intergenerational

This just in: There’s been a sharp increase in never-married twentysomethings in just six years. According to new Census figures released today, almost three-quarters of men and almost two-thirds of women in their 20s in 2006 said they had never been married! As reported in USA Today:

Among men ages 20-29, 73% said they had never been married in 2006, compared with 64% in 2000. For women, 62.2% had never married in 2006, compared with 53.4% six years earlier.

The data also show the percentage of those marrying in their 20s continues to decline. A USA TODAY analysis of the new Census figures shows that just 23.5% of men and 31.5% of women ages 20-29 were married in 2006. (The analysis excludes those who are married but separated.) Both the number and percentage of those in their 20s fell from 2000, when 31.5% of men and 39.5% of women were married.

“These clearly are quite dramatic changes by demographic standards,” says demographer Peter Morrison of the non-profit RAND Corp., which studies public policy issues. “The amount of change in six years is quite substantial. It’s impressive in terms of the degree to which the institution of marriage is evolving. There clearly is a process of social evolution occurring here, and one can speculate about where it will end.”

The trend toward delaying marriage has emerged over several decades as economic and social forces have made it more difficult for those in their 20s to reach independence. Sociologists and demographers say other factors are also at work, including increasing numbers of cohabiting couples, more highly educated women who have fewer highly educated men of comparable age to partner with, and more choices open to women than in decades past.

For those reasons and others, experts say they don’t expect this upward trend in the ages for marriage to reverse.

So what are twentysomethings doing instead? For one, as also reported in USA Today, Gen Y is involved. Check it out here.

And finally, twentysomethings Nona Willis-Aronowitz and Emma Bernstein are taking a feminist roadtrip! Read all about it in The Metro. I’m looking forward to meeting with Nona next week.

Ok, I’m headed off to my cousins’ for Rosh Hashanah dinner (Mom – I made a killer kugel!) — I’ll be back on GWP tomorrow night!

(Thanks to CCF and Susan Bernstein for the links!)

Fellow writers Courtney Martin, Gloria Feldt, Kristal Brent Zook and I have launched, yep, a group blog which we hope will foster some FRESH conversation among intergenerational feminists about what matters: power, work, sex, motherhood, pop culture, the future, and everything in between. Since I temporarily can’t figure out how to post over there (doh), I thought I’d make my post live here for the time being. So here it goes:

Sisterhood, UNinterrupted

I’m thrilled to be part of this dialogue. In my head, I confess, I’ve been calling it “Sisterhood, UNinterrupted,” and I feel so fortunate to be working with my fellow womengirlsladies to foster some much-needed cross-generational talk. These wgls inspire the heck outa me. In addition to continuing the conversation I’ve been having at readings and talks around my book these past few months, the significance this dialogue has for me goes straight to my core. I’ve worked in the women’s movement and in academia for about 15 years now, and, like Courtney, I’ve watched some pretty rough dynamics play out between women of different generations at work. And I’ve often felt caught in between — the confidant of women on both ends of the age spectrum. Old enough to sympathize, young enough to want things to change. Now that I’m working independently, I watch the generational chasm reflected — or rather, writ large — in our popular culture. Stereotypes of young women as apolitical bimbos (“Britney, c’est moi!”) and Boomer women as bra-burning throwbacks (“Hillary – so out of touch”) drive me insane. With so much unfinished business, so much still to be done to ensure that women across ages and classes and races have the opportunity to live safe and full lives, I’m convinced it’s time for a different tune.

Check out what Courtney, Gloria, Patti Binder, and others have to say so far over at www.womengirlsladies.blogspot.com. And join the conversation!

So just a quick update on that traveling panel I’m helping organize this year for Women’s History Month, cause I’m too darn excited not to share. As some of you know, I’m teaming up with three amazing women / girls / ladies this March:

Gloria Feldt, Kristal Brent Zook, Courtney E. Martin

We’re taking it on the road to continue the conversation that I started in Sisterhood, Interrupted, and that these women have been having of late too. Together, we want to spark discussion about women’s lives, power, entitlement, and the future of feminism, from a generational perspective. Sound good? If you’d like to bring us to your organization or school, please feel free to contact any of us (I’m deborahsiege AT gmail DOTCOM). But hurry — our schedules are booking up quickly!

