Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Uncertainty in Action:
Young American Women and the Dilemmas of Gender-Based Organizing
Kristin A. Goss [email protected]
Sierra Smucker
Avery Waite [email protected]
Sanford School of Public Policy Duke University
Prepared for the 4th European Conference on Politics and Gender, Uppsala University,
Sweden, June 11-13, 2015. We thank Emma Tessier and Farzain Rahman for research assistance.
DRAFT: Do not cite or quote without authors’ permission
May 29, 2015
1
Three decades ago the feminist theorist and organizer Betty Friedan sounded a clarion
call. The “second-wave” American women’s movement that her book The Feminine Mystique
had helped spawn in the mid-1960s had fallen into “profound paralysis.” Friedan framed the
problem in generational terms: Second-wave leaders had failed “to mobilize the young
generation who take for granted the rights we won and who do not defend those rights as they are
being taken away in front of our eyes” (Friedan 1985).
The purportedly ungrateful, under-mobilized, and unenlightened daughters to whom
Friedan referred would have at that time belonged to the tail end of the Baby Boom Generation
(those born between 1946 and 1964) and the front end of Generation X (those born from 1965
through 1982). Subsequent generations, including the Millennials (born after 1982), have been
the target of similar accusations. The critique holds that post-second-wave women’s purported
neglect of women’s rights has allowed myriad forms of gender disadvantage – including unequal
pay, constraints on reproductive health access, and under-representation in leadership positions –
to continue and in some cases worsen.
The “ungrateful daughter” critique is built on two arguments: (1) that younger women are
less likely than older cohorts to see themselves as part of a politically relevant group, women,
with shared grievances, and (2) that young women are less likely to organize as women around
policy and cultural reforms to address these grievances. The social movement literature provides
theoretical reasons to grant a priori plausibility to both propositions. Research shows that group
consciousness is often rooted in shared grievances arising from a collective recognition of out-
group status (Reger 2012; Mansbridge 2001; Tolleson Rinehart 1992). Out-group status is
typically the product of both discriminatory laws and social practices. Breaking down such
barriers might be expected to weaken group-based solidarity and, thereby, undermine the basis
2
for collective action. From the 1960s through the 1990s, American women saw many policy
changes that significantly improved their opportunities for equality and advancement, including
policies banning discrimination in credit and on the basis of pregnancy, creating a cause of action
for sexual harassment, and lowering barriers to pay-discrimination claims and family leave. As
formal barriers to gender equality have fallen, we might have cause to see less gender solidarity,
particularly among younger women, and a weaker foundation for their collective activism.
Young feminist writers and leaders have challenged the “ungrateful daughter” narrative
by arguing that Millennial women’s consciousness of gender disadvantage or difference is very
much present – but that it takes different public forms from those of their foremothers and
emphasizes different perspectives and agendas (Dicker 2008; Henry 2004; Hernández and
Rehman 2002; Baumgardner and Richards 2000). A series of studies have explored the “I’m not
a feminist, but” phenomenon, in which young women who are reluctant to label themselves as
feminists nevertheless embrace feminist principles (Traister 2012; Zucker 2004; Henry 2004;
Schnittker, Freese, and Powel 2003; Williams and Wittig 1997; Buschman and Lenart).
As we discuss below, prior research based on survey evidence actually has reached mixed
conclusions about young women’s feminist consciousness and propensity for gendered collective
action (Peltola, Milkie, and Presser 2004; Aronson 2003; Hall and Rodriguez 2003; Schnittker,
Freese, and Powell 2003; Buschman and Lenart 1996; Cowan, Mestlin and Masek 1992; Plutzer
1988; Renzetti 1987). Yet this work is now more than a decade or two old, and much has
changed for young women because of laws enacted to promote gender equality. Women now
outnumber men in college enrollment and in many graduate programs1 (Lopez and Gonzalez-
Barrera 2014; Gonzales, Allum, and Sowell 2012). The fraction of women in the U.S. Congress
1 Men still dominate in the physical sciences, mathematics, engineering, and business.
3
has more than quadrupled from two decades ago (Center for American Women and Politics
2015). Women have assumed high-profile leadership roles in politics and government, including
Speaker of the House, Secretary of State (three times), and frontrunner for a major-party
presidential nomination. Meanwhile, the number of women leading Fortune 500 companies has
jumped from 1 to 24 in a less than two decades (Fairchild 2014).
At the same time, young women face continuing challenges on account of gender. Men
still make more than women in most fields, and women constitute the majority of the workforce
in lower-paid professions (Bernstein and Hartmann 2000). Women in dual-income households
still bear a disproportionate share of child-rearing responsibilities (Parker and Wang 2013).
Despite clear gains in the professions, women are vastly underrepresented as scientists,
engineers, corporate CEO’s and as mayors, governors, legislators, and judges. In terms of policy
challenges, young women face the constriction of abortion services in many states, the absence
of paid sick days and family leave, and sexual assault on campuses and in the military.
In a climate of these gender-based inequities, women represent a politically important
constituency. American political parties and candidates have identified young women as an
under-mobilized voting bloc and have put resources into understanding how to speak to their
concerns. Organizations working on policies as wide ranging as climate change and gun
regulation have identified young mothers as a powerful voice. Mass-membership women’s
organizations, many of which arose around the turn of the last century or during the so-called
Second Wave women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s, are aging and declining in vibrancy
and are struggling to replenish their ranks with new recruits and energy (Goss 2013). The success
of these efforts will depend, first, on whether young women view themselves as part of a group
with a distinct set of experiences and perspectives and, second, on whether those viewpoints are
4
best represented by sex-segregated organizations. In a political system that advantages highly
mobilized identity groups, the question of how young women think about gender matters for
politics and public problem solving.
This study uses fresh evidence, quantitative and qualitative, to evaluate the proposition
that young women lack the ideational orientations required to support a new generation of
gender-based collective action. We examine three hypotheses that together are necessary to
sustain the proposition:
H1: Young women are less gender conscious than older women – that is, they are less
likely to feel close to women as a group. Gender consciousness – identification of individuals
with a group called “women” – is a necessary but not sufficient condition for gender-based
collective action.
H2: Young women are less likely to bring a feminist consciousness to their analysis of
women’s place in society. Feminist consciousness, defined as the belief that women constitute an
aggrieved out-group subject to systematic inequality, is a prerequisite for a subset of gender-
based collective action, namely that which is oriented toward changing policies and cultural
practices that lock in traditional gender roles.
H3: Young women are less oriented toward sex-segregated collective action. That is,
they are less likely than their elders to take part in women’s movements and organizations or to
see them as necessary to improving the lot of individual women.
To evaluate these hypotheses, we use a mixed-methods approach, as described below.
We present quantitative findings from a large national survey of women (n=836). We
supplement those findings with a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with educated,
politically engaged young women (n=49). The qualitative evidence allows us to unravel some of
5
the puzzles posed by the quantitative findings and to explore the complex, nuanced ways that
young women think about gender as a shared identity, a mechanism of social sorting, and a basis
for collective action.
