Catherine Redfern is founder of The F Word website. Now almost ten years old, the site is recognised as influential in sparking a revived interest in feminism amongst younger women and men. In 2002 the site was highly commended by the Women in Publishing’s New Venture Awards, and in 2003 Redfern was named by the Guardian as one of 50 ‘Women to Watch’. Kristin Aune is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Derby, where she teaches courses on feminism, gender and religion. She has been involved in a number of feminist groups and co-founded London Third Wave, a networking group for London based young feminists, with Catherine Redfern in 2002. She has published widely on gender, religion and feminism. They spoke to Alex Doherty about their new book, Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement.

Can you tell us what your new book ‘Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement’ is about? What are you trying to convey? What are your hopes for the book?

We want to finally put to rest the myth that feminism is dead today and in particular, that young women are not interested in feminism or that feminists are only interested in a narrow range of issues. We want to showcase the resurgence of feminism that’s happening, give a whistle-stop tour of the key issues, and highlight some of the feminist activism that inspires us. Our book is an optimistic look at the feminist movement today and we hope it gives people a taste of the incredible diversity of feminist issues and activism both in the UK and around the world.

You are describing a new wave of feminism. What does that wave consist of? Who are the participants? What are its values? How does it differ from previous feminist movements?

We’re shining a spotlight on new forms of feminist activism that have arisen in the last ten years as well as feminists who were too young to be around in the 60s and 70s, whose voices aren’t often heard in the mainstream. Three quarters of the feminists we surveyed were under 35, and women in their twenties are in the forefront in the resurgence of feminism, working alongside older feminists.

The issues that concern them are not totally new issues. In fact some of the old issues have actually got a lot worse: the pressures on women to conform to beauty ideals are more extreme; the conviction rate for rape has reduced to appalling levels; and pornography is a lot more prevalent in our everyday lives than it was back then. The rights we thought we’d mostly won, like abortion, are increasingly under threat of being taken away. So in a way they are the same issues but in a new context. But some issues are coming more to the forefront. For example, we talk about ‘celebrity culture’, representations of women and men in the media and popular culture and advertising, which is inescapable now. We’ve also included feminism and religion in our book, since religion is increasingly a topic of public debate and religious women in particular are used as political footballs and stereotyped. We’re very aware of how sexism interacts with other forms of oppression or discrimination like racism and poverty.

The internet has been a huge change in our lives in the last ten years, and has had a major impact on bringing people to feminism and a place for activism; we feature many feminist bloggers in our book. We live in an increasingly globalised culture, and feminst struggles around the world are something we’re interested in. Climate change, for example, will affect women around the world in a very serious way; they’re more likely to die in floods, for example. Globalisation has meant that we need to consider working conditions of workers in factories (mostly women) that make clothes exported to the West. Women’s health is a huge issue; more women are infected with HIV in some countries.

So the issues that feminists are looking at are extremely broad and complex, and the global feminist movement is increasingly diverse. Most of the feminists we surveyed consider this a strength rather than a weakness.

Feminism is viewed by some as being something of an anachronism. Why do women need a feminist movement?

Feminism not only gives us as individuals the tools to fight against the sexism that we might encounter in our lives, it allows us to see all these issues not as coincidences but as a larger pattern of sexism that is holding all of us (men included) back from true freedom. Together we can make positive changes that will make women’s lives better; on our own, we have no power. Even if you don’t feel that sexism has affected you at all, feminists are fighting for things that might benefit you, your friends or your family one day; you might be in a situation where you need an abortion; you might want to escape an abusive relationship; you might want to raise your daughter in a culture that doesn’t objectify her; you might want a job that gives you a fair wage compared to your male colleagues, or you might want more options to share your parenting with your partner.

Of course, many feminists argue that feminism benefits men too, by allowing them to break out of a limiting ‘macho’ stereotype. Indeed, we are seeing men who are supportive of feminism active today alongside women.

Feminism isn’t just about making things better for ourselves; it’s about supporting each other as women to escape oppression, end sexism, and make life a better place for everyone. To us, that’s something worth fighting for.

