But you knew that.

As for everyday feminist acts, I regularly hide sexist magazines behind magazines I think are cool. I always comment when people make sexist assumptions and I support and encourage people who breaks the assumptions their gender pose upon them.

Small things is to try to read the female sf-writer and the male writer of historical romances. To encourage the father of your child to feed and care for them as much as you do (and if you’re a man to insist on it). Activist groups could do letter writing campaigns to lokal papers or similar stuff.

As a teacher I discuss issues of gender, sexuality and rape with all my classes and I’m certain everyone of us can make a difference - wherever we are.

At any rate, I find the feminists half my age to be much more savvy, better-educated, and more organized than I was at that age. But that may be the influence of the internet, which wasn’t around when I was a young college woman. Make of it what you will.

And ageism can cut both ways. I’ve heard from younger feminists that they sometimes feel patronized and belittled by older feminists. It’s easy enough for “learn from my mistakes” to morph into “What worked for us will inevitably work for you, so stop asking so many questions, Sprout.”

Again, YMMV.

I actually think everyone always takes the phrase ‘the personal is political’ the wrong way round. It doesn’t mean whether or not you wear make-up, or recycle, or buy fair trade coffee or whatever is political . That’s saying the political is personal.

It means that issues that are seen as personal personal problems are actually political problems that need to be addressed collectively. I regularly rant over the terrible bastardisation of that term, because I think it has really weakened the movement, and moved people away from collective action into indidivdual action.

Do you think maybe what women of our generation don’t know is that the political is the personal?

I guess I should make clear that I have no time for individual actions as substitute for political activity. I don’t think recycling, picking up litter, or even saying ‘fuck off patriarchy’, on my own, do anything.

I do believe that the only way you can make difference is . This was why I found Audra’s article so frustrating - she makes forming a feminist group seem like this amazing idea, and it shouldn’t be. That people think it is is probably at least partly because of the gross distortion of the meaning of the phrase ‘the personal is political’

mythago: I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong, that the need to please men makes starting feminist groups and building solidarity difficult. But that need must be surmountable, because it’s been overcome in the past.

As to little things that one can do to engage in feminism, the equivalent of recycling, I think it just might be simple. A woman just expresses herself and carries herself as befits her personality and moral framework, without worrying about societal or male approval.

I don’t know a lot about the history of feminism, but it seems to me that there isn’t an acceptance now, by some of the feminists that I encounter, that many women don’t have a background full of positive feminist experiences, and thus may need some time and support to really be consistent in their approaches. Where I live there don’t seem to be any consciousness-raising groups where it’s ok to raise questions that beginners like me struggle with (these are going to sound silly to many on here I’m sure, but stuff like “if I shave my legs am I denying the sisterhood?” or “if I compete with another woman for a job is that buying into the patriarchal bullshit?”).

I guess if I’m honest I’m thinking about a couple of particular feminists who I’ve encountered over the years, in feminist groups and in other settings, who put my teeth on edge because they directed their anger at middle class women (regardless of the politics of those women). I can understand that, but it makes it hard to participate or engage with those women and those groups.

That said, I work with a woman who considers herself a staunch feminist, but she frequently does things which show she doesn’t really get it (eg insisting that a man carve the roast at a work dinner we had). My way of dealing with her is to quietly put examples in her way that should eventually mount up to de-railing her flawed feminism. I don’t get angry with her (externally), but yesterday when she was criticising a women’s event for IWD (”my first mistake was that I wore a dress, not jeans” she said) that I was a little bit involved in I just let her know that I was originally on the organising committee and I could see her starting to think a little about it, as she respects me.

Ok I’m just rambling now. Just trying to give the perspective of someone who doesn’t have a particularly strong feminist background and is of the current generation who seem to be flailing a bit (not everywhere of course).

I agree with BEG about there being plenty of feminist and pro-woman organizations for younger feminists to learn from and grow within. The cult of youth combined with marketplace ideas of BIGGER, BETTER, NEWER, MORE would have young folks believing they have to reinvent the wheel before they know how to do more than crawl. While I appreciate innovation, I don’t think it serves newbie activists or feminism as a whole for young people to think they know all about what they’re doing without input from others who have been around the block a few times.

I co-founded and lead an action-oriented sexual health feminist group for three years. In retrospect, it showed gumption on our part to think we could do it all by our young and inexperienced selves, but the growing pains didn’t have to hurt like they did (ugh nonprofit incorporation) and I wish we’d had some older activist women to help guide us.

It’s really a traditionalist phenomenon–nobody (I hope) suggests that feminists are 100% free of their sexist upbringing. The patriarchal culture treats childrearing and homemaking as demeaning and lesser than paid, career work–fit for women, of course, but not for men. Plenty of feminists absorbed this message.

It doesn’t help that childrearing and homemaking are not, in fact, high-status or high-wage positions in US culture.