Title: The End of the Women's Movement - The American Prospect
Headings: The End of the Women's Movement
The End of the Women's Movement
Courtney Martin

Content: Sometimes I feel as if my generation -- women in our 20s and 30s -- are feminism's Frankensteins. After all, Broner herself was responsible for building some of the first women's studies programs in the nation. Now a generation is graduating from them using words like "genderqueer" -- meaning that one doesn't identify exclusively as male or female. We generally aren't down for the subtle messaging by many older women who believe that females in positions of power are inherently less violent or more community-minded than their male counterparts, a view that Bitch magazine founder Lisa Jervis hilariously called "femmenism." Many second-wave leaders have founded nonprofit organizations (Steinem alone is partly or fully responsible for Choice USA, the Women's Media Center, and The Ms. Foundation) that allow young women to become professional feminists -- those who make a living off of feminist activism by writing, teaching, and organizing. Thanks to their support -- financial and otherwise -- I wake up each morning and sit down at my laptop to "fight the patriarchy" (although I avoid the term like the plague). I mentor other young women who are interested in forging feminist careers. I teach women how to write op-eds. I go on conservative television shows and argue for the feminist point of view. We march in the streets when we're called to (the March for Women's Lives in 2004, Take Back the Night each year on most college campuses) but more as a matter of solidarity and fun than out of any real conviction that protesting still creates change.