Today's 20-something women have trouble finding their place in feminism. Too young to claim membership in the Gloria Steinem-powered Second Wave--but too old to be bolstered by the "girl power" movement aimed at young girls of today--the daughters of the liberating '70s often struggle with their feminist identity.
A new book helps articulate those issues for Third Wave women. "Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future," by Jennifer Baumgard-ner and Amy Richards (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15), was published last fall and has generated a buzz among feminists.
Richards says "Manifesta" was "created to fill a gap in the lives of young women, like me, who yearn for a connection to feminism." It's a nod to feminism's history and an effort to revive the movement's spirit in a new way.
Today's young women were the first generation to be told that "girls can do anything boys can do." Often criticized by the Second Wave for their lack of activism, they're a group with many factions and experiences.
"Manifesta's" authors, both born in 1970, embody the uneasy transition between the Second and Third Wave. Baumgardner, a freelance writer, has worked as a writer and editor for "Ms." magazine. Richards is co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation, the national organization for young feminists.
Both authors have a full sense of the work done by their foremothers, but "Manifesta" is definitely a Third Wave book.
Baumgardner and Richards discuss why various groups of feminists aren't as connected as they need to be, and they examine the delicate, uneasy relationship between Second and Third Wave feminists. They point to ways young women can carry the torch without forgetting or sublimating the issues that matter to them. Primarily, though, "Manifesta" inspires young feminists to do something--anything--to get involved in a movement that is still alive and still needed.