The Next Generation

Third Wave Feminist Psychotherapy

Ellyn Kaschak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780789014092
• eBook ISBN: 9781317719595
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Shape a better future with the insights of the third wave!Is feminism still necessary? How can older feminists and younger ones find a common ground to discuss issues that affect them both? What does it mean to be a third-wave feminist? The Next Generation explores these and other issues that deeply concern feminist therapists of all ages.This powerful book examines the psychological and cultural context of the third wave of feminism. The young feminists whose voices are heard in The Next Generation grew up in a very different world than the feminists who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. Dialogues between older and younger feminists explore conflicting cultural images of the feminist establishment as successful freedom fighters or angry, anti-sex activists. The Next Generation discusses the issues young feminists face, including:

• the false sense that feminism is no longer necessary
• the social and historic context of young women's lives
• finding and sharing power in the therapeutic relationship
• building healthy mentoring relationships
• creating psychotherapy partnerships with adolescent girls The Next Generation offers a fruitful dialogue between older women who remember the bitter battles for the ERA and younger feminists who take for granted women's presence on the Supreme Court. Each generation builds on the foundations of the past, and the feminist psychotherapists represented in this volume offer fresh insights and techniques appropriate for the way we live now. The Next Generation is an essential resource for therapists and feminists of any age.

Exploring the Rift: An Intergenerational Dialogue About Feminism

Natalie Porter
Dalia G. Ducker
Holley E. Ferrell
Laura Helton

SUMMARY. Four psychologists, two “older” faculty members and two “younger” students, met to discuss their perspectives on contemporary feminism. The dialogue was intended to give the older feminists an opportunity to listen to their younger colleagues. A consciousness-raising group format with some planned questions was used. The report focuses on the younger women’s thoughts and experiences. Among the topics touched on are: stereotypes of feminism, divisions among feminists, women’s sexuality, political activism, sexual harassment, speaking out in graduate school, feminism in popular culture, and collaboration among feminists. The younger feminists articulated the need for more mentoring and support and questioned whether older feminists have been willing to see the goals and values of feminism adapted to keep pace with ever-changing societal contexts. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Feminism, consciousness-raising, post-feminism

In this article we report on a conversation among four women psychologists who identify as feminists. Two of us are “older” faculty members, and two are “younger” students. The two faculty members, Natalie Porter and Dalia Ducker, initiated this conversation in order to learn more about what young feminists thought. Over the years we have noticed that few of the growing number of women graduate students in clinical psychology identified as feminists, and we hoped to understand why this was so. We also thought that talking with young women who could articulate their views about feminism and this rift would be a first step toward bridging it. We chose to use a consciousness-raising group format of sharing our experiences as a framework because we hoped that it would facilitate self-reflection and insight. In this context, we asked questions about topics we thought would be relevant, while being open to going wherever the conversation took us. We were there primarily to listen and to learn from our students.

We also saw this dialogue as an opportunity to mentor: to encourage young feminists to contribute their views to the psychological literature. Because we want to emphasize the younger feminists’ perspectives, we focus on their voices in this report. The actual conversation occurred as more of a dialogue, with greater self-disclosure by all four of us, but we have chosen to omit some of the details. Thus, in order to set the stage, we began by sharing information about all of our personal lives, but we have included only the two students’ contributions. Suffice it to say that there were some commonalities in the background of the two older women, both white women in their 50s. Both had strong mothers, experienced discrimination and sexual harassment, had engaged in political activism, and had early experiences with feminist psychology. Both had also participated in women’s consciousness-raising groups, leading to an abiding faith in the power of coming together and listening to one another’s stories.

Backgrounds

Laura Helton: I’m 29 years old, and I’m what is considered “biracial.” I never referred to myself as biracial until I moved to the San Francisco Bay area. Honestly, I am content to say I am a “halfie”–half Pilipino and half white. My dad, who is white, met my mother when he was stationed in the Philippines. I was born there and moved to the States when I was two.

I don’t think of my feminist ideas as stemming from western feminism. They are more steeped in my mother’s experiences as part of the Pilipino culture. My mother’s beliefs were different from most other traditional Pilipino women of her day. My mother was considered quite independent and even had her own business in the Philippines during the early 1970s. At the time my mother’s philosophy was that she didn’t need to marry a man to better her life. Actually, a year before she met my dad, someone prophesied that she would marry an American. Her response was to say, “Why would I do that? I don’t need a man to support me.” But then she met my father, fell in love and left the Philippines for the States. Unfortunately, from my perspective, she got caught up in what she perceived as being the ideal American wife. She didn’t work outside of our home for the first seven or eight years of my life and tried to keep the perfect house. Her children had to be perfectly clothed with perfect manners. She wanted us to be American children and only encouraged us to speak English. She didn’t “push us” to learn Tagalog or any of the other three Pilipino dialects in which she was fluent.

