"New" Feminism, Old Sexism?

Nicole, a fellow member of WOC's Young Feminist Network, sent a link to the listserv from US Catholic, "Redesigning Women". The article explores the "new feminism" promoted by John Paul II:

Last spring at the University of Notre Dame a heated debate about campus performances of the controversial play The Vagina Monologues made national news, provoking widespread debate not only about academic freedom at Catholic universities but also about the compatibility of Catholicism and feminism. While the debate surrounding Monologues took center stage, inciting lively debates in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, another forum on campus quietly attracted more than 300 people. A weekend conference organized by three Notre Dame undergraduates, “The Edith Stein Project: Redefining Feminism,” attempted to respond to the late Pope John Paul II’s call for a “new feminism” in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae (“The Gospel of Life”), tackling such issues as abortion, pornography, contraception, eating disorders, and rape.

First off, a small disclaimer as to how I approach this topic and this article. As an undergraduate at a Catholic college, I brought the firestorm that is The Vagina Monologues onto campus. Interestingly enough, I took Edith Stein as my confirmation name when I was in high school. Some nine years later, my personal philosophies have taken a different route than Edith's, but I chose her because at 15 I knew I was a feminist, and she was a brand new saint (I'm gunning for my little sister to pick Mother Theodore this spring) who was not only a feminist, but who was educated, encouraged women's education, and struggled with God and religion as I did and continue to do.

This article, by Renee LaReau, highlights some of the more troublesome aspects of the "new feminism" for me. While it cozies itself up close to cultural feminism with talk of uplifting "women's work," recognizing the value of nurturing, and so forth, it diverges quickly because it is a feminism that was created by and for the maintanance of a patriarchal structure. At least one nun agrees with me:

Some women theologians are wary of a “new feminism” initiated by a male Catholic hierarchy. Part of the problem, says Sister of Mercy Mary Aquin O’Neill, is that the church hierarchy is defined by having a teaching role, rather than a listening role, which may inhibit their ability to learn from the experiences of women.

“It will always mean that men are defining women and telling women what it is like to be a woman,” says O’Neill, director of the Mount Agnes Theological Center for Women in Baltimore. “It’s not particular to the pope, it’s particular to the system.” O’Neill also says that, as long as women are excluded from higher-level leadership church positions, sexism within the church itself can go unchecked.

Another troubling aspect is that many of the women who espouse the "new feminism" seem to have a very poor understanding of what feminism is and where it came from.

“For a long time, feminism has been about doing: Can I build a skyscraper the way a man can? Can a man do half the housework? Can a woman break through the glass ceiling?” says Pia de Solenni, a Washington, D.C.-based moral theologian. “It hasn’t been about who I am.”

Maybe. I won't make assumptions on Ms. de Solenni's feelings about feminism, but she clearly doesn't know the whole story. Feminism is about equality between the sexes at it's most rudimentary level, which includes some of what Ms. de Solenni speaks of. However, feminism has also always been tied up in giving women more choices about their lives and giving more respect to the work women have done and continue to do. For feminists, caring for children has always been as honorable as running for office, as long as each woman could make that choice for herself.

Another "new feminist" who is interviewed for this article, Madeleine Ryland, is senior at University of Notre Dame and one of the organizers of the aforementioned Edith Stein Project had this to say, and I hope beyond hope she was incompletely quoted:

“For my generation the word feminism has more of a negative connotation now,” says Ryland, 22. “Feminism was important then, but do we really still need to be talking about this stuff? Women have equal voting rights—isn’t that all we needed from that? It’s kind of a dead horse people are still beating.”

She and her peers care about feminism to the extent that they don’t want to go into job interviews and be discriminated against.

Uh, what? Do we really still need to be talking about this stuff? As a matter of full disclosure, I will say that I disagree with some of the basic beliefs of the Edith Stein Project and the speakers they bring in, but both last year's conference and this year's discuss eating disorders, rape, domestic violence, and immigrant women's rights. We need feminism because this stuff is still happening. Feminist.com has done a stellar job of compiling facts about the violence women face on a national and global scale. It was the secular feminist movement that brought violence against women out of the home and into the national spotlight, created domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers. What the "new feminists" seem to forget when they deride the secular feminist movement for some imaginary slight against the stay at home mom is that feminists are on the front line every day saving women's lives.

Another related problem I have with the "new feminism," along with pro-life feminism, the ease and eagerness with which the term "feminism" is co-opted by individuals and groups who align themselves with anti-woman fundamentalists. The Edith Stein Project links to the group One More Soul who famously link condoms with lethal experimentation and cohabitation with multiple health problems, Feminists for Life have been courted by the Christian media opened the door for even the most radical anti-shoice groups to claim a "feminist" connection by citing Susan B. Anthony. I've encountered people who tell me they are "feminists" in one breath and say that contraception is immoral and women should "keep their legs shut" in the next.

Is the "new feminism" anything "new" really, or is it the old gender determinism, now masquerading oppression for liberation? As Aisha Taylor, executive director of WOC says in the article's sidebar, "But ‘new feminism’ falls down when it says women are meant to be mothers and are more nurturing because they are women. Then instead of doing something because of your gifts or because you feel called by God to do it, it’s because of traditional gender roles."