I think I needed to read this article for the sake of my feminist morale. I'm a college student who has been active with a feminist group that prides itself on using the methods of the Second Wave such as in-person consiousness raising and speakouts on campus. I have seen very little participation and willingness by other women on campus to join in these activities and this article really hit the nail on the head. My attempts to recruit other feminists (many who do not call themselves such) have failed horribly and I have felt heavily discouraged lately. We need to stop hoping to have another hey-day, it's not realistic, instead we need to modernize our methods.

Thanks for the link, Jessica - and thanks to Courtney for the article! A thoughtful, eloquent read like that does me good during Monday lunch hour.

What an astute article by Courtney.

The pacifist movement also suffers from the same pattern.

I think our feminist (and pacifist) elders need to realize that if the movement is their baby, that babies grow up and turn out differently then they would expect.

Their baby encountered backlash, and that affected it. Faux news, change in the public discourse by the right wing, these things have changed the way this baby had to grow up. If a million people around a world protesting a promised war in the old style can be called a focus group, well, a different strategy is needed.

The movement has exceeded the second wave, I think, in this brave new world. We have the freedom of diversity, and the skills need to be different. I agree with Courtney, a 'face' of the movement would not be representative.

Dead on, Courtney as always! I posted a response over at our blog: http://umkc-womenc.blogspot.com/2009/03/end-of-womens-movement.html

And PS -- you're so right about Take Back the Night. We still do it, but it's much more a celebration of our work and (dare I say it?) fun evening than a "marching in the streets will change the world" kind of event. It works for us that way and I don't think it would in the "old" version. Anyway, as usual, you get it exactly right -- loved the piece!

I... guess I am not afraid to be a dissenter on this article. Courtney, I respectfully take issue with your saying the Women's Media Center "enables young women to become professional feminists" and in literally the same breath saying you avoid the word "patriarchy." (Why, because it would make you less palatable to... anti-feminists?)

There is also the general irony of a young, relatively privileged white woman (which is a status I share with you, Courtney) declaring the women's movement over and done with on the basis of what... some middle- and upper-class white Americans who have not only the money to attend college, but the time to even ponder the question of whether the women's movement is "over"? I understand you're trying to say intersectionality has taken over, but haven't even the blog fights and whatnot of the last two months (some of which centred around you personally so I know you're aware of them) demonstrated that all this "intersectionality" talk often masks deeper classism/racism/heterosexism in the feminists who claim to speak from an intersectional perspective?

I don't think you wrote this article in bad faith or anything, but it disappoints me that this is the voice that gets heard in the "mainstream" liberal media. Because I have no idea why liberal dudes are gonna give a fuck about feminist issues when feminists are telling them there's no commonality among women anyway.