The end of feminism: or feminism as we knew it.

Veteran women's rights activists have recently expressed dissatisfaction with contemporary interpretations of feminism. To their frustration, few young Australian women currently describe themselves as feminists; even fewer believe in the collective organisation of women to overcome the obstacles they face in achieving their life-goals.

These developments in women's politics are borne partly of the same impulse. Until recently I thought that to be a `real feminist' you had to model your political activity on the kind of collectivist, activist endeavour epitomised by late nineteenth-century suffragists, or `women's libbers' in the 1970s. An alternative position is that a feminist must embrace both the label and one of the theories of men's power developed in the previous two decades. With either definition, the ideas, campaigns and struggles of previous generations of women are held up against the political activity of young women today, and the latter are usually found wanting.

While young feminists have vigorously defended their approach to women's rights, young women are not much bothered by feminist criticism (which isn't surprising given that most have explicitly rejected such self-definition). But at the heart of these arguments lies a confusion between two historically distinct though interconnected entities--the women's movement on the one hand, and feminism on the other.

When young women refuse to call themselves feminists they are rejecting men-as-the-problem theories of women's social disadvantage. While they acknowledge that improvements could still be made they also assert that they haven't got it too bad at the moment. Ideas like these are often viewed by older feminists with despair, and I think there is cause for concern. But that concern should be tempered by an acknowledgement that young women continue to possess a distinct, if subtle, politics of women's power.

Recently I had a series of conversations with women ranging in age from seventeen to mid-twenties about women's rights and feminism. While all stopped short of claiming that women and men were equally placed to realise their ambitions, the overwhelming message was that young women are confident that they have the social and personal power to be effective agents in their lives.

Perhaps more to the point, it seems the majority of young women believe feminism is no longer required or relevant to them.

Indeed, young women suggest that feminism is a victim of its own success. One woman to whom I spoke argued that women and men are close to being equally valued and respected today. `In the nineties... there isn't such a big gap as there used to be,' she argued. `Women have fought for so long. In the 1960s and 1970s there was a bigger difference--women were known to be much lower than men. [Now] they're pretty much seen as--nearly seen as equals.'

All of the women I talked to perceive a marked difference in their lives compared to women of previous generations. They refuse, for example, to accept responsibility for the majority of the housework-unlike too many of their mothers and grandmothers. They are also not prepared to drop career aspirations, whether to stay at home with the kids or to satisfy a sexist boyfriend's idea of how a woman should conduct herself.

A tertiary education seems to encourage young women's greater dissatisfaction with gender relations and with women's comparative social disadvantage. Many young women are active members of women's professional networks. They choose to be involved in these groups because they provide forums for addressing issues specifically affecting women working in their fields.

Other tertiary-educated women feel that they are expected to `prove' themselves amongst male students and in the workplace. One twenty-four-year-old accounting student, uncommon amongst her peers, argues that women are still oppressed and that men are responsible. She keenly feels this in relation to her career goals and says it has made her a feminist:

In my own relationships I've experienced that men tend to belittle women, even women of comparable intelligence... Men I've been friends with don't take my career seriously, even though there's a good possibility I'll do everything I want to do. They see my career as a nice idea while it lasts, but I won't make it. They think women will give up their careers for a family--they can't imagine you can have both. Men don't have to prove themselves. They think I have to prove myself because I'm a woman.

She expressed her utter determination to achieve all she has set out for herself:

That means I have to be twice as good as them.

It's important to emphasise that this student, from a middle-class background, is the only young woman I have recently met who describes herself as a feminist. Yet she still has much in common with the other young women discussed above. For one thing, they all agree that the sexual double-standard still exists and they find it extremely annoying. It's encouraging to note, though, that the upcoming generation of women are strikingly sexually confident, and I think that the `70s women's movement has played a vital role here. Young women claim a right to express their sexuality while protecting themselves from unwanted male attentions and unreasonable demands.

Furthermore their confidence is not confined to heterosexual relations. Just as men have become less certain of the social authority which at one time simply followed being male, young women have generally become more self-assured. Whether at work or play, young women are imagining and living their lives with a sense of fewer constraints. Perhaps this is because the material world has improved somewhat for women as women, and because young men are more prepared to share power than in the past.

There are advantages in not constantly looking over your shoulder, but there are also risks. The improvements in young women's circumstances are delicate, and gender relations are always in flux. Gender still matters and the reason for feminism has not yet been erased. There continue to be good reasons for collectively confronting issues as to how we are to live. Even if young women do not deserve the criticism they get from both sides, in the end an individualist solution to the problems that women face as a group is undoubtedly inadequate.

Louise Walker is a postgraduate student in the Department of History at Monash University.