Megan Seely's Fight Like a Girl
Sinsheimer, Jessica
IMEGAN SEELY promises fearlessness. At twenty-eight, she was the youngest woman to have been leader of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women. Before that, she was...
...Phyllis Chesler wrote, in her Letters to a Young Feminist, "If you're on the right track, you can expect some pretty savage criticism...
...Radical...
...Thirteen years after Reviving Ophelia spoke of the predations of sexism in the lives of young women, snappy works with attractive covers sell many thousands of copies—vivid proof that the problems have not only not gone away but have gained the interest of the mainstream...
...Revel in it...
...So, what are we to do with a movement, many of whose members are too embarrassed to claim allegiance...
...Who was I to talk about empowerment...
...Manifesto: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future offered some concrete advice: when someone makes an absurd statement about feminism, Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner suggest, ask them to cite what, specifically, they're referring to...
...Ask a teenager with a credit card when women were allowed their own bank accounts or ask a twenty-something when birth control became legal for unmarried women, and, most likely, you'll find that she has no idea...
...Put simply, feminism— for my generation—is not cool...
...Militant...
...Single-issue feminism (by other names, of course) is even trendy—look at the recent books on the dieting, dating, dressing, and (more accurately, or) sexual habits of this generation...
...Media and popular culture have narrowed the definition of "feminist" to the embodiment of what young, straight women in an image-conscious, homophobic culture are most afraid to be called...
...Did I feel fearless...
...A lot of this is the fault of school history programs, she says: we're simply not taught about these struggles, our history books overfilled with the gallivantings of white men...
...Many have accepted as truth Rush Limbaugh's claim that "Feminism was established to allow unatDISSENT / Fall 2007 109 tractive women easier access to the mainstream...
...This is particularly reassuring because young feminists often have the idea that their attempts must be perfect from the get-go, that they must intuitively know how to handle the details, the organizing, the publicity, the media...
...Both generations, she notes, worry that the other doesn't get it...
...If we presented ourselves not as a radical subgroup but simply as women who are concerned, educated, socially astute, would the mainstream finally listen to us...
...Before that, she was the organization's youth coordinator, a position specifically created for her...
...But claim the name...
...Though the tone of her work is overwhelmingly hopeful, one cannot give an accurate picture of the state of women in the world without including sobering facts...
...Seely provides a good summary of how the issue stands at present and includes her personal experience as a clinic escort, which even involved helping anti-choice protesters obtain safe abortions and then seeing these same women, the next week, at antichoice rallies...
...Seely's list of feminism's gains is at once amazing and terrifying —amazing that so much was accomplished by women who started out with very few rights of their own, and terrifying that life was like that not long ago and could be like that again, if we don't do something about the rightward political tide...
...She writes with a very specific purpose: to prepare the next generation of young women—with history, media guidelines, overviews of major issues, and techniques of activism—to bravely tackle the unique challenges of feminism in this generation...
...Putting aside the question of whether it is wise to begin the book this way, this intimidating list isn't followed by responses and remedies...
...Hardly...
...Asked what words they associated with feminism, this is what Seely's survey respondents came up with...
...The criticism is brutal, but I'm not sure it means we're succeeding...
...Perplexed at living a life she wrote and spoke against, she fears appearing hypocritical, but speaks in fact with the authority of one who has been there...
...The saddest part was that I was more worried that someone would find me out, uncover the sham that I thought I was, than concerned for my health, my selfesteem, my self-definition, or even my life...
...Her many years in NOW are evidenced in her situationspecific suggestions...
...The most glaring problem has to do with feminism's public image—which has turned off many a would-be activist and seems to be the main reason that third-wave feminism has not yet come into its own...
...I threw up so much my voice was raspy...
...Especially because of her emphasis on speaking in sound bites to the media, one craves, after reading this first chapter, sound bites for everyday, semipublic relations...
...I'm sure she has advice to offer, and I wish she had done so...
...Her chapters on violence against women (separated into sections for abuse within relationships, sexual harassment, rape, and projects like "Take Back the Night") are thorough, detailed, and so upsetting that I had to take breaks while reading them...
...IN A PARTICULARLY bold move—especially SO given the absurd but common accusation of the right that eating disorders are a side effect of feminism—she discusses her double life as a public activist and private bulimic, always worried about being discovered...
...She describes, for example, one of her first attempts at activism, in her teens, confronting a grocer on the injustices that went into producing his grapes: "In the deepest, most serious fourteen-year-old voice I could muster, I yelled, 'These grapes have blood on them!' I slammed the grapes against the floor...
