elements of Postcolonial Feminism, which seeks to integrate greater interest in and understanding of the issues affecting Third World women, women of color, and the globalization of feminism (as well as a greater acceptance of intersectionality, resulting in, for example, trans-inclusive feminism). For example, these and other developments are surveyed (with a bibliography) in Gregory Castle’s entry on “Feminist Theory” in The Literary Theory Handbook (2013), pp. 190-98.

Feminist leaders today are as diverse as Jessica Valenti and Arundhati Roy. Feminist Studies in university departments are increasingly diversified and global in perspective. For example, examine the faculty and specializations at UC Santa Barbara and Duke University. And feminist academic associations are also increasingly integrating the interests of feminists of color and feminist issues in the Third World. For example, see the about page of Feminist Law Professors.com and its recent articles on Women of Color in Legal Education and feminist academic conferences like Applying Feminism Globally.

Within the atheism identity movement this is evident in the rise of influence and popularity of feminist bloggers who address both domestic and foreign issues in feminism, from Sikivu Hutchinson to Amanda Marcotte. Here at FreeThoughtBlogs we now feature several feminist writers and activists of color and/or from the Third World, including Heina Dadabhoy, an Indian American ex-Muslim, Maryam Namazie, an Iranian ex-pat, Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi author who has been the target of riots and fatwas, and Yemisi Ilesanmi, a Nigerian human rights activist and lawyer dividing her efforts between feminist issues in the UK and Nigeria. And that’s just a sample.

By far the predominant paradigm is not culturally relativistic, but culturally sensitive. Patriarchal assumptions, institutions, and social structures that abuse and oppress (and all too often literally physically harm, mutilate, or even kill) women in Third World countries are not defended by most fourth wave feminists but openly attacked. But they are attacked by first gaining greater familiarity and understanding of the local cultures involved, and working with local feminists, and not acting like ignorant Westerners condescending to lecture other peoples, but making well-informed attacks on the social systems harming women, and seeking to help empower feminists in these very cultures.

Photo from whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com, showing a black man holding up his handwritten sheet saying I need feminism because several capable women in my battalion would be placed in office jobs instead of being allowed yo train and participate in the jobs they signed up for.Feminists always have to direct most of their attention to the problems in their local culture. Because that is the culture they and their friends, family, coworkers and supporters have to live with, and because it’s the culture they have the most knowledge of, influence over, and ability to change. But now, with the rise of the internet and the age of globalization, they also cooperate globally to help each other across cultural and national boundaries. A paradigmatic example is Feminist.com’s statement against female genital mutilation and likewise that of the Feminist Majority Foundation. But key to fourth wave feminism is that, unlike third wave feminism, it has been listening to Third World feminists and is aware that issues like FGM are not the top priority of feminists in cultures afflicted with it. Not because Third World feminists are not opposed to FGM, but because they have much bigger issues to deal with that they rightly tell us should take priority. As Azizah al-Hibri wrote in 1994:

In Copenhagen, Third World women were told that their highest priorities related to the veil and clitoridectomy (female genital mutilation). In Cairo, they were told that their highest priorities related to contraception and abortion. In both cases, Third World women begged to differ. They repeatedly announced that their highest priorities were peace and development. They noted that they could not very well worry about other matters when their children were dying from thirst, hunger or war. Sometimes, First World women shook their heads and indicated that they understood. But nothing has changed. First World women still do not listen; they still do not hear.

That has since changed. Feminist movements like the Feminist Majority Foundation and Equality Now look at all the issues afflicting women in the Third World and recognize that priorities vary locally and can’t be dictated by Western feminists. See the commentary of Nanjala Nyabola on “Uniting Global Feminism” as an example of observing the shift. For another example, on the role of anti-war activism as a new cornerstone of global feminism, see the 2007 article by Patricia McFadden for Ms. magazine, “War Through a Feminist Lens,” and the quite thorough eye-witness global survey of feminist sociologist Cynthia Cockburn, From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis (2007). Al-Hibri and women like her were heard.

Photo from whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com, showing a woman in her room holding up an artistically written poster saying I need feminism because I have to explain why I need feminism.This is the New Feminism. It’s not entirely new. There have been feminists doing all of these things for decades. And there are feminists still stuck in the past. But this new wave is fast becoming the dominant paradigm of feminism as a movement. And I have only scratched the surface with this essay. There are many debates and differences among feminists today, as there are within atheism, for example, but there is increasing unity around a number of core ideals, and an increasing marginalization of the views of old.

For more information on what feminism is about these days, see:

[The photographs used in this post are all sampled from the hundreds collected on the Who Needs Feminism tumblr.]

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