What Is the Struggle of the Young Feminist?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sonia Cuales, CAFRA regional committee member, responded to our call for submissions with a few thoughts on feminism today. Two related issues preoccupied her- young people’s relationship with feminism and the feminist movement and the relationship between men and women in contemporary Caribbean feminism. Following are her responses to questions she asks of herself as an ’older’, experienced feminist as well as questions that she poses to our readers.

I do not think that feminism has lost its original meaning, that is, the recognition of and resistance to the oppression of women. What has changed is the way that young feminists (even if they do not always identify themselves as feminists) walk into arenas that were formerly male-dominated without recognising that theirs is a feminist act.

The new, young feminists move out of situations where they are likely to be oppressed by men. They seem to have a self-conviction that they are important and worthy of achievements in all sectors of the society; that they do not have to preclude themselves from educational and professional opportunities. They see successful, powerful and independent women all around them and know that they too can be successful, powerful and independent. Without reservation, they claim women’s rights, which the world’s feminist movement has bequeathed to them. Their self-confident acts and attitudes are the legacy of women who fought male-domination on all terrain, from the bedroom to the political platform and back.

However, I do not think that the nuances that shape individual women’s lives, which our generation of feminists politicised in " the personal is political", are credited by the new generation of feminists.
Indeed what is the struggle of the new/modern/young feminist?
Well, the new, young feminist wants to walk next to her male brother/companion/boyfriend/schoolmate. They do not want to walk the struggle alone. It has been my experience that young women do not want to fight young men. They want to understand them and they want the young male to understand them in return. They want the young male to see the disturbances in gender relations that they see. They are asking ’How do we get the boys to understand all this gender equality that we recognise and do not want? How can they see it too?

Young feminists at the recent Feminist Encounter of Latin America and the Caribbean produced a significant resolution: We do no want a feminist movement without the boys. We want them in the struggle with us! What has been the response to this resolution? Did the ’older’ feminists who organised the Encounter respond? How did they do that? Did the young feminists proceed? How? Where?