The article proceeds as follows. First, we briefly review the literature on contemporary
women’s engagement, with particular attention to debates over Millennial women’s gender
consciousness. Next, we introduce the data and methods used to evaluate the hypotheses. We
then evaluate the three hypotheses based on national-level survey data and our interviews with
elite, politically engaged, feminist women from the Millennial generation. We conclude with a
discussion of how the findings both support and challenge narratives about young women and
feminism, paying particular attention to the nuanced ways that young women think about gender
as a collective identity, a source of inequality, and a foundation for collective action.
The Problem with Young Women? What We Think We Know
Concerns about the decline of American feminism began as early as the 1970s, but
escalated dramatically in the early 1990s. The conservative backlash of the prior decade (Faludi
1991) and public accusations of sexual harassment by a Supreme Court nominee seemed to
highlight the women’s movement’s unfinished business. At the same time, a flurry of media
stories asserted that women, presumably young women in particular, were reluctant to embrace
feminism as a collective label and cause, even if they agreed with the underlying principle of
gender equality (Henry 2004: 21). Young women’s “repudiation” of feminism has also been
observed in Western Europe (Scharff 2012).
Research offers various explanations for young women’s purported reluctance to embrace
feminism. One perspective is that young women find feminism obsolete (Scharff 2012; Dicker
2008). With the ability to work and control their reproduction, young women “are called upon to
6
manage their lives independently. This neoliberal, individualist imperative does not sit well with
perceptions of feminism as involving collective struggle” (Scharff 2012: 1). Another perspective
holds that young women associate feminism with extremism and non-traditional womanhood
(Scharff 2012; Dicker 2008). “Young women who discuss feminism often feel they have to
navigate, or pre-empt, being regarded a man-hater or a lesbian” (Scharff 2012: 2).
Young feminist leaders have challenged the notion that women coming of age after the
heyday of the “second wave” movement lack gender consciousness and feminist identity. Rather,
they argue that identity is based on a different set of concerns, ones not focused on the challenges
of white women in white-collar careers. Theorists of the so-called “third wave” perspective,
which emerged in the early 1990s, emphasize linkages among sexism and other forms of group-
based disadvantage, as well as embracing “girlie culture” and women’s sexual freedom and
pleasure (Dicker 2008; Henry 2004; Baumgardner and Richards 2000). A study of contemporary
feminism in three states found it to be focused on “cultural change, symptomatic of a generation
that has seen decades of backlash and policy backsliding” (Reger 2012, 111).
Theoretical debates are important and illuminating in their own right, but they are also
important for what they might portend about women’s political engagement. A handful of studies
in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s examined attitudes toward feminism and gendered
collective action, with a particular interest in young women who had come of age after the major
policy victories of the second-wave movement. Findings on young women’s feminist
consciousness are muddled and difficult to summarize, but the studies provide clearer support for
the argument that young women eschew gender-based collective action.
The perspective that feminism is alive and well among Millennial women finds support
mainly in national surveys that use blunt measures of gender consciousness. Notably, the
7
American National Election Studies (ANES) “feeling thermometer” finds women’s warmth
toward feminists holding steady from 1988-2004 (support being between 53-59 on a 100-point
scale). Likewise, surveys in the 1990s showed no diminution in women’s willingness to
consider themselves feminists, with the exception of women aged 30-39 (Huddy, Neely and
Lafay 2000, 327). Indeed, one analysis found that “young women identify as feminists at about
the same rate as women now in their 40s despite extensive media discussion in the late 1980s
and early 1990s of younger women’s rejection of the movement” (Huddy, Neely, and Lafay
2000, 313). Another study concluded that young women (18-29) were more positive toward the
women’s movement and feminism compared to older cohorts (Hall and Rodriguez 2003).
Other findings are more in line with the decline-of-feminism narrative. From the late
1980s to the late 1990s, a series of national polls of women revealed a small but significant
decline in feminist self-identification and a corresponding increase in non-feminist women (Goss
and Heaney 2010; Huddy, Neely and Lafay 2000). Women born in the 1960s and 1970s – most
of whom would have come of political age after the second-wave movement’s heyday – are less
likely to think of themselves as feminists than would be predicted based on their background
characteristics (Petola, Milkie, and Presser 2004). Even when young women support feminist
principles, they are reluctant to embrace the feminist label (see, for example, Aronson 2003 and
Buschman and Lenart 1996 on women born in the 1970s and Renzetti 1987 on women born in
the 1960s). Tellingly, in the 1990s women became more likely to consider calling someone a
feminist to be an insult (Huddy, Neely, and Lafay 2000, 323).
A group’s sense of shared experience and linked fate is fundamental to collective action.
Social movement theory teaches us that the availability of social movement organizations and
their resources is also critical. However, if shared grievances are to give rise to the mobilization
8
of group resources, members of the group believe that collective action, as opposed to merely
individual initiative, is necessary to achieve the desired change. Consistent with the “decline of
feminism” perspective, prior work has raised doubts about young women’s embrace of collective
approaches. For example, an analysis of 1992 ANES data found that women who came of age
after the second wave were significantly less likely than older cohorts to believe that collective,
as opposed to individual, effort was enough to improve women’s position (Peltola, Milkie, and
Presser 2004, 139). Likewise, Buschman and Leanart’s 1996 study found that three-quarters of
college women were either post- or “precarious” feminists, meaning they saw individual ability
as more important to a woman’s advancement than was women’s collective action.
These survey results, based on individual responses, dovetail with findings from
organizational studies of the “third wave” women’s movement that arose in the early 1990s. This
movement, which featured an important set of ideas and leaders, nevertheless failed to develop
the institutional infrastructure or policy agenda necessary to recruit sympathizers, sway public
opinion, or influence policymakers (Goss 2013; Rowe-Finkbeiner 2004). For example, not a
single third wave organization pressed a policy claim at a congressional hearing in the 1990s
(Goss 2013). Third-wave feminist scholar Astrid Henry (2004: 35-36) conceded that “third-wave
feminism is more about textual and cultural production, local forms of activism, and a particular
form of feminist consciousness than it is a large-scale social justice movement,” meaning that
“the third wave functions more like an ‘ideology without a movement.’” (Henry 2004, 35).2
Some young feminist writers object to that characterization (Jervis 2004) and have attempted to
articulate a policy agenda (Baumgardner and Richards 2000), while others have noted that
second wave feminism also concerned itself with cultural themes (Reger 2012) and often
2 Henry attributes the phrase to E. Ann Kaplan’s address at the “Third Wave Feminism” conference the University of Exeter (UK), July 2002.
9
appeared in the moment to lack cohesion (Strolovitch 2011). However, critics make a compelling
case that third wave feminism failed to develop an effective framework for public action.
