"Oh! Dogma (Up Yours!)": Surfing the Third Wave

Abstract

As the present moment/youngest generation of the feminist movement, the "third wave" generation is suffering from Baby Sister Syndrome. While more and more young women are identifying as feministâthanks to the lingering influence of Riot Grrrl culture, and the spice-y "girl power" ethos it helped usher inâboth the popular media and older generations within the women's movement itself simply cannot dismiss them fast enough. Third wave women in the arts are labeled "Postfeminists," "Do-me Feminists," and "Bad Girls" by the media, and their various activist statements are compared, inexplicably, alongside those of thirty, forty, one hundred years earlierâwith regard for neither their logic within the feminist continuum nor the extra-movement influences that have shaped third wave sensibilities. These are young women whose femaleness was informed by rock, by punk, by a do-it-yourself ethos in which anything went as long as you came out with what you felt was some real grasp on yourself and your power when you emerged. Third wave artists and musicians don't fit into a traditional feminist "party line," largely because they understand that there never was one in the first place. Abandoning an academic tone in honor of the subject at hand, in this essay I address the influence of pop culture upon third wave feminism in hopes of putting some of this generation's unique perspectives into context. Blending autobiography and 80s pop and punk history, I also address the ways in which the pluralistic ideals of the era's constructionist feminism were well-suited to our pop education. This pluralism would give many of us a language through which we might put such guilty pleasures into perspective, defend the transformative appeal of heroines beyond The Earth Goddess, and even wade into the useful pool of essentialist thought without fear of being drowned there. Through this analysis, I hope to make steps toward helping bridge the gap between young feminist artists and their foremothers, as young women struggle to make their predecessors' victories and challenges relevant to their own lives.