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Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism
The women and men writing here are activists, teachers, cultural critics, artists, and journalists. They distinguish themselves from a group of young, conservative feminists, including Naomi Wolf and Katie Roiphe, who criticize second wave feminists and are regularly called on to speak for the "next generation" of feminism. In contrast, Third Wave Agenda seeks to complicate our understanding of feminism by not only embracing the second wave critique of beauty culture, sexual abuse, and power structures but also emphasizing how desires and pleasures such as beauty and power can be used to enliven activist work, even while maintaining a critique of them.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
2 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
About the author
Leslie Heywood
15 books6 followersLeslie Heywood is Professor of English and Creative Writing at SUNY-Binghamton, where she was a 2009 recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities. Interdisciplinary in focus, her areas are creative writing, gender studies, sport studies, science studies, and environmental studies.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 26, 2021
Some parts are still interesting or relevant but this is now more of a curiosity from another era than ground-breaking work (to be fair it was written to be in the conversational moment and not for all time).
This book was published in 1997 and I wish I had stumbled across it then, as it puts into words the feminism I needed as a 22 year young mother who had no clue about anything. I wasn't great at reading non-fiction back then so I might not have read it properly but it is similar enough to the Ms Magazines I did read (but more detailed) that I might have done.
Anyway it's interesting and has helped me add to my Spotify lists with some of that 90s grrrrl music.
This book was published in 1997 and I wish I had stumbled across it then, as it puts into words the feminism I needed as a 22 year young mother who had no clue about anything. I wasn't great at reading non-fiction back then so I might not have read it properly but it is similar enough to the Ms Magazines I did read (but more detailed) that I might have done.
Anyway it's interesting and has helped me add to my Spotify lists with some of that 90s grrrrl music.
July 28, 2025
A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS BY ‘THIRD WAVE’ WRITERS
Editors Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake wrote in the Introduction to this 1997 book, “Recently, much media attention has been given to writings about third wave feminism, often labeled ‘postfeminism.’… the slippage from ‘third wave feminism’ to ‘postfeminist’ is important, because many of us working in the ‘third wave’ by no means define our feminism as a groovier alternative to an over-and-done feminist movement. Let us be clear: ‘postfeminist’ characterizes a group of young, conservative feminists who explicitly define themselves against and criticize feminists of the second wave.
“Not surprisingly, it is these conservative feminists who are regularly called upon as spokespersons for the ‘next generation.’ Writers such as Katie Roiphe, Rene Denfield, and Naomi Wolf argue against feminist critiques of rape, sexual harassment, and abortion… Conservative post-feminism is in every way more visible than is the diverse activist work that terms itself ‘third wave.’…” (Pg. 1)
They continue, “[This book] picks up where … other collections left off… to present a group of writers who work as cultural critics, activists, and teachers, whose life stories are informed by an intense engagement with the most vital cultural theory available today. These are personal voices mediated by their grounding in research, theory, and social practice, an engaged scholarship that combines new interdisciplinary methodologies with an autobiographical style. Fusing the confessional mode of earlier popular feminisms with the more analytic mode that predominated in the academy since the 1980s… [This book] presents a generational perspective, gathering the voices of young activists struggling to come to terms with the historical specificity of our feminisms with the times in which we came of age (the late 1970s through the late 1980s)…” (Pg. 2)
They go on, “Because our lives have been shaped by struggles between various feminisms as well as by cultural backlash against feminism and activism, we argue that contradiction… marks the desires and strategies of third wave feminists. Whereas conservative postfeminist thinking relies on an opposition between ‘victim feminism’ (second wave) and ‘power feminism’ (third wave), and suggests that ‘power feminism’ serves as a corrective to a hopelessly outmoded ‘victim feminism,’ to us the second and third waves of feminism are neither incompatible nor opposed. Rather, we define feminism’s third wave as a movement that contains elements of second wave critique of beauty culture, sexual abuse, and power structures while it also … makes use of the pleasure, danger, and defining power of those structures.” (Pg. 2-3)
Michelle Sidler asks in her essay, “So how can a new feminist political agenda work to relieve the economic disparity facing twentysomethings? First, we must recognize that gender equality in the workforce does not automatically bring economic progress. Feminism in the 1960s and 1970s worked toward giving women the same economic opportunities as men. Now, however, there will be fewer economic opportunities for either gender, so we have to broaden our concerns to include issues previously viewed as gender neutral.” (Pg. 31)
Lidia Yukman states, “This piece is not meant to function as an argument in which a problem is exposed, analyzed, and addressed with a solution; rather, it is meant to construct an opening, a fissure, through which feminist autocritique may find a form. It is my position that fiction creates openings through which new forms of self-awareness might yet arise…. Finally, this text is part of the text of a performance work; this seems to me an important context for the narrative. The arguments are implicit; the words at the surface are meant only to trigger memories, images, common experiences, viewpoints left for dead. The performance includes a multimedia effort with several other women…” (Pg. 168-169)
An essay by Ana Marie Cox, Freya Johnson, Annalee Newitz, and Jilliam Sandell states, “Part of being a ‘third wave feminist’ means grappling with second wave feminism while trying to divorce ourselves from its legacy of separatism. Although it’s tempting to call what we are doing a form of feminist praxis, it is more accurately a kind of performance or coping mechanism that helps us reconcile our internalized sense that ‘masculinity equals power,’ with our desire for social potency as women. Identifying with men allows us to feel strong, but it also, unfortunately, can reinforce the idea that being female is a form of weakness.” (Pg. 198)
This book (particularly the Introduction) will be of keen interest to those wanting to understand the Third Wave.