Studies conducted through the early 2000s provide strong evidence that feminism as a
collective policy-oriented project was in decline. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that it
might be on the rebound. Feminist protests over Rush Limbaugh, who suggested that advocates
for birth control access were “sluts,” contributed to a massive boycott by his radio show’s
advertisers and a concomitant drop in his ratings (Traister 2012; Byers 2012). “Who Needs
Feminism,” which began as a Duke University class project calling attention to the second
wave’s unfinished business, became a viral sensation, with 39,000 Facebook likes and many
more hits on Tumblr (Seidman 2012; Facebook page accessed May 22, 2015). The same can be
said for the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign, which spread across the “Twittersphere” after the
Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram kidnapped roughly 270 schoolgirls in April 2014. In the
U.S., Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, which urged women not to forego
career for family, sold 1.6 million copies in its first year and spawned 14,000 female-
empowerment “circles” across the globe (Bonos 2014). Feminist leadership conferences for
women proliferated, catering to interests as wide ranging as statistics, philanthropy, coding,
blogging, and entrepreneurship (Bennett 2014; Women in Statistics 2014). In line with the
proposition that a new women’s movement has arisen but in a distinctive form, none of these
activities occurred primarily through the sort of “brick and mortar” membership association or
interest group that historically have propelled U.S. social movements.
To summarize, there is mixed evidence about young women’s willingness to identify as
feminists, to view gender inequality as a continuing problem, and to consider sex-segregated
collective action as a productive strategy. While gender inequality persists, scholarly work on
10
young women’s gender orientations is one or more decades out of date, meaning the debate over
the state of American feminism must rely on anecdotes and empirically thin assertions. This
study aims to provide an empirical basis for understanding what we will argue is a complex and
nuanced relationship between young women and gender politics.
Data and Methods
This study uses two data sources: (1) the 2010 Evaluations of Government and Society
Study (EGSS), a supplement of the ANES; and (2) the Millennial Women’s Perspectives Project
(MWPP), consisting of interviews with college-educated young women.
EGSS. The EGSS included myriad questions about political attitudes and behaviors,
including a series on gender: feelings of closeness to other women, perceptions of sexism in
society, and experiences with gender-based collective action. The survey covered 1,638
randomly selected American adults, of whom 836 were women. The women’s subsample
included 134 Millennials (aged 18-29), 46 of whom were college educated. Focusing on the
women in the EGSS survey, we present descriptive statistics on generational patterns in gender
consciousness, perceptions of gender inequality, and patterns of political engagement,
particularly in women’s organizations and the women’s movement. Using those data to frame
core puzzles, we then turn to qualitative data to help decipher them.
MWPP. We conducted 49 interviews with college-educated women from 23-31 years of
age. They hailed from geographically heterogeneous parts of the U.S. Although Latinas were
underrepresented in the sample, it was otherwise diverse by race and ethnicity: 61% were white;
16%, non-Hispanic black; 12%, multiracial; 8%, other; and 2%, Latina. The sample was
unrepresentative in key respects, however. These women were better educated than Millennial
women generally (two-thirds were in graduate school, or held a graduate degree, or both); were
11
substantially more interested in politics and public affairs; were more likely to self-identify as a
Democrat; and were more likely to have done at least one civic act (e.g., contacted a government
official) in the past year.3 Our respondents were also more far more likely to self-identify as
feminists (83%) than were college-educated women (36%) or graduate-educated women (40%)
in the most recent national survey to ask the question, the 1996 General Social Survey.
The MWPP builds off the EGSS by replicating several of its questions and then asking
respondents to talk through their interpretations of the question and the thought process that
informed their answers. Because young women in the MWPP are not representative, we cannot
make claims about all young women based on the interview findings. However, these findings do
offer a window into a particularly interesting subset of Millennial women, those who are
educated, politically engaged, attuned to gender inequality, and poised to assume positions of
leadership in government and other social institutions. The key interview questions from the
MWPP fell into three categories:
(1) Gender Consciousness. We replicated the EGSS question asking how close
respondents felt “to women in terms of ideas and interests.” We then asked respondents to
explain how they thought through their answer.
(2) Feminist Consciousness. We replicated two EGSS questions asking for the
respondent’s agreement or disagreement over: (1) whether “discrimination against women is no
longer a problem in the United States,” and (2) whether “society has reached the point where
women and men have equal opportunities for achievement.” As above, we then asked
3 All respondents in our sample had at least a college degree (compared to 34% of young women in the EGSS); 73% were Democrats (62% EGSS); 94% had done at least one civic act (24% EGSS), and 65% were very interested in politics and public affairs (9% EGSS). The sample skew is due to the original cohort of interviewees (public policy graduate students, who tend to be committed to social change and identify as Democrats) and the sampling method (snowball), which brought in respondents from the early responders’ first- and second-degree networks.
12
respondents to elaborate on their thought process in answering these questions. To understand
respondents’ views on how structural vs. individual factors might affect gender inequality, we
went beyond the EGSS to ask respondents how much they agreed/disagreed that “career
advancement opportunities will largely reflect the abilities of the individual.” We also asked
respondents about their actual and anticipated experiences with gender discrimination. Finally, at
the end of the survey, we asked each respondent, “Would you call yourself a feminist?”
3) Sex-Segregated Collective Action and Political Engagement Generally. We
replicated two EGSS questions on gender-based engagement: whether the respondent “actively
participates in the women’s rights political movement,” and whether the respondent “actively
participates” in a women’s group. If the respondent struggled with the question – for example,
defining the women’s rights political movement – we asked her to discuss what made the
question difficult. We followed the women’s movement question with probes about why she
does or does not take part in the movement; how she would describe it; and whether it exists
today. We followed the women’s group question by asking whether she had belonged to a
women’s group in the past, and if so which one (s). Finally, we asked for respondents’ reaction
to the statement that, “Some people might say that there is no longer a reason for women to
organize as women, because there are so many other organizations available. Others would say
that there are still reasons why women who organize as women can be uniquely effective at
advocating for a particular issue.”
Below we evaluate the three hypotheses, using both nationally representative quantitative
data and qualitative data from our elite subjects, who fit the profile of women who have
traditionally joined and led American women’s advocacy organizations. To understand the future
13
of American feminism, we can learn a lot from both “typical” young women and young women
who are especially educated, gender conscious, and politically engaged.
Young Women’s Gender Consciousness
In classical social movement theory, collective identities arise from an oppositional
critique informed by grievances that members of an out-group hold against the in-group; these
grievances form the basis for collective demands. With women, however, scholars have argued
that group consciousness may exist without the presence of an oppositional critique (Gurin et al.
1980; Tolleson Rinehart 1992). Women can feel affinity toward members of their sex but not
ground that affinity in a shared sense of disadvantage with respect to status, power, or treatment.
Women can have gender consciousness but lack feminist consciousness.