One of the versions we’re offering is described thusly (is thusly really a word?):

We Won’t Always Have Paris:
A New Conversation about Young Women and Pop Culture

Why do teen girls dress and dance so provocatively? Do they really think that drinking and drugging at the club is empowering? How can they worship airheads like Paris and Nicole?

Why don’t older women see that there is more to our culture than Britney Spears? Have they ever heard of the World Wide Web? Was it really that different in their day or have they just romanticized it?

Sound familiar? Too often finger-pointing statements like these get thrown around by women of different generations when it comes to conversations about pop culture. With all the injustices yet to be challenged, it’s time that women of all ages talked and listened to one another instead of rehashing the same cliquish complaints. It’s time to reopen a dialogue about women’s lives, power, pop culture, and entitlement — from a generational perspective.

Issues that we’ll address include:
• Does liberated sexuality equal Paris Hilton? Madonna? Bisexuality? Girls Gone Wild?
• Are young women really charmed by today’s pop icons?
• Where are the strong, smart young celebrities without addictions or eating disorders?
• How can we get more positive images of women in the media?
• What do power and empowerment look like to women of different generations?
• What is the major unfinished business for women in the media and pop cultural arenas today?
• How do we keep our eyes on the prize of more complex, diverse, and healthy representation of women?

Another version we’re doing goes like this:

Womengirlsladies: A Fresh Conversation Across Generations

Many of the young female students in my classes seem to think empowerment means short skirts and high heels! Even young women who say they are feminists often don’t know what’s still at stake—from pay equity to Title 9 to reproductive justice– and they are unwilling to put in the hard work necessary to fight for change!

Older female professors act like it’s a crime against the Goddess to have a little fun! Women’s Studies classes are just too pc. I’m not a feminist but I totally believe in equality. Doesn’t everybody? And by the way, weren’t those battles already won by our mothers, so why do we have to fight them again?
Do these complaints sound familiar?

With all the injustices yet to be challenged, it is time that women of all ages talked and listened to one another. It is time to reopen a dialogue about women’s lives: our power, our entitlement, and our futures — the future of feminism. Among issues to be addressed:

•Power and Parity: What do power and empowerment look like to women of different generations, and to women of different races and cultural backgrounds? What can we envision achieving together for women in the future? What might a powerful woman look and act like twenty years down the road?

•Unfinished Business: What are the major loose (or lost) ends of the feminist movement today? And how can we get what we need now?

•The F-word: Why are so many younger women afraid of being identified as feminists? Do older women secretly resent the entitlement of their younger, female employees and students?

•A Stripping Pole in Every Living Room: Does liberated sexuality equal lap dances? Free love? Bisexuality? Are Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan good role models for sexual empowerment? Were Madonna or Lil’ Kim?

•The “Opting Out” Fiasco: How has the media slashed and distorted real women’s choices about balancing work and family? Could listening to popular myths about your options in the workplace and the home topple your career choices?

•Passing the Torch without Extinguishing the Flame: How can younger women learn from older women while speaking in their own language about the issues that matter most to them?

We’ll be offering these panels throughout 2008, but please do get in touch soon, as our schedules are filling up fast: taryn.kutujian@gmail.com

Would love to bring it your way!

An extremely off the mark, nudge nudge wink wink article on the so-called collapse of feminism (“At Times Like This, It’s Better to Just Be One of the Boys”), by Magnus Linklater, appeared in the Times Online (UK) last week. Writes Linklater,

“Sometimes it’s a relief to be a man. Watching, at a safe distance, the collapse of feminism is a bit like seeing a huge chunk of melting glacier falling into the sea. You know it’s a sign of something serious going on, but you’re glad not to be anywhere near when it happens.”

The commentors in the comments section are doing an excellent job setting ole Magnus straight. My favorite is from “PN,” from London, who writes:

“This article is based purely on two feminist thinkers [Fay Weldon and Germaine Greer] who have made comments in the last week which have been jumped on and to some extent distorted by the media. Strangely enough, I don’t think my only choices of feminist icon are Anne Hathaway or Diana purely because Germaine Greer happens to have said something about them.

There are things to be said in defense of both Weldon and Greer, but I think the more important point is that the opinions of these two people hardly constitute the collapse of feminism. Perhaps you need to get on the internet and investigate some of the blogs and comments on feminist sites which seem to have missed the newsflash that their movement has collapsed.”