Growing up, I knew my mother was strong-minded. She was outspoken, and she taught us to be outspoken. I was taught from an early age that education is key and not to build a life based on being supported by men. I grew up highly influenced by these values, but I didn’t realize until much later that they embodied a feminist perspective. In the Philippines, my mother was considered radical for her ideas. In the U.S., with me, she focused on education, education, education. And she was strict and wouldn’t let me or my four other sisters date at the age most girls started to date in Texas.

I grew up in Texas and still consider it my home. Texas culture is a world unto itself. Though women are encouraged to go to college, it seemed when I was growing up that the main reason for attending college was to find a husband. The joke at Texas Tech, where I completed my undergraduate studies, was that the majority of girls were working on their “MRS Degree.” I would recount this to my mother who would say, “Don’t listen to them. Career, career, career.” I was pre-med at the time and strongly agreed with my mother that focusing on my career was most important. What I began to realize, however, is that in Pilipino culture, being a feminist includes having raised a family. The family comes first, so balancing career and family successfully is difficult. Although my mom pushed education, she also strongly believed in family commitments. As I’ve grown older, it has become more difficult to reconcile a career focus with a desire to have a family also. Yet I have recognized that having a family is important to both my culture and me. As I near 30, I realize I have roughly only twelve to fifteen more years to start a family. I find myself beginning to struggle with the career and family dichotomy and wonder how I will balance both worlds successfully.

At times, my undergraduate school seemed like one big fraternity and sorority. Many of the women seemed to me to be content to be viewed primarily as pretty attachments to the men. I did not encounter what I’d call “western feminism” there. I didn’t really encounter it until I moved to the San Francisco area for graduate school. Wendy Stock’s class, feminist approaches to sex therapy, was eye opening. Now, when I go home to Texas, I definitely discern a difference in attitudes regarding feminism there versus here. I have noticed that some of my female friends let a lot slide and take more of a submissive position in their interactions with others. I think they should “fight” more for what they believe. For example, one of my friends was passed over for promotion in favor of a man, when she had contributed more. I encouraged her to speak out, but her response was that her time would come. She appeared to resign herself to this outcome and not question it. When I return to San Francisco after a visit to Texas I sometimes think, “Wow, we’re all living on the fringe out here.” Then I remind myself, “No, women here are just more aware and willing to stand up for themselves.”

Holley Ferrell: I’m a 25-year-old white woman, young compared to everybody else here. I think I was born a feminist. My father was career military, and I went to nine schools in twelve years. I don’t know whether to attribute my characteristics to “nature” or “nurture,” but I grew up as an outgoing and outspoken girl. I knew what I wanted and what I didn’t want. Even at a young age, I would become very angry about the disparity in the gifts my younger brother and I would receive. His gift would be blue, and mine would be red. He would get the Star Wars sleeping bag, and I would get the Strawberry Shortcake bag. I was the bigger Star Wars fan. I hated Strawberry Shortcake, and I preferred blue. I remember feeling angry that I was forced to like certain things or be a certain way because I was a girl.

When I was in first grade I used to fight with my mom about my clothes. I wanted to dress myself the way I wanted to dress. She finally gave up. I also became aware of gender-based double standards growing up. I had a strict curfew as an adolescent, although my brother never had one his entire life. Even when I was 21 years old, they were strict and protective because I was a woman.

My parents have a tumultuous relationship and fought a lot while I was growing up. I witnessed my father putting my mother down and her feeling like she had to take it. At the same time, she conveyed to me, “Don’t depend on a man and don’t do what I’m doing.” However, my mom did work as a nurse the whole time I was growing up. I considered her a role model when it came to working and education. My upbringing had the same mixed messages others here are describing. On the one hand, my parents would allow me to “be myself” and tolerate my violating certain social expectations. On the other hand, each of them had a difficult time breaking from those same social and gender role expectations.

I think I first became conscious of women’s issues more broadly when I was in college. I started to recognize that the problems of my female friends were not just related to their individual contexts but to being female. I observed them being treated poorly, spoken down to, and insulted by boyfriends and male professors. I went to a very competitive university, which made it even more difficult.

I became aware of domestic violence in a societal context while I was in a sorority, which was part of a really dysfunctional system. It seemed to me that a lot of self hate was going on in the sororities–excessive drinking, unprotected sex, women allowing themselves to be dominated by guys. A friend was raped by a guy at a fraternity. She caught an STD that she’ll have the rest of her life. She was suicidal about the rape, but she would not talk to anyone about it because she was so ashamed. She never received counseling.