Regardless of whether it has a political grounding, however, gender consciousness – a
feeling of closeness to other women - greatly facilitates women’s collective action and is
necessary for effective feminist movement organizing. Here we examine gender consciousness
among young women, with a focus on how they compare to older cohorts and how they ground
that consciousness, or lack thereof, in their experiences and perceptions. We hypothesized that
young women (aged 18-29 in the EGSS, aged 18-31 in our study) would be less likely than
females in older cohorts to report feeling close to other women. Although women can have
gender consciousness without feminist consciousness, we hypothesized that young women have
been exposed to fewer cues directing them to consider themselves a distinctive group. During
their lifetimes, for example, women’s collective action has been in steep decline (Goss 2013),
segregated institutions have come to be viewed with suspicion (Goss and Heaney 2010), and
women have become more fully integrated into social, economic, and political institutions. All of
these factors may have weakened the basis for in-group solidarity.
14
Contrary to our hypothesis, the EGSS data reveal that young women actually are more
likely than women of any older generation to feel close to other women, and these differences
across generations are non-trivial and statistically significant. Fully 68% of women 18-29
reported feeling very or extremely close to other women, compared to 54% to 60% of women in
other generations. Among college-educated young women, gender consciousness was even
stronger, with 73% reporting feeling close to other women.
This finding poses a puzzle: The generation that came of age with the lowest levels of
gender segregation reports the highest level of gender closeness. Our interview data help unravel
this paradox by exploring how elite young women understand gender consciousness. We
hypothesized that, despite the cue to think about closeness in terms of “ideas and interests,”
respondents would not necessarily interpret “closeness” in politicized terms: Perhaps young
women felt closer to other women because their reference group was same-sex peers with whom
they socialized, while older women – more likely to be married (usually to males) and absorbed
with job and family responsibilities – may have become distanced from female friends.
Helpfully, the fraction of women in our sample who felt close to other women (71%) was
virtually the same as in the EGSS sample (68%). The interview data partially supported the
hypothesis that gender closeness is rooted in social bonds: One-quarter interpreted gender
closeness in purely personal terms. They enjoyed the same social activities or had the same sorts
of conversations about marriage, child-bearing, and work-family balance.4 However, given the
high level of feminist consciousness in the sample, not surprisingly gender closeness was rooted
in exclusively political factors for roughly half the sample. When asked how they thought about
4 We share the perspective that “the personal is political” (Hanisch 1969). However, we coded comments about marriage, child-bearing, and work-family balance as “personal” unless the respondent explicitly tied those decisions to policy, social structures, or other politicized constructs.
15
closeness to other women, they spoke solely about shared perspectives on policy issues,
feminism, ideology, or gender inequality. The remaining quarter of the sample articulated a mix
of personal and political rationales. Thus, for the majority of elite young women, gender
consciousness is rooted in politically relevant constructs.
Although most of our sample offered an effortless “yes” to the question of whether they
felt close to other women, nearly 30% hedged their answers or responded in the negative. They
offered several reasons, mentioned as well by respondents who did feel close to other women.
These reasons stemmed from respondents’ belief that the category “women” was problematic.
The most commonly cited reason for grappling with gender closeness was that women
are heterogeneous and thus it is hard to find common ground with women in general. Consider
this comment from an Asian-American woman: “I feel close [to other women], but I feel like I’m
biased in saying that because my current environment puts me in a situation with lots of like-
minded professionals, so an average American women, I don’t know if I would feel close with
them about these issues” (KG-2-02272014). Second, respondents commented that identities are
intersectional, meaning that closeness depends not on gender alone but on the confluence of
gender and some other characteristic. As a multi-racial respondent stated, “I believe really
strongly in the idea of intersectionality and that every person has intersecting and different
experiences and identities and that they kind of manifest themselves in their lives in different
ways, so you can’t put two women in the same room and expect that they are going to have the
same set of experiences” (SS-9-07152014). Third, for some respondents gender was not a salient
construct; they remarked upon feeling equally close to men. As a white woman stated, “The
women I’m close with in terms of being friends, I guess we generally have similar beliefs and
16
ideas about issues, but I also feel like males that I’m friends with have similar ideas and beliefs
around those issues as well, so I’m not sure if I see that as a gender thing” (ET-5-01022014).
In sum, both the national EGSS and our study of elite women found that young women
feel close to others of their sex. This closeness is based on both apolitical and political
considerations and provides a foundation for organizing young women as women. That said, a
non-trivial minority of young women – around one-third in both studies – lacks a strong sense of
gender consciousness. The reasons call into question the meaning of gender as a construct,
making them theoretically interesting and practically important barriers to collective action.
Young Women’s Feminist Consciousness
As we hypothesized, young women are less likely than older female cohorts to view
sexism as a continuing problem in American society. EGSS data reveal that, compared to women
in their 40s and 50s, women in their 20s were 30-40 percentage points less likely to identify
discrimination or inequality of opportunity as public problems. This finding, combined with the
findings on gender consciousness, presents us with a puzzle: There is a nearly monotonic,
inverse association across generations between perceptions of women as a discriminated-against
class and feelings of closeness toward other women. As Table 1 shows, younger women are the
most gender conscious, but middle-aged and older women are the most likely to view
discrimination and inequality of opportunity as problems.
17
Table 1: Gender Consciousness & Perceptions of Sexism 18-29 30-44 45-59 60+ Max
Difference
ß More Gender Consciousness
Feels extremely or very close to women 68% 60% 54% 59% 14 pts
More Perceived Gender Discriminationà
Believes discrimination still a problem 42 59 78 74 36 pts
Believes men, women do not have equal
opportunities
28 43 65 51 37 pts
Both models: Chi-Sq < .001
As the chi-square statistics indicate, for each measure of perceived sexism, the differences in the
marginal distributions across generations are highly significant and substantively large. As a
descriptive matter, gender closeness seems to be inversely related to feminist sensibilities at the
cohort level. This finding would seem not only to cast doubt on the notion that women’s group
consciousness is the same as feminist consciousness, but also to raise the possibility that the two
belief systems are at odds.
Of course, the ecological fallacy cautions against drawing conclusions about individual-
level processes from group-level data. When we examine individual women, we find that there is
no statistically meaningful correlation between gender consciousness and feminist consciousness
for three of the four generational cohorts. For women 60 and older, however, the association is
statistically significant and in the expected direction, though not very strong. Older women who
feel close to other women are more likely than their same-age counterparts to view gender
discrimination as a continuing problem (r=.124, p<.05) and equality of opportunity as not yet
realized (r=.176, p<.01). One interpretation of these findings is that gender consciousness is an
18
unreliable or at best very weak indicator of feminist consciousness. Conversely, because the
causal arrow could run either way, we might also conclude that feminist consciousness is a
weak-to-non-existent predictor of gender consciousness. The cohort-level correlations appear to
have little substantive meaning, though the cohort-level distributions are of descriptive interest.
Recall that our task is to assess the extent to which young American women are ripe for
gender-based collective action. Given that grievances prime individuals for mobilization, we
naturally would like to know what factors influence the development of those grievances. Here
grievances are operationalized as the level of agreement that discrimination and inequality of
opportunity remain problems for women. We are interested in whether young women’s
comparative reluctance at the group level to hold gender grievances is a product, at the
individual level, of location in a generational cohort – or of other factors, such as educational
attainment, race, sense of gender closeness, civic engagement, or political ideology. Put another
way, we are interested in whether there is something about being a Millennial – net of other
demographic or civic factors – that makes Millennial women reluctant to see gender inequality as
a continuing problem. Table 2 presents the results from ordinary least squares regression models
in which the two sexism questions (measured on a 1-5 scale) serve as the dependent variables.