Aside from the comments, the most interesting tidbit I gleaned here was that Germaine Greer has a new book out called Shakespeare’s Wife. One of my all-time favorite moments in literature is Virginia Woolf’s speculation about Shakespeare’s sister in A Room of One’s Own. (He didn’t have one, but Woolf imaginatively speculates about her fate nonetheless. What if she had wanted to write?) Anyway, back in real life, apparently men from James Boswell to Anthony Burgess had all assumed that Anne Hathaway (aka Shakespeare’s wife) was either “a lustful, scheming woman who lured Shakespeare into a loveless marriage, or an ugly harridan who drove him away by making his life a misery.” Greer takes a new look. The book sounds intriguing.

Now, if only Greer and Weldon (heros, truly!) could stop commenting all over the place that feminism is dead among young women long enough to get themselves online and to a bookstore and take a new look themselves, perhaps they’d reconsider. Or maybe not. Either way, though, it would make for a much fresher article. Then again, Magnus may not be the person to write it. He’s too busy dreaming of ice chunks and thanking god (or whoever) for having made him a man.

This year’s Book Festival in Edinburgh seems to be inspiring a number of “dead feminism” articles in the UK press. There’s one in The Herald (Thirty Years on from the Glory Days of Feminism: How Have We Changed?) and not one but two in The Scotsman (“Feminism is Dead for Most Women Today, Says Its High Priestess” and “We Gave Men a Hard Time”). I don’t know about you, but that photo attached to the Festival’s logo up there sure don’t scream “postfeminism” to me….

Memoirs by movement veterans Lynne Segal (currently professor of psychology and gender studies at Birkbeck University, London) and writer Michele Roberts along with comments from writer Fay Weldon seem to be sparking the not-so-novel headline. Says Roberts in The Scotsman,

“There isn’t a public feminism supporting women in the way there was, because feminism has become discredited as a sour-faced, curmudgeonly set of ideas. Young women don’t want to be associated with it. I don’t think the culture as a whole represents the strength and beauty of female friendships and how those relationships save you from going mad. Women are portrayed as sitting around giggling together in wine bars. I’m not saying that that’s what young women are like, but that’s what the culture is describing: you’re allowed to have female comrades but only if you’re discussing stilettos.”

These women have excellent points, but the emphasis of these articles is just so, well, predictable. Over and over, the death of feminism seems a juicier story than stories about its life. But don’t people get tired reading the same ole story? Don’t journalists get tired of writing them? For vibrant signs of life among our sisters across the sea and other tales yet to tell, of course, see The F-Word and the women’s page of The Guardian.

This morning I was a guest on the final airing of The Lisa Birnbach Show, along with Gloria Feldt, Courtney Martin, and, by phone, Gloria Steinem. I was honored to be flanked by the Glorias and Courtney, and our intergenerational conversation about feminism was a great practice run of the panel we’re putting together and taking on the road. I accidentally said “damn” (as in “Women become more radical with age, but I also know lots of damn radical young women”) on the air and then immediately wondered if you are allowed to say “damn” on the radio.

Though we all looked hot in our celebratory pink feather boas, it was a sad sad day, as GreenStone Media, the show’s short-lived parent company, is closing down. Lisa (pictured above) is a witty, wise, charismatic talk radio host who makes you feel like you’re chatting in her living room. She’s had some incredible guests, mainstream and radical activisty alike, and she has great shoes. The idea and existence of GreenStone — talk radio for women — held such promise. I know Lisa will land on her feet, and wherever she goes will be damn lucky to have her. Oops. There I go again.

Goodbye, GreenStone. Thank you for having me, and thank you, most of all, for trying. We’ll miss you like crazy.

I’m back in NYC, trying to remember why I love it here, when California has the sun, the surf, the fresh air…

Well, yes, here is one reason: Four of my favorite organizations — Demos, the National Council for Research on Women, the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, and the Ms. Foundation — are cosponsoring a forum on my book next Thursday. If you’re in the NYC area, please come! The event will take place at the NYRAG offices located at 79 Fifth Ave (betw 15th and 16th Sts), 4th floor. It’s free and open to the public, but registration is required. You can also register by calling 212-633-1405 x533. Please spread word by forwarding the invite, found here:

file:///Users/deborah/Desktop/sisterhood%20interrupted%20invite.htm

(Or this link: http://www.demos.org/events.cfm)

I’ll give a talk based on my book, and panelists Desiree Flores and Dr. Mary S. Hartman will respond with discussion of the experiences of younger and older feminists in relationship to the movement and each other, how multiple generations of women can learn from one another’s activism to bridge generational differences, and what the future of the feminist movement looks like. The event will be moderated by Shari Cohen, Director of the Demos Fellows Program and a very savvy lady. Refreshments provided!