In your book you note the increasing acceptance of pornography within mainstream culture. Why is that acceptance problematic?

It’s a problem because pornographic portrayals feed into people’s ideas about women, men and sex and sexuality, and in some cases influence their sexual behaviour in negative ways. Take, for instance, the way women are presented in mainstream soft porn and lads’ mags as white, blond, heavily made-up, tanned, large-breasted and slim, with little or no body hair. That then feeds into people’s ideas about what’s attractive and influences the choices they make about relationships and how they present their own bodies. When Channel 4’s The Sex Education Show showed teenagers pictures of breasts and asked them to say which were most attractive, they picked the fake pair and said that the real ones were saggy, too big, too small etc. In a culture where fake’s considered attractive, is it any wonder that the rates of cosmetic surgery have surged, and breast implants are the most popular cosmetic procedure for British and American women, and labiaplasty is becoming more popular? Or think about the way removal of pubic hair is now virtually required for women – it wasn’t like this in our mothers’ generation. So women have to go to greater lengths to change their bodies to fit the ideal (which is also white and western, thereby excluding women of colour), and their anxieties about their bodies increase. And when we consider the influence pornographic culture has on people’s sex lives, young women today are now in a society where they are compelled to present themselves as constantly ‘up for it’ and sexually available (the Girls Gone Wild phenomenon that journalist Ariel Levy’s written about in Female Chauvinist Pigs is an example of this, as is women going to lap dancing and pole dancing venues). But yet if they are ‘too’ sexual this is turned against them, and they’re called sluts – think of the way there’s almost a moral panic about ‘ladettes’ and ‘binge drinking’. Women have to walk a very fine line when it comes to their sexual behaviour.

Obviously the other parts of the feminist critique of porn (that it eroticises women’s subordination, that it exploits porn actresses to make megabucks for the men in control of the porn industry, that it is racist etc.) are part of this, and also apply, to some extent, to mainstream pornified culture.

What do you make of the indifference towards (and in some cases the celebration of) the sexual exploitation industries as displayed by many women in our society?

Women are now being socialised to present themselves empowered through becoming sexual consumers. So yes, they are buying into it, much as their mothers and grandmothers might have bought into nuclear family ideals about the housewife role. But then we buy into all sorts of things that are actually bad for us because they’re sold to us as desirable. Just because women are doing it doesn’t mean they are actually empowered by it, and the prevalence of sexual violence amongst young people shows us just how oppressive the sexualised culture can be for some young women. And if we look at things like commercial sex, the reality is far removed from the glamorous imagery associated with things like Belle de Jour’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Sex work is very bad for women and (with the exception of a very small number working in the high-class end of the market) is associated with drug addiction, abuse, violence and poverty. It is indeed worrying if sexual exploitation is falsely portrayed as liberation. On the other hand, it’s important to recognise that some women do experience some of the sex industry’s products (as sold for instance at Ann Summers) as liberating, so we don’t want to criticise women for making those choices or engage in a kind of feminist moral panic over young women’s sex lives. We just want people to be able to deconstruct the sexist, capitalist, racist, homophobic and oppressive structures that often feed into our supposed ‘free choices’ and make women’s lives worse. 

How can feminism also benefit men?

Feminism doesn’t need to benefit men in order to be a valid movement in itself, but feminism teaches us to question gender stereotypes, and these are about masculinity as much as femininity. For instance, men have historically been the breadwinners, the ones with courage, strength who don’t show their emotions. Men have benefitted from that in some ways (e.g. in higher incomes), but have lost out in others. Think about the high suicide rates amongst men – they resort to suicide because they feel unable to discuss their feelings with people. Or think of the way men are reluctant to go to the doctors with medical problems and how that leads to reduced male life expectancy. Or the way men take unnecessary risks to show themselves as masculine and engage in dangerous sports or other activities that make them more likely to be killed. And where fatherhood is concerned, being considered the main breadwinner has meant that many men miss out on a close relationship with their children.