Ordered logit models (not shown) reached substantially the same findings. The same variables
were statistically significant, and carried the same signs, across both models.5
5 There were two small discrepancies, both in the models predicting perceptions of discrimination. In the OLS model the GenX variable was significant at the .05 level, whereas in the logit model, it was significant at .10. At the same time, the “closeness” variable was significant at .10 in the OLS model but at .05 in the logit model.
19
Table 2: Predictors of Feminist Consciousness Among Women (OLS) Model 1: Discrimination a
Problem
Model 2: Men and Women
Lack Equal Opportunities
Highest level of education .089 (.019)*** .081 (.022)***
Race (Non-White) .260 (.089)** -.002 (.103)
Millennial (18-29) -.410 (.117)*** -.164 (.136)
GenX (30-44) -.238 (.103)** -.066 (.121)
Boomer (45-59) .206 (.094)** .423 (.110)***
Interest in politics, government .128 (.040)*** .132 (.047)**
Party ID .042 (.018)** .070 (.021)***
Closeness to other women .063 (.035)* .090 (.040)**
Constant 1.957 (.252)** 1.393 (.294)***
R-Sq .109 .088
Note: For age, the reference group is women 60+. The closeness variable and political interest
variables were rescaled so that higher values indicate greater closeness and greater interest,
respectively. *p<.10; **p<.05; ***p<.01.
For the discrimination question, the variables are statistically significant and in the
predicted direction, though we had no prior expectation on race. Women who are more educated,
more liberal, more politically attuned, and closer to other women are more likely to hold feminist
perspectives, as are non-white women. Especially relevant for our analysis, Millennial women
(as well as Gen-X women) were significantly less likely than older generations to view gender
inequality as a continuing problem, even after controlling for factors that might differentiate
young women from their older counterparts. Shifting into the Millennial age group reduces one’s
view of discrimination as a problem by just under half a point on a five-point scale.
20
On the equal opportunity question, once again more educated, politically attuned, liberal,
and gender conscious women were more likely to perceive continuing barriers to women.
However, the generational findings are less straightforward. Younger women were not
significantly different from second-wave women in their assessment of women’s opportunities.
On this question, the boomers stood out as more pessimistic than other cohorts.
Together the regression models suggest some, however weak, evidence for the “decline
of feminism” argument. Controlling for other variables that predict feminist worldviews, young
women are slightly less likely to view discrimination as a problem than are the oldest cohort of
women, and young women are less likely to worry about inequality than are boomer women. But
taking the findings in their totality, young women do not stand out from other generations. Note,
too, that the small R-square statistics suggest that most variation in feminist consciousness
remains unexplained, suggesting it is not easily modeled using standard survey data.
It’s not that they’re not feminists….
Perhaps the most interesting finding in the EGSS is that it seems to confirm and
simultaneously disconfirm the conventional wisdom that young women eschew feminism. As we
saw in Table 1, young women appear to be more optimistic than older cohorts about the state of
gender relations. Specifically, when confronted with hopeful statements – that discrimination is
no longer a problem, that society has reached the point of equal gender opportunity – younger
women don’t reject these statements out of hand at nearly the same rate as their elders. These
findings would seem to reinforce the perspective that young women lack feminist consciousness.
However, doubting that sexism still exists is not the same as believing that sexism has vanished.
In the EGSS less than one-third of young women agreed that gender opportunity is equal – a
fraction not much different from that of older cohorts. Likewise, only one-fourth of young
21
women believed that discrimination is no longer a problem – more than older cohorts, but not
staggeringly so. How do we reconcile these findings? The explanation rests in the “neither agree
nor disagree” category, which presumably contains two kinds of women: (1) those who have not
formed an opinion about the state of gender equality, and (2) those who have formed opinions
but believe that men and women enjoy equality in some respects and not in others. As Table 3
shows, younger women are significantly more likely than their older cohorts to fall into this
uncertain or conflicted middle.
Table 3: Young Women’s Uncertainty about Gender Inequality 18-29 30-44 45-59 60+ Max
Diff
Neither Agree Nor Disagree That…
Discrimination against women is no
longer a problem in the U.S.
31 18 11 9 22
Society has reached the point where
women and men have equal
opportunities for achievement
44 26 15 16 29
Both questions: Chi-sq < .001
As the table suggests, women who came of age during the second-wave movement and who have
had a longer lifetime in which to encounter sexism are reasonably certain of their views. The
youngest cohort, by contrast, is roughly 20-30 percentage points less certain of its views.
The following two sections draw on qualitative evidence to explore how young women
think about gender inequality. We pay particular attention to nuances that might help explain the
EGSS finding that young women are more likely than older women to have difficulty staking out
a strong position on the state of gender equality. Perhaps not surprisingly, given their high levels
22
of education and political awareness, the MWPP respondents were more likely than EGSS
Millennials to take a position, in particular a feminist position, on questions of inequality.
Nevertheless, the interviews reveal interesting nuances in their perceptions of structural sexism –
where it is located and what to do about it. In particular, elite young women’s perceptions have
been powerfully shaped by the interaction between their (mostly positive) experiences with the
education system and their perceptions of women’s status in the professional world.
Perceptions of Discrimination
Among college-educated Millennial women, 64% surveyed in the EGSS believe that
discrimination is still a problem; in our qualitative study, which featured an especially politically
aware group, the figure was close to 100%.
We asked respondents to describe how they thought through their answer. Three
dominant themes emerged: sexist norms and practices surrounding women in the workplace
(cited by 49% of the sample), unequal pay (47%), and lack of female leadership, particularly in
corporate and political positions (31%). The “norms and practices” category captured a range of
concerns: sexist comments by bosses, use of “old boys networks” to advance men at the expense
of women, pigeonholing of women into types of jobs, and disparate treatment of women who
might become pregnant. Interestingly, the MWPP respondents did not highlight what many
feminists view as the women’s movement’s unfinished business, marital hierarchies that assign
working women to perform the bulk of domestic caregiving duties (Hochschild 1989).
However, the MWPP findings were consistent with prior findings that elite women view
gender inequality through the prism of white-collar professions. Respondents occasionally cited
other factors that either disproportionately affect non-elite women – for example, cuts in
government programs or restrictions on voting (cited by 8%) or women’s health access (10%) –
23
and factors that affect women in general, such as sexual assault, domestic abuse, and “slut
shaming” (18%). Nevertheless, these factors were less commonly cited than concerns relating to
women in professional and leadership roles. For our elite sample of young women about to enter
or not far into white-collar careers, discrimination meant discrimination in the professions.
The qualitative evidence suggests that respondents’ assessment of systemic
discrimination seemed to be based more on perceptions of society than on personal experience.
