Not Waves but Ripples: Re-Worlding and Counter-Worlding of Intergenerational Feminism

• In Event: Being Irresponsible: A Feminist Undoing of Academic Research

Abstract

In this paper, we presented an empirical work derived from the WomenWeLove Project and inspired by the storyworlding methodology. In exploring a central question, how we became feminists and what enabled us to encounter each other in the Feminist Research Collective, we engaged in a move of re-worlding and counter-worlding toward an intergenerational feminism.

A collaborative effort between two friends and colleagues, this paper examines the interconnectedness of feminism through space and time. We collected the stories of our feminine ancestry through lifestory interviews with our own mothers and grandmothers to better understand our feminist journeys. Utilizing a dialogic reflective process, we shared our family history with each other noting the similarities and differences. As a Chinese-born woman and an American-born Jewish woman both living in the United States, we contextualized these stories within the socio-cultural histories of the time. Sharing these stories allowed us to dig deeper into our own becoming, incorporating personal reflection in the data collection process.

Through this empirical work, we demonstrate the possibility of re-worlding from a feminist stance. In particular, we focus on rethinking the canonical narrative of feminist movements as three different waves. Feminists in the new century have been keen in pointing out the missing pieces and limitations of this canonized and western-centric wave narrative (Goodman, 2019; Delap, 2020). Going beyond the chronological accounts of waves, scholars of different disciplines have experimented with alternative approaches to tell feminist stories (eg. Delap’s theme-based account of global feminisms, 2020). What we have presented here is an endeavor to start with microscopic personal and intergenerational stories at the same time with the macro, cultural, and sociopolitical ramifications in view. We suggest that, instead of waves, a re-worlding effort could work with the metaphor of ripples, as each of the ordinary women’s lives is like a ripple in the sea. At first sight, they may seem trivial and discrete, yet for the women who maintain intimate, and in these cases, family relationships with them, they are significant and far-reaching. As Virginia Woolf writes, “we think back through our mothers if we are women” (Woolf, 2019[1929]), it is the lives of our mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers that have paved the way for us to become feminists.

In our paper, we show that recollecting and recounting the stories of women we love simultaneously allows us to understand ourselves and feminisms better. As meanings of the stories emerged from this iterative process, we become together as we weave together the two strands of stories. Re-worlding takes place from the starting point of this endeavor but particularly salient when we extend the meaning of each set of the stories through embracing the other set of the stories.

Authors

• Samantha Silberstein, University of North Carolina - Wilmington

• Pengfei Zhao, University of Florida