...These works are especially intriguing to women of our mothers' generation: fearful for our health (it does seem that eating disorders are, and have been for awhile, the "it" topic in journalism), appalled by our clothing choices (exposed thongs and Playboy logos), scandalized by our mating habits (it seems we've taken the freedom of the sexual revolution and turned it into something second-wavers would call "objectification"), our mothers turn to published analyses, and the chasm between generations only grows...
...Explanations, yes...
...Mainstream peers are armed with a plethora of knee-jerk, anti-feminist reactions —some of which Seely reprints...
...Politically, we have suffered numerous setbacks —which will only be compounded if we don't organize, and fast...
...But what to say to skeptical classmates, colleagues, or even co-conspirators...
...It is the truest measure of your success...
...Going in with a basic working knowledge of feminism (and having come, like Seely, from a feminist California household), I felt that many of my vague fears about being a gender activist had been replaced with concrete examples of what could, in fact, go wrong—and what has, in fact, gone wrong...
...After all, we're hardly living in a time marked by "feminist chic...
...Perhaps the ultimate test of a book of this sort is the reader's political reaction: did I feel ready, after reading her tips and suggestions for organizing rallies, writing press releases, and doing media interviews, to put on an event of my own...
...Bra burner...
...Some young women take equality for granted, forgetting how different their lives would be if they had been born a hundred, even fifty, years ago...
...But then again, there are some topics on which this generation is well versed: most young women, for example, are aware of the abortion wars...
...That's what I hoped for from Seely...
...Analysis and paragraph-long arguments, sure...
...Still, when Seely shows us glimpses of herself as a woman, as a person, I was caught up by her stories, delighted with her openness...
...Man Hater...
...Not only is it considered passé, but—even worse—it is something our mothers did...
...JESSICA SINSHEIMER is a New York-based writer...
...Sadly, no...
...Strangely, Seely notes, most women are feminists in the strict, dictionary sense of the word: they support gender equality, and take this as a given...
...Seely writes about her own experiences —so that we can, armed with her "war stories," join the battle prepared for what might happen...
...Like many of her chapters, this one, entitled "Good Enough," could have been expanded into a work of its own...
...Perhaps her reluctance to do that reflects a feminist worry: to be taken seriously, a woman thinker must avoid, at all costs, the allegation of being just an emotional, irrational, premenstrual female...
...If we weren't so distracted, what might we accomplish...
...They must do this while knowing that if they make a mistake—if they say the wrong thing to a reporter or portray themselves as too angry or enthusiastic—they may be furthering stereotypes instead of their cause...
...This is followed by "Fat...
...Only then did I notice the crowd . . . it would be a long time until we would or could go back to that store...
...Each generation gets a list, including tips such as, "Don't assume that young activists are here to take over, or that we don't value your work, past and present, or that we don't want to work with you today" and, for the younger women, "Do your share of the work, but don't be a 'gopher' to do all the trivial tasks...
...Seely is aware of the difficulties this poses, and she gives the issue a prominent place: chapter one, page one, first word (under a heading "Feminism"): Bitch...
...But young women are often unaware of the struggle involved in bringing us even to this point...
...It's almost trendy to wear the button displaying a cartoon coat hanger with a line through it...
...Trust it...
...Seely is rightly saddened by the misuse of female energy—the millions of hours young women spend trying to fix themselves (because the prevalent opinion is that "as we are is not good enough...
...Older women worry that we're apathetic—and since there aren't huge numbers of young women gathering under the banner of feminism, this misperception can be understood, if not forgiven...
...Loud...
...Young women know their mothers can't understand the pressures of the current culture...
...Would we find ourselves closer to Seely's vision for the third wave—a movement defined by inclusion of all racial, economic, and gender groups—if we also included those who eschew the title...
...Angry...
...But there are more pages here dedicated to problems than to solutions...
...It would certainly save time and energy to toss the title and keep the ideas—we'd no longer be stuck fielding questions about lipstick and shaving, whether we're lesbians, and why feminists are so angry...
...she asks...
...Because feminism has become a movement criticized for its image, not its tenets, and because the majority of Americans believe in gender equality yet criticize feminists, the result is the "I'm not a feminist, but . . . generation —one that believes in gender equality but is embarrassed by the label...
...Without blaming her own generation, Seely marvels at our collective lack of knowledge...
...Dyke...
...KMOWING THAT intergenerational dialogue is key to continuing the revolution, Seely has included a list of Do's and Don'ts for veteran and newbie feminists...
...Butch...
...Now in her early thirties, she gives the impression of a much older author—but one in touch with the current state of the movement...
...For all the information she conveys, the most compelling moments in this book are those that show her humanity beyond her 110 DISSENT / Fall 2007 knowledge and accomplishments...
...Hairy...
...Ugly...
...DISSENT / Fall 2007 111...
Vol. 54 • September 2007 • No. 4