When asked if they had ever experienced discrimination, most said they had not, could not
remember, could not identify any overt episode, or were not aware of any discriminatory
behavior directed at them. A typical answer was as follows: “Have I? Probably. [Interviewer:
Does a specific example come to mind?] Not really, no. Not really” (AW-3-10302014). Women
who identified with another marginalized group often saw that factor as more important in their
differential treatment, as this interviewee stated in response to whether she had experienced
discrimination: “I think…I am sure… It is one of those things that I am sure that I have, but it
hasn’t been as striking or as memorable to me as racial discrimination” (AW-7-11132014).
Respondents who had experienced discrimination tended to cite what in the race literature
is termed “micro-aggressions”: a superior pays more attention to a male colleague than to the
female respondent, an older man refers to the respondent as “young lady,” and so forth. In this
category a typical response to the question, “Have you experienced discrimination,” is as
follows: “Not super overtly, but just you know some comments at work or like, oh, let this guy
handle the Excel, or you know in team meetings guys that will joke about feminism in front of
me because they know it pushes my buttons. So not overtly and nothing that would be grounds
for legal action, but sort of those softer social norms that I have encountered” (ET-8-04252014).
24
Only two respondents cited what appeared to be actionable instances of discrimination,
both of which concerned sexual harassment in a professional environment. The paucity of
personal experiences may be a product of the respondents’ relatively short tenure in work
settings, a fairly narrow interpretation of discrimination as differential treatment in a professional
environment, improved conditions for women, or likely some combination of these explanations.
Equal Opportunities
In some respects, one might view a question about discrimination and a question about
equal opportunity as virtually synonymous. Both questions appear to ask about gender inequities
in the public sphere. Supporting this assumption, the data show a comparable generation gap
across the two questions: Younger women were generally about one-third less likely than older
cohorts to perceive gender inequality as an ongoing concern. However, a closer examination of
the EGSS findings augmented by qualitative data suggests that the two questions are distinct.
They speak to different dimensions of gender relations in American society: one relating to the
possibility of advancement, the other relating to the realization thereof.
To begin to understand that discrimination and unequal opportunity are not synonymous,
consider the EGSS findings already presented. In Table 1 we saw that young women appeared to
be relatively more comfortable identifying discrimination as a problem (42%) than they were in
identifying inequality of opportunity as a problem (28%). In Table 3 we saw that young women
were considerably more likely to express ambivalence about opportunity (44%) than about
discrimination (31%). Finally, analysis of the EGSS data finds that the gap between young
women and older cohorts on the perceptions-of-equality question is narrower than on the
perceptions-of-discrimination question, a finding underscored in the regression analysis. The
25
data imply that women of all generations are more hopeful about progress on opportunity than
they are about progress on discrimination.
The MWPP study, which asked respondents to delve into how they understood both the
discrimination question and the opportunity question, helps us understand why and how
perceptions of discrimination diverge from perceptions of opportunity. Although the majority
(82%) of our elite interviewees believed that gender inequality persists, these young women were
less confident about the persistence of an opportunity gap than about the persistence of
discrimination. This finding echoes that in the EGSS (see Table 3).
The interviews shed light on this discrepancy. As with the discrimination question, we
asked respondents to talk through their answer to the opportunity question. They cited many of
the same signifiers of inequality: the pay gap, cultural and hiring practices that disadvantage
women, and women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles. We then asked for examples of
where women have equal opportunities and where they do not. Among these questions, a clear
pattern emerged: Young women view education as springboard for equality of opportunity. Fully
53% mentioned education as an unambiguously positive equalizer, and an additional 8% saw it
as contributing to equal opportunity.6 Interestingly, many women who disagreed that equality of
opportunity exists nevertheless included a caveat that education was an exception. One
interviewee echoed a common theme: “Access to higher education is a playing field that has
leveled significantly over the past 50 years” (KG-11-09302014). Sometimes, equality of
education emerged as a narrative tool for underscoring arguments about lingering discrimination.
Respondents would note that women are graduating at higher rates from college but still lagging
in terms of leadership roles in the corporate and government sectors.
6 Several respondents did, however, identify gender discrimination in the classroom – for example, professors’ being more likely to call on male students.
26
The qualitative findings provide circumstantial but by no means definitive evidence that
the education system explains why women, including young women, are more sanguine about
progress on equality of opportunity than progress in eliminating discrimination. The following
quotation captures these nuanced views: “There have been a lot of programs that have started up
to get women involved in …male roles or male paths or whatever, but at the same time…once
you get these women into these roles, you still have the discrimination in that setting. So say you
graduate 30 women in the science field, and they go off and work in these labs, I would be
willing to bet they still face gender discrimination in the labs” (SS-14-02162015). Evidence from
the qualitative interviews suggests that elite Millennials believe that higher education is doing a
good job preparing women to enter the work world on an equal footing but that the work world is
not similarly prepared to offer women equal opportunities for advancement and leadership. Once
women enter the public sphere, their equal or even superior training ceases to be helpful.
Gender-Based Collective Action
Thus far, the survey and interview data provide good news and bad news for women’s
movement organizations. On the one hand, most young women possess gender consciousness
and, at least among liberal, elite women, that consciousness is grounded in feminist
understandings. These elite women believe that, while opportunities have expanded, women’s
talents remain under underappreciated and underutilized in the professional sphere. Their civic
skills and resources and concerns about the status quo make them an attractive and potentially
mobilizable constituency for women’s advocates. On the other hand, the evidence has revealed
significant crosscurrents that may weaken the basis for women’s collective action. For one,
among young women generally, significant numbers either doubt or remain uncertain or
conflicted about the persistence of gender inequality and discrimination. Secondly, a non-trivial
27
fraction of elite women have difficulty conceptualizing women as a cohesive group to whom
they might feel special kinship. Both of these findings could signal barriers to a new wave of
women’s collective action. The EGSS and MWPP help us sort out these suggestive findings with
data on young women’s experiences with and feelings about sex-segregated collective action.
Both studies asked respondents whether they actively participate in a women’s group and
whether they actively participate in the women’s rights movement. The EGSS found that women
60+ were significantly more likely to be actively participating in a women’s group (21%) than
were the three younger cohorts (which 8-11%). There was little variation across cohorts on the
movement question, with 2-4% claiming to take part. One interesting implication of the EGSS
findings is that, compared to older generations, young women are less likely to be part of a
women’s group, but roughly equally likely to think of themselves as part of the women’s
movement. One interpretation of this curious finding is that younger women may be eschewing
formal organizations generally (an interpretation supported by the data7) and instead conducting
their activism in more individualistic ways. We explore this possibility below.
Within the elite sample of interviewees, we found a higher rate of both women’s group
and women’s movement participation. And, interestingly, we found no discrepancy in reported
engagement across the two venues: 28% of our sample said they took part in each. However,
when we asked respondents more detailed questions about each type of gender-based collective
action, their responses provided qualified support for the hypothesis that young women’s
engagement is largely individualized and sensitive to the salience of organizational opportunities.