It’s real – and I’m jazzed. Starting this fall, I’ll be touring campuses and elsewhere as part of an intergenerational panel with three AMAZING fellow writers/speakers:

Courtney Martin (author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters)

Kristal Brent Zook (author of Black Women’s Lives: Stories of Pain and Power)

Gloria Feldt (author of The War on Choice and former president of Planned Parenthood)

Together, we feel it’s time that women of all ages talked and listened to one another instead of rehashing the same complaints in isolation. We want to reopen the dialogue about women’s lives, power, entitlement, and the future of feminism, but this time, with a rich, cross-generational understanding. If you’re connected to a campus or organization and are interested in bringing us your way, please contact Taryn at taryn.kutujian@gmail.com.

I’m so excited to go for dinner with the women of NOW before my reading at Border’s in Jersey on Monday! Judith Glick Buckman, one of the founders of the Alice Paul Chapter – which is one of the oldest and largest chapters, I believe – wrote a very moving letter about intergenerational issues, and her experiences. Here’s Judy:

When I was 7 months pregnant I attended a National NOW conference. My daughter, who is now 31, literally got feminism with her mother’s milk and attended many demonstrations in her stroller holding a picket sign.

My greatest fear is that she, like so many women of her generation, assume the battles have been won and due to this complacence, their tenuous right to choose will be pulled out from under them before they know what hit them, much less have the skills or the willingness to counter attack.

I’ve been an activist with South Jersey NOW—Alice Paul chapter for more than 30 years. The good news AND the bad news, is that we are a multi-generational group of women and men from the teen-aged years to the 80s. While we do our best to work together to ensure equal rights, sometimes that goal seems more difficult to achieve than our ongoing battles against the conservative forces in this country.

Based on Deborah Siegel’s insight into this situation and her determination to serve as an interpreter between the second and third waves of feminism, I am excited and confident that her book will be an invaluable guide enabling us to bridge that divide.

When I was the age my daughter is now, I had no idea what gifts awaited me through my women’s right activism–nothing else in my life has given me the same sense of power, accomplishment, sisterhood and satisfaction, which I quite literally could not have imagined in my 20’s. Apart from the great changes to society that the second wave has accomplished, the act of fighting the battles has been one of the most positive and enriching forces in my life.

Deborah Siegel’s message is one that all who care about women’s rights, regardless of age, needs to hear. As well as alerting my daughter’s generation that we need to fight the rest of the battles together, my most fervent wish is that Ms. Siegel’s book will teach those of us in the second wave, how to pass the torch in a way that will not extinguish the flame.

Thank you, Judy! How I loves me that metaphor – passing the torch without extinguishing the flame….Much food for thought. Readers, your thoughts?

I am so excitedly overwhelmed at the response yesterday. Profound gratitude to all who have sent me such kind words of enthusiasm and support! People are starting to ask how I think we might foster better and rich conversations across generations of feminists. So here is my initial response:

1. Host or gather a group of women, girls, and grrls across the generations and use the DISCUSSION GUIDE in the back of the back of Sisterhood, Interrupted to spark conversations about our differences, our similarities, the unfinished business of feminism, and how we move forward from here.

2. Take a younger/older feminist to LUNCH! Do it today. Connections are far best when they’re one-on-one.

3. If you’re an academic wanting to join the more popular conversation about feminism and add nuance and you have a book that you think could go trade, take my online course this fall, “MAKING IT POP: TRANSLATING YOUR IDEAS FOR TRADE“ (more details on that soon, via Girl w/Pen email list)

4. If you can, participate in a LEADERSHIP RETREAT at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership. I’m a Fellow there, and we offer leadership retreats for women in their 20s/30s, another one for women over 50, and many, of course, that are intergenerational. (Scholarships are available.)

5. Stay current and in touch by reading FEMINIST BLOGS (if unfamiliar, check out my blogroll, for a gateway). They provide to-the-minute coverage on wide-ranging topics and are places where rich intergenerational discussion, ideally, can begin.

6. Send me suggestions of your own and I promise to post them here. Or join my Facebook group and start dialogue there.

Thank you again, and happy reading!! I look forward to continuing the conversation.