Many women also seemed to be there primarily to find husbands. I became really angry about what I was seeing. I also got really angry about who my professors were. I didn’t have any female professors who were role models for me. I remember feeling very alone and angry. I took a Psychology of Women class and really enjoyed it. It turned into a consciousness-raising group, as you described, Dalia, because women were speaking together about issues they had never raised before. I had never even considered them as topics to discuss. But the Psychology of Women office wasn’t even in the academic buildings. It was located in the attic of an out-of-the-way house off campus. It obviously wasn’t considered a central part of the campus. I hadn’t even known about it until my senior year when I took that class.

I ended up writing an honors thesis, “Do today’s women really have it all?” Basically, it was about home-career conflict. I had believed that as “today’s women” we could do anything we wanted. We could have a career and children, and no one would judge us regardless of our choices. Then I began to question how does one really do both. No one has ever explained to me how to do both. I interviewed about 60 women about their views on home-career conflicts. I found that most everyone I interviewed either was planning to do what her mother or other family members did or had never really thought much about how they would balance their lives. They were just as confused as I was. The research project was an eye-opening experience for me. I ended up coming to CSPP because of the psychology of women emphasis area here. I didn’t apply anywhere else, because I was starving for information about women’s issues and feminism.

No one at my undergraduate school even uttered the word “feminist.” They used the term “psychology of women.” I first described myself as feminist here at CSPP. I would say that I was a feminist before then, but I had never described myself that way. Since I’ve been here I have taken several courses in feminist approaches to psychotherapy. They have all been incredibly eye-opening experiences for me. My heart rate goes up when I read the feminist literature and people like Laura Brown.

Natalie: I’m struck by the similarities of our experiences across the two generations. On the one hand, we are separated by 25 or more years. On the other, things haven’t changed all that much.

Laura: I think society has worked “really hard” at not changing.

Holley: My family is very conservative, and the school I attended was very conservative. When I moved to the San Francisco Bay area someone asked me if I was going to become a lesbian. Another well-meaning person gave me an article from the newspaper that said to warn your daughters about the evils of feminism. He was serious. I thought it was funny.

Views of Feminism

Natalie: How similar do the two of you think your experiences are compared to other women graduate students here? You have emerged with a feminist awareness. Do you think you are typical or atypical? As we older feminists try to understand why there aren’t many new or young feminists joining our ranks, one theory proposed is that there is no need for feminism anymore. We’ve progressed beyond gender distinctions. My own belief is that we’ve retreated into a more conservative era. What are your thoughts?

Laura: I think it depends on where you are. In my experience, though there are definitely liberal areas found in Texas, much of the state is conservative. In these areas, women’s issues are rarely talked about. There, for example, if I were to point out discrepancies in women’s earning power, people would look at me wondering where on earth I came from. If I made the same statement here in the San Francisco area, it would lead to a discussion of the factors involved, including the emergence of a new conservative era. People here would articulate concern about the bombing of abortion clinics, the attacks on Roe v. Wade, and other attempts to turn back what women have achieved over the past three decades.

Holley: I think both are occurring. Some take the successes of the women’s movement for granted and aren’t concerned. Others don’t particularly care. Their attitude is more akin to “Let one of those diehard feminists worry about it.”

Dalia: They think it isn’t relevant to them?

Holley: Yes, I don’t think they will get involved unless something does happen to them. If someone needed an abortion and that option was no longer there, she might get involved. Now it doesn’t seem relevant.

Laura: I agree. The overt signs of discrimination aren’t present now. What you described, Natalie, about being harassed while walking down the street, or you, Dalia, about not receiving a fellowship because you are a woman, probably wouldn’t happen now, at least not in the same way. Discrimination has gone more underground. It is easier for someone to reassure herself that discrimination no longer exists than to recognize it and figure out what to do about it. I think young women are scared of being labeled as feminists, because they are all portrayed so unfavorably.

Holley: I find myself reluctant about speaking out about women’s issues even though I’ve always been outspoken. If you asked me my opinion about women’s issues, I wouldn’t hesitate to give it, but I have never actively considered dedicating my life or career to addressing gender discrimination, raising political consciousness, or writing on feminist topics. I think that is because of the reputation of feminism.

The stereotype is that feminists are angry; they blame men for their problems. I see why that accusation exists, even if it is inaccurate. In one of my feminist therapy classes, we had a conversation similar to this: about “new” and “old” feminists. Some of the younger feminists pointed out how m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Next Generation: Third Wave Feminist Psychotherapy
• Look It Up Under "F": Dialogues of Emerging and Experienced Feminists
• Rising Tide: Taking Our Place as Young Feminist Psychologists
• The Trouble with Power
• Exploring the Rift: An Intergenerational Dialogue About Feminism
• The Mentoring Process for Feminist Therapists: One Trainee's Perspective
• Feminism's Third Wave: Surfing to Oblivion?
• Psychotherapy Partnership Approach with Adolescent Girls
• Index