Role of Women’s Groups
7 Young women were less likely than older cohorts to join groups of any sort, except for religious and school clubs.
28
The EGSS did not ask respondents about the types or numbers of women’s groups with
which they participated, nor did it ask about past involvement. Our interviews took up where the
EGSS left off and probed these questions. The most notable but perhaps not surprising finding is
that the vast majority of elite young women active in a women’s group now or in the past have
participated through a campus-based organization, notably sororities and feminist groups.8 Only
one woman in our sample participated in a non-campus-based feminist group, and only three
respondents had ever actively participated in a nationally prominent women’s group (such as the
National Organization for Women or the League of Women Voters). It appears that liberal, elite
women affiliate with women’s groups when the opportunity is salient – for example, on campus
– but that feminists are failing to sustain the involvement of these women once they graduate.
Nearly all elite respondents (95%) felt that there was still a reason for women to organize
as women. However, half of those respondents layered their responses with caveats. The most
commonly voiced concerns were that women’s organizations needed to be inclusive of all kinds
of women and that women’s causes needed to include men. On the question of inter-gender
inclusivity, consider the perspective of this white woman: “I want to say that it would be good
for women to organize as women, but I think that can really push away men, and there’s more
men in power and there always has been more men in power, so I think as a broader “woman’s
movement”…I don’t know if there can just be women. I think it has to be very inclusive” (SS-4-
06302014). On the question of intra-gender inclusivity, this white woman echoed many
respondents: “I think that it is a good idea in theory to have a unified front of women advocating
for women’s issues, but at the same time, I don’t think that there is an inclusive way to do that
and make sure everyone’s voices are heard. If you have a movement that is inclusive of women
8 This finding squares with the observation of Reger (2012, 59) that contemporary feminists commonly encountered feminism through educational settings.
29
no matter their biological gender, that will be their prime focus and not making sure they equal
value women of color or women of another socioeconomic status” (SS-11-09252014).
While appreciative of women’s unique experiences and needs, many women in our
sample were deeply skeptical of separatism. For elite young women, nationally prominent
women’s groups have an image of exclusivity that does not resonate with a generation
accustomed to gender integration and schooled in values of diversity and intersectionality.
The Role of Women’s Movements
Young women’s perceptions of the women’s movement were both hopeful and
troublesome from the vantage point of feminist organizing. Recall that a far higher percentage of
the elite sample said they actively participated in the women’s movement (28% vs. 3% in the
EGSS). However, a fair number of respondents overall stumbled over the question – asking for
clarification of how we defined “movement” or answering with hedge words such as “probably”
or “I’m not as active as I’d like to be.” And follow-up questions revealed a great deal of
confusion among respondents about the state of the U.S. women’s movement and their role in it.
When asked if the movement exists, most respondents answered in the affirmative (70%),
but most of those women conditioned their answers in substantively meaningful ways.9
Respondents sometimes began with lengthy pauses when asked to describe the movement or
answered tentatively: “I am sure that it exists. I don’t know that I could describe it” (KG-8-
04232014). Respondents also commonly noted that the women’s movement was fragmented and
not cohesive (32%), that it is not as active as in the past (26%), and that it is not as visible as in
the past (16%). These themes emerged occasionally as reasons why women didn’t participate in
the movement: “To be honest, I wouldn’t even know where, like what I would do as a member. I
9 Of the 49 respondents in the sample, 43 received the question of whether they think the movement exists. The percentages presented are out of 43.
30
don’t know I don’t think they have made themselves very known” (ET-4-01022014); “Because I
just I don’t know how I guess” (KG-1-02272014).
Perceptions of movement quiescence may help explain an important finding from the
qualitative study: Young women frequently claim to be doing “movement feminism” on their
own, through individual, non-organizationally based actions. As young women worked through
their perceptions of the women’s movement and their role in it, many (39% of the sample,
including both movement participants and non-participants) offered without prompting that they
raised feminist concerns in conversations with friends and co-workers, advocated for women
through mixed-gender institutions and movements, voted for candidates espousing women’s
rights, closely followed women’s issues in the news, and took care in their professional and
personal lives to defy gender stereotypes and hierarchies. Accounts of privatized action included:
“I actively support women’s rights and shoot my mouth off all the time, but I don’t know
that I consider myself part of any movement” (SS-6-07012014).
“I don’t need a group that fully concentrates on improving or making females act enough
to be able to do the male’s work. It sounds extremely condescending, and I just completely
disagree with it. And so as an individual, as a professional, I try to behave in a way that doesn’t
feed these crazy stereotypes, and hopefully through that they will take us more seriously” (KG-6-
03062014).
“The women’s movement is like nowhere and everywhere,10 so I think it’s kind of like
you choose how to participate. But I’d say like if you’re encouraging a female friend to like try
10 Knowingly or not, the respondent echoes the title of a book making the same argument. See Jo Reger, Everywhere and Nowhere: Contemporary Feminism in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
31
something new, or like doing [an] informational interview with someone, I mean those are all
way to like help women advance, you know?” (KG-1-02272014).
Everywhere and Nowhere: Millennial Women and Feminist Collective Action
Some evidence suggests that young women, particularly educated young women, are
primed for a policy-oriented third-wave movement. Millennial women feel closer to other
women than do females from older generations, even those from the second-wave era. Most
Millennial women either see gender inequality as a lingering problem or are potentially
persuadable on this point. Liberal elite young women, and perhaps other women as well, see
continued value in organizing women as women, and many profess to be acting individually to
further the aims of feminism. As beneficiaries of policies promoting women within higher
education, these women are less likely to view inequality of opportunity as the major barrier to
women’s success. However, they worry that America’s “equal opportunity” education system is
dumping women into a male-dominated professional and political world where traditional
practices frustrate women’s advancement. The disconnect between opportunity and reality may
serve as a foundation for young women’s mobilization.
At the same time, challenges remain to organizing young women as women. Many young
women lack certainty or have conflicted feelings about the persistence of sexism. Liberal
feminist women, and perhaps other women, are skeptical of gender segregation; many would like
men to be involved in women’s struggles. Young women are also concerned about being part of
a movement of elite, niche causes. They see women as diverse and “women’s issues” as
inextricably connected with issues preoccupying other movements. Finally, many young women
32
are institutionally disaffiliated; their activism is privatized and individualized. Feminism is a
mindset more than a movement in the traditional sense.11
Commentators challenging the “young women aren’t feminists” narrative have argued
that it is overstated and simplistic. Our findings support that view: Women’s organizations have
a foundation upon which to build. Nevertheless, this study also reinforces the perspective that a
vibrant, politically attuned, and policy-relevant third-wave women’s movement will need to
overcome centripetal forces, both ideological and institutional. Cohesion is a challenge in any
social movement; among young, educated women, the challenges may be especially great.
11 We thank Farzain Rahman for this insight.
33
SOURCES
Aronson, Pamela. 2003. “Feminists Or “Postfeminists”? Young Women’s Attitudes toward
Feminism and Gender Relations.” Gender & Society 17 (6), 903-922.