Editors Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake wrote in the Introduction to this 1997 book, “Recently, much media attention has been given to writings about third wave feminism, often labeled ‘postfeminism.’… the slippage from ‘third wave feminism’ to ‘postfeminist’ is important, because many of us working in the ‘third wave’ by no means define our feminism as a groovier alternative to an over-and-done feminist movement. Let us be clear: ‘postfeminist’ characterizes a group of young, conservative feminists who explicitly define themselves against and criticize feminists of the second wave.
“Not surprisingly, it is these conservative feminists who are regularly called upon as spokespersons for the ‘next generation.’ Writers such as Katie Roiphe, Rene Denfield, and Naomi Wolf argue against feminist critiques of rape, sexual harassment, and abortion… Conservative post-feminism is in every way more visible than is the diverse activist work that terms itself ‘third wave.’…” (Pg. 1)
They continue, “[This book] picks up where … other collections left off… to present a group of writers who work as cultural critics, activists, and teachers, whose life stories are informed by an intense engagement with the most vital cultural theory available today. These are personal voices mediated by their grounding in research, theory, and social practice, an engaged scholarship that combines new interdisciplinary methodologies with an autobiographical style. Fusing the confessional mode of earlier popular feminisms with the more analytic mode that predominated in the academy since the 1980s… [This book] presents a generational perspective, gathering the voices of young activists struggling to come to terms with the historical specificity of our feminisms with the times in which we came of age (the late 1970s through the late 1980s)…” (Pg. 2)
They go on, “Because our lives have been shaped by struggles between various feminisms as well as by cultural backlash against feminism and activism, we argue that contradiction… marks the desires and strategies of third wave feminists. Whereas conservative postfeminist thinking relies on an opposition between ‘victim feminism’ (second wave) and ‘power feminism’ (third wave), and suggests that ‘power feminism’ serves as a corrective to a hopelessly outmoded ‘victim feminism,’ to us the second and third waves of feminism are neither incompatible nor opposed. Rather, we define feminism’s third wave as a movement that contains elements of second wave critique of beauty culture, sexual abuse, and power structures while it also … makes use of the pleasure, danger, and defining power of those structures.” (Pg. 2-3)
Michelle Sidler asks in her essay, “So how can a new feminist political agenda work to relieve the economic disparity facing twentysomethings? First, we must recognize that gender equality in the workforce does not automatically bring economic progress. Feminism in the 1960s and 1970s worked toward giving women the same economic opportunities as men. Now, however, there will be fewer economic opportunities for either gender, so we have to broaden our concerns to include issues previously viewed as gender neutral.” (Pg. 31)
Lidia Yukman states, “This piece is not meant to function as an argument in which a problem is exposed, analyzed, and addressed with a solution; rather, it is meant to construct an opening, a fissure, through which feminist autocritique may find a form. It is my position that fiction creates openings through which new forms of self-awareness might yet arise…. Finally, this text is part of the text of a performance work; this seems to me an important context for the narrative. The arguments are implicit; the words at the surface are meant only to trigger memories, images, common experiences, viewpoints left for dead. The performance includes a multimedia effort with several other women…” (Pg. 168-169)
An essay by Ana Marie Cox, Freya Johnson, Annalee Newitz, and Jilliam Sandell states, “Part of being a ‘third wave feminist’ means grappling with second wave feminism while trying to divorce ourselves from its legacy of separatism. Although it’s tempting to call what we are doing a form of feminist praxis, it is more accurately a kind of performance or coping mechanism that helps us reconcile our internalized sense that ‘masculinity equals power,’ with our desire for social potency as women. Identifying with men allows us to feel strong, but it also, unfortunately, can reinforce the idea that being female is a form of weakness.” (Pg. 198)
This book (particularly the Introduction) will be of keen interest to those wanting to understand the Third Wave.
September 17, 2021
I only read the essay 'Duality and Redefinition' in order to gain a basic understanding of third wave feminism and its interaction with the Riot Grrrl movement for a school project, so this review is less of a summary of the whole collation of writings, and more a review for Klein's essay specifically. I found that some of the wording was at times, overly complex for little reason, but ultimately it aided me in my research. It also sparked some interesting ideas that I'd like to take further, but I would not suggest it offered a comprehensive education on Riot Grrrl, but then again, I wasn't expecting it to. I'd recommend to anyone looking to define third wave feminism, as it provided a large amount of substance on this topic, and referenced some great writers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews