Editor's Note: An excerpt from Full Frontal Feminism follows the interview.
As executive editor of the popular blog Feministing.com ("by and for young feminists"), Jessica Valenti has schooled millions of readers on the issues that affect everyday women. Her cadre of feisty female bloggers cover everything from breaking news (the heartbreaking federal abortion ban) to pop culture indignities (sexism in reality TV) with smarts, passion and political aplomb.
As the public face of Feministing, 28-year-old Valenti has helped bring third-wave feminism to the masses. But she doesn't only want to reach the stereotypical feminist suspects (women's studies majors and middle-aged, middle-class white women). In her new book, "Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters," Valenti hopes to pass the political torch to younger women who might feel and act like feminists but be too freaked out to call themselves that. The book is written in a light, sometimes sarcastic tone that aims to make women's rights cool again -- to make feminism a lifestyle as well as a movement.
AlterNet spoke with Valenti via telephone.
Why was writing this book important to you?
It was a natural extension of the stuff I've been doing at Feministing. I've wanted to write something like this for a long time. It was a book I wish I had when I was in high school. So much feminism out there isn't accessible to younger women who aren't in women's studies classes. I [see the book as] a fun, easy intro for younger women who might buy into the stereotypes; something really accessible that girls can talk about with their friends ... So many young women are afraid to get involved in politics; they think they don't know enough to get involved. They have the views but don't have the language.
So you mainly wrote the book for young women who aren't necessarily politically active?
Yeah, I'd say so. But I hope the book will be a refresher for women who already think of themselves as feminists.
Why do you think so many young women hesitate to call themselves feminists?
I think younger women have bought into the stereotypes because the stereotypes are so intense and pervasive. I think most younger women have feminist values; that's where the whole "I'm not a feminist, but ..." syndrome comes in. The language and the word [scares women away from using it]; that's how effective anti-feminist rhetoric has become. It's strategic; they're trying to keep you away from something. What's the best way to keep young women away from something? To tell them it's ugly and uncool, and that boys won't like them if they do it. We need to frame it as someone trying to pull the wool over young women's eyes, or get one over on them.
When did you first start identifying as a feminist? Have you always been politically active?
I've always been a feminist, but I didn't have the language to say so. My mom was a feminist. I didn't start identifying as a feminist until college, in women's studies classes. I was afraid to identify as a feminist at first, partly because I was [afraid of] people confronting me about it, asking what it meant. Then, in college, it was a feeling like 'I wish I had known about this, or gotten involved in this, earlier.' It would have affected my life.
In high school, I talked about feminist issues with my friends, and we were politically active in the ways that high schoolers are. But when you're a younger woman who is loud and opinionated, speaks her mind and is candid, you fall into the trap of believing people when they say you need to quiet down, be ladylike and not talk so much. Finding something that told me it was OK to be loud and candid would have been positive ... something that validated who I was.
What are the three feminist issues you're most passionate about today, and why should people care about them?
The idea of the care crisis: childcare and work/life issues. For younger women, that hasn't been as much of a political priority. It needs to start with younger women, though, instead of us worrying about it later on ...
Also violence against women, which has become so normalized that I find it intensely disturbing.
Also close to my heart is the sexual double standard, and how that affects younger women when it comes to repro rights and violence against women. The abstinence-only education thing falls into that, as well ... the idea that women shouldn't like sex; creating legislation that enforces traditional gender roles, or legislation that says that women shouldn't have a say over what happens to their own bodies ... like the case where the girl was gang raped on video in California.
What's one of the more outrageous or scary pieces of information or research you came across while writing this book?
I don't think anything was that shocking to me. But if you've been posting about different issues every day, writing about this stuff on a bigger scale is intense and horrifying. You'd like to think we had come so far, but as I was putting the book together I was like, "Jesus Christ, this is depressing."
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Laura Barcella is a former associate editor at AlterNet. Her writing has appeared in the Village Voice, Salon.com and the anthology "BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine."
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