Baumgardner, Jennifer, and Amy Richards. 2000. Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the
Future. New York: Macmillan.
Bennett, Jessica. 2014. “Feminism, One Conference at a Time,” The New York Times, May 16.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/fashion/how-womens-conferences-can-be-a-
business.html?_r=0 (accessed May 25, 2015).
Bernstein, Jared, and Heidi Hartmann. 2000. “Defining and characterizing the low-wage labor
market.” In The Low-Wage Labor Market, edited by Kelleen Kaye and Demetra Smith
Nightingale, 15-40. Washington: Urban Institute Press.
Buschman, Joan K., and Silvo Lenart. 1996. “’I Am Not a Feminist, but…’ College Women,
Feminism, and Negative Experiences.” Political Psychology 17 (1), 59-75.
Bonos, Lisa. 2014. “A year after ‘Lean In,’ these are Sheryl Sandberg’s truest believers,” The
Washington Post, March 7. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-year-after-lean-
in-these-are-sheryl-sandbergs-truest-believers/2014/03/07/407b0e8e-9dac-11e3-a050-
dc3322a94fa7_story.html (accessed May 25, 2015).
Byers, Dylan. 2012. “Limbaugh takes post-Fluke ratings hit.” Politico, May 21.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/05/limbaugh-takes-postfluke-ratings-hit-
124058.html (accessed May 25, 2015).
Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers. 2015. “Women in Congress 2015.”
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/levels_of_office/documents/cong.pdf (accessed
May 24, 2015).
34
Cowan, Gloria, Monja Mestlin, and Julie Masek. 1992. “Predictors of Feminist Self-Labeling.”
Sex Roles, 27 (7-8), 321-330.
Dicker, Rory. 2008. A History of U.S. Feminisms. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
Fairchild, Caroline. 2014. “Number of Fortune 500 Women CEO’s Reaches Historic High,”
Fortune, 3 June. http://fortune.com/2014/06/03/number-of-fortune-500-women-ceos-
reaches-historic-high/ (accessed May 26, 2015).
Faludi, Susan. 1991. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York:
Crown.
Friedan, Betty. 1985. “How to Get the Women’s Movement Moving Again.” New York Times,
November 3. http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/specials/friedan-moving.htmlNYT
(accessed May 25, 2015).
Gonzales, Leila M., Jeffrey R. Allum, and Robert S. Sowell. 2013. Graduate Enrollment and
Degrees: 2002-2102. Council of Graduate Schools, September.
http://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/GEDReport_2012.pdf (accessed May 28, 2015).
Goss, Kristin A. 2013. The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women’s Groups
Gained and Lost Their Public Voice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
Goss, Kristin A., and Michael T. Heaney. 2010. “Organizing Women as Women: Hybridity and
Grassroots Collective Action in the 21st Century.” Perspectives on Politics 8 (1), 27-52.
Gurin, Patricia, Arthur H. Miller, and Gerald Gurin. 1980. “Stratum Identification and
Consciousness.” Social Psychology Quarterly 43 (1), 30-47.
Hall, Elaine J., and Marnie Salupo Rodridguez. 2003. “The Myth of Postfeminism.” Gender &
Society 17 (6), 878-902.
35
Hanisch, Carol. 1969. “The Personal Is Political.”
http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html (accessed May 25, 2015).
Henry, Astrid. 2004. Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third Wave Feminism.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hernández, Daisy, and Bushra Rehman. 2002. Colonize This! New York: Seal Press.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1989. The Second Shift. New York: Viking.
Huddy, Leonie, Francis K. Neely, and Marilyn R. Lafay. 2000. “Trends: Support for the
Women’s Movement.” Public Opinion Quarterly 64 (3), 309-350.
Jervis, Lisa. 2004. “The End of Feminism’s Third Wave.” Ms., Winter.
http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2004/thirdwave.asp (accessed May 25, 2015).
Lopez, Mark Hugo, and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera. 2014. “Women’s College Enrollment Gains
Leave Men behind.” Pew Research Center, March 6. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2014/03/06/womens-college-enrollment-gains-leave-men-behind/ (accessed May 28,
2015).
Mansbridge, Jane. 2001. “The Making of Oppositional Consciousness.” In Oppositional
Consciousness, edited by Jane Mansbridge and Aldon Morris, 1-19. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Parker, Kim, and Wendy Wang. 2013. “Modern Parenthood.” Pew Research Center’s Social &
Demographic Trends Project. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/03/14/modern-
parenthood-roles-of-moms-and-dads-converge-as-they-balance-work-and-family
(accessed May 23, 2015).
Peltola, Pia, Melissa A. Milkie, and Stanley Presser. 2004. “The ‘Feminist’ Mystique: Feminist
Identity in Three Generations of Women.” Gender & Society 18 (1), 122-144.
36
Plutzer, Eric. 1988. “Work Life, Family Life, and Women’s support of Feminism.” American
Sociological Review 53 (4), 640-649.
Reger, Jo. 2012. Everywhere & Nowhere: Contemporary Feminism in the United States. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Renzetti, Claire M. 1987. “New Wave or Second Stage? Attitudes of College Women Toward
Feminism.” Sex Roles 16 (5-6), 265-277.
Rowe-Finkbeiner, Kristin. The F Word: Feminism in Jeopardy. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press,
2004.
Scharff, Christina. 2012. Repudiating Feminism: Young Women in a Neoliberal World. Surrey,
UK: Ashgate.
Schnittker, Jason, Jeremy Freese, and Brian Powell. 2003. “Who Are Feminists and What Do
They Believe? The Role of Generations.” American Sociological Review 68 (4), 607-622.
Seidman, Rachel. 2012. “After Todd Akin comments: Why women – and men – still need
feminism,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 23.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0823/After-Todd-Akin-
comments-Why-women-and-men-still-need-feminism (accessed May 25, 2015).
Strolovitch, Dara Z. 2011. Personal communication, July 22.
Tolleson Rinehart, Sue. 1992. Gender Consciousness and Politics. New York: Routledge.
Traister, Rebecca. 2012. “How the ‘war on women’ quashed feminist stereotypes,” The
Washington Post, May 11. http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/opinions/one-good-
casualty-in-the-war-on-women-the-stereotype-of-joyless-
feminists/2012/05/11/gIQAcMyKIU_story.html (accessed May 25, 2015).
37
Williams, Rachel, and Michele Andrisin Wittig. 1997. “’I’m Not a Feminist, But…’: Factors
Contributing to the Discrepancy Between Pro-Feminist Orientation and Feminist Social
Identity.” Sex Roles 37 (11-12), 885-904.
Women in Statistics. 2014. https://women-in-stats.org (accessed May 24, 2015).
Zucker, Alyssa N. 2004. “Disavowing Social Identities: What It Means When Women Say, ‘I’m
Not a Feminist, But.’” Psychology of Women Quarterly 28 (4), 423-435.
