Young Feminists Take on the Family
Contributors include Jennifer Baumgardner, Laura Coats, Rory Dicker, Ayun Halliday, Heather Hewitt, Anastasia Higginbotham, Lisa Johnson, Alison Piepmeier, Vanessa Raney, Amy Richards, Deborah Siegel, and Jessica Valenti.
I’m pleased to present to you the sixth issue of The Scholar & Feminist Online, titled “Young Feminists Take on the Family” and guest edited by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards (co-authors of ManifestA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and the forthcoming Grassroots: A Field Guide to Feminist Activism). The issue brings together the essays, poetry, and artwork of women in their 20s and 30s and explores a wide range of issues currently on young feminists’ minds as they both contemplate their own families and grapple with our culture’s still-limiting notion of what “a family” can be. In addition to original work by Rory Dicker and Alison Piepmeier (co-editors of Catching A Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century), Ayun Halliday (BUST magazine columnist and sole staff member of the zine East Village Inky), Lisa Johnson (editor of Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire), and writers Laura Coats, Heather Hewett, and Anastasia Higginbotham, the issue features two transcripts from the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s “Feminist Future Series,” a photo gallery, an extended reading list for those who wish to explore these topics further, and a portal to activism created by Jessica Valenti, called “TAKE ACTION!”
As Jennifer and Amy write in their introduction, “Our contributors ask some important questions that reflect this particular moment, a time when reproductive technology is commonplace, divorce is as likely as not, and gay rights have meant that people’s gender identities and parenting roles are not so rigid. Even with all of these advances, feminists today are still struggling with a very limited definition of family – one that often makes their personal situation seem retrograde or isolated. What we thought we could use was a campaign redefining family to reflect the wide range of forms.” And in that spirit, they offer this issue.