Contemporary Voices: Starting Out

Abstract

These are the voices of three young women in their early twenties and highlight the complexities of how young women position themselves in relationship to feminism. They arise out of a series of informal conversations, interviews and taught seminars with over 100 young women (see Appendix) Their responses range from those who see feminism as a battle that has already been won and is thus of no interest to young women today, to those who actively engage with feminism as something that is of relevance and importance to their daily lives. Their responses all rest on an expectation of gender equality, which in some cases develops into critical awareness and consciousness. It is worth noting that these are largely young women who have been through the pre-university education system in a political and social policy climate of anxiety in many western countries, including the UK, about the underachievement of boys and a crisis of masculinity. Girls’ educational success began to surpass boys’ in this period (Epstein et al., 1998; Paechter, 1998) and whilst the immediate postwar underachievement of girls, especially in maths, science and technology, warranted limited mainstream alarm, these young women will have been through school in a period of moral panic about the extent to which boys were falling behind.

The fights [of feminism] are over. We just expect things.

I was walking down my road [at 10:30 in the morning] and these guys started shouting things at me from their car: ‘Bitch’; ‘Slut’. It happens all the time. Usually it doesn’t bother me; you just get used to it.

I like to wear more feminine clothes, cover up some flesh. I’m sick of the way we [young women] are shown in the media, as if we’re all binge-drinking and promiscuous.