Moving Forward

As we move forward in feminist studies I think it is important to recognize the multitude of changes in girls and women that will take place at the collective level. While each of us has an individual experience, collectivity is a vital element of developing identity in a shifting society. With increasing feminist awareness and freedoms for women, there is also more responsibility for those of us invested in the progressive movement to commit to making sure we do not regress into comfortable practices from the past. Progress can be scary and if we are not careful we can lose the great gains we have made. One of the ways I see this manifesting itself was in today’s reading that “emergent codes of sexual freedom and hedonism associated with new femininities should be understood as new technologies of the self rather than celebratory expressions of changing female subjectivity” (60). While I don’t necessarily disagree with the statement, I see this as a way in which collective ideas can be construed in a way that constructs sexuality and femininity and feminism out of the control of girls and women and puts it in the hands of others outside of the experience. If we are able to reject societal and collective representations, we can embrace and control the “greater degree of fluidity about what femininity means and how exactly it is anchored in social reality” (55) ourselves and on our own terms. Thus creating a collective reality of our making, one that is truly representative of our reality.