The Feminist Movement: Fluid, complex and empowering

Q&A with Alison Dahl Crossley, PhD

With Lori Nishiura Mackenzie

While women’s histories and experiences are important every day, Women’s History Month offers us an opportunity to collectively take a pause to recognize hidden stories and contributions, celebrate, and learn. This year’s theme is, “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,” and in honor of this focus, we interviewed Alison Crossley , PhD a foremost expert on the Feminist Movement, Executive Director of the The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University Institute, and author of the book, Finding Feminism: Millennial Activists and the Unfinished Gender Revolution.

Alison, over our many years of working together, you have explained that the Feminist Movement is one of the longest in U.S. history. Can you illuminate what you meant, and why that is important?

First of all, thank you for inviting me to this conversation on my favorite topic!

Whether progressive or conservative, some social movements fade away, while others persist over long periods of time. The feminist movement has continued across generations and generations.

This fact is so striking! It also tells us a lot about feminism, which is a movement to end gender inequality and interrelated inequalities.

Over ups and downs and wins and losses, in all different geographical locations and with different types of activists, feminists continue to fight for social change. Even when victorious, they continue to fight for more advances. Even with an increasing number of detractors, they continue.

Over ups and downs and wins and losses, in all different geographical locations and with different types of activists, feminists continue to fight for social change. Even when victorious, they continue to fight for more advances.

How has the feminist movement persisted for so long??

Feminists have a diversified set of tactics, which means they have a lot of strategies in their social movement toolkit. That allows for its longevity because when the movement is no longer in favor or activists experience challenges, they can change up their tactics, and the relationships and communities central to feminism also keep it going.

Some people argue that there is no longer a united feminist movement. Can you share your views on the validity of this argument?

So glad you asked! There has actually never been what we think of as a united feminist movement. Certainly there have been times throughout the course of history when many different women have banded together to make change and confront equality. But a giant, unified feminist movement? That really is a pipe dream. Why? Because women are a vast and extremely heterogeneous group. What they need and how they fight for it will depend on many different factors—their race, their class background, their ability, their gender identity, for example.

Some feminist issues, like the wage gap, reproductive justice or gender-based violence, affect women of all different backgrounds. But how they experience these issues, how it affects their lives, and how they fight against them will depend on their resources, communities, and backgrounds.

What is the impact of the argument that the feminist movement is weak because it’s not united?

I find it is actually detrimental to feminists and our understanding of the feminist movement to think that we should aspire to or look for a unified movement. When we look for a unified movement, we will likely count the hyper visible activism (like protests) and overlook the less visible ways in which feminists have always created change.

?For example, there are so many people in different organizations and contexts—workplaces, schools, online, in community groups, for example—who are working toward feminist goals. They are doing important organizing, but it is not super visible from afar that this feminist work is happening. Thus, much of how feminists create change would likely be missed when we paint with broad brushstrokes, or look out toward the horizon for signs of a unified movement.

I had a chance to read an early version of your forthcoming book, Feminism in the United States: A Concise Introduction. It’s fabulous. Can you share your aims in writing the book?

Thank you!

I wanted to write this book (it comes out this summer) to provide readers who are new to feminism a concise overview of feminisms plural. The foundation of the book is intersectional feminism, which means I highlight the ways in which feminists address and work against inequalities and hierarchies created by the intersections of race, class, gender, and other categories.

My hope is that it gives readers a sense of the broad and heterogeneous feminist movement from the 1960s-today, with lots of examples like #MeToo and #SayHerName, links to current events, and ways to delve deeper into the topics. Throughout the book I also uplift feminisms of different communities—including Chicana, Black, Asian American, Indigenous, and queer feminisms. Using many examples, I refute the notion that feminism is only for white women.

It is easy to flatten a complex movement when trying to make something accessible to a range of audiences. My aim was to make the material accessible without sacrificing such nuance.

Our Corporate Program consists of change agents seeking to create more inclusive organizations. Can you explain why an introduction to feminism might be helpful to their work?

The Lab is doing such important work! I love how you link research with practice and create a strong community of change agents.

?In order to be part of change, to fuel our energy and community, I find it so important to have a broader context of feminism. What challenges have other change makers experienced? How did they creatively problem solve? How did they remain inspired and energized even in difficult times? How did they see their personal experiences through a lens of collective social change?

I recently read the Maya Angelou poem “Our Grandmothers,” where she writes: I come as one “and stand as ten thousand.” This reminded me so much of the feminist movement, and of the thousands of women of all backgrounds who have for generations worked so hard to lay the foundation so we can do our feminist work today. We owe it to them to learn from and build upon their work.

In order to be part of change, to fuel our energy and community, I find it so important to have a broader context of feminism.?

Lori Nishiura Mackenzie is Co-founder of the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab and a LinkedIn Learning Instructor and Top Voice in Gender Equity.