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(sultry Eastern music)

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- Feminism for me very powerfully is about being allowed

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to imagine yourself otherwise and differently,

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and then, being able to go out and do that,

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so it\'s about ending economic oppression,

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racial oppression, class oppressions.

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It\'s about being absolutely against all of those things,

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because they stop us,

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as women, as people, from being absolutely free.

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And I know nobody is ever absolutely free,

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but you\'ve got to have a vision.

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(soft Eastern music)

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- More women than ever before are calling themselves

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feminists but there is still a resistance

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for two reasons, I think one is that people

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don\'t know what it means but if you go to the dictionary

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and you find out that a feminist is anybody female

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or male who believes in the full social, economic,

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political equality of women and men, you say, okay.

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But the other problem is that people do know what it means.

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We have to face the fact that this is a revolution,

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not a public relations movement, so there is going to be

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punishment for calling yourself a feminist,

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there is going to be resistance.

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I would only say to women from the bottom of my heart

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that it\'s, however tough it is to call yourself a feminist,

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it\'s tougher not to.

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- Feminism to me is the political movement that is about

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changing the second class status of women,

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making true equality exist between women and men,

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and through that process, actually changing a lot of things

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that we see in the world.

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(soft Eastern music)

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- Equality has been so central to feminism for so long,

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but then whose equality are you talking about?

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Are you talking about let\'s say a poor woman

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being equal to a poor man or a poor woman being equal

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to a rich man or what is it you\'re talking about?

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I think it\'s much more important to be talking about

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women as human beings and women\'s rights as human rights.

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To me, feminism is the most profound political movement

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that has actually ever taken place.

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I recognize that it\'s not an easy thing for people

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to believe in, but it\'s extremely enabling

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and empowering for someone like me.

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- Women are often fearful of calling themselves feminist

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or using the word feminist, the use is terrible euphemism,

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the F word, feminism is a word that\'s somehow going to

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blow you sky high or something.

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(mumbles) It would blow a lot of things sky high.

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But I think it\'s just not possible to be nice

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and to be liked and to be revolutionary

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and to really disrupt and threaten the system,

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and feminism is absolutely a huge, massive, big world threat

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to the system in place.

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(soft Eastern music)

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- In a place like India, there\'s a lot of suspicion

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of the word for various reasons,

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one because it\'s seen as an import of the west with

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a lot of the baggage that it carries with it

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and pictures of strident feminism that people don\'t want

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to be associated with.

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- No more patriarchy, no more shit!

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No more patriarchy, no more shit!

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- The media has quite successfully protracted feminism

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as something that\'s beyond the pale,

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something outside the fringe of acceptable

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and reasonable human conduct.

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The media\'s also been very successful at

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presenting feminism as anti-men.

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You can\'t be at all critical of men without being anti-men.

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- People can\'t seem to imagine a male, female relationship

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that\'s equal so if you are an autonomous, equal person,

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then you can\'t have a relationship with a man

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so you must be a lesbian.

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It\'s also used to silence all women.

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(sultry Eastern music)

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It stands to reason that we all have a stake

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in making the word lesbian an honorable word,

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an alternative that is understood so that we aren\'t

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punished by it because any woman who stands up for herself,

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whether she\'s heterosexual, bisexual, a lesbian

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will be called a lesbian and as long as that word has

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the power to take your job away, to take child custody away,

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to be hurtful in any way then we will all be in danger.

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- There\'s a huge stigma to associated with being a lesbian

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and being called a lesbian.

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And I really do believe that dyke baiting is a central part

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of the fear, the reason that a lot of women

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won\'t accept the term feminism.

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If you ask women on the street whether they would apply

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the term feminism, they would agree with every principle,

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every tenant, every definition of feminism you gave them,

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whether it was equal pay for equal work, blah, blah, blah,

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end violence against women, but they would have a problem

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with the word feminist.

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Now why is that?

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- (sighs) I mean the media has vilified the word feminism.

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You know I was teaching at University of Virginia last year

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in political science and women\'s studies

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and the young women and men would say to me,

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\"Well, why don\'t you change what you call yourself?\"

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We used to call ourselves women\'s liberationists, right,

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and then they called us women\'s libbers, right,

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so I think whatever we call ourselves,

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they\'re gonna vilify that word.

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- I think somehow we assume that we did not have

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to counter mass media\'s representation,

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the belittling of women\'s liberation and feminist movement.

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That somehow, people would just sort of know

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that it was constructed and of course what we found is

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people did not know and that\'s how the every day person

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in our culture learns about feminism,

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not from rushing to their local women\'s bookstore

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and buying tons of books but by what television tells them.

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(upbeat music)

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- I like television more than print because I realize

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that at least I have a fighting chance on television

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of reaching the woman who\'s sitting in her living room

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without being filtered through the mind of a writer.

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And that\'s enormously valuable.

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It certainly has served to spread feminist ideas.

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But it\'s also distorted them in a lot of ways.

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(indistinct radio and crowd chatter)

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- ABC came to me just last week wanting to do a show

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on feminism and then when they found out

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I would talk about race, I was immediately disqualified

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as, oh, she\'s going to bring up something

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that doesn\'t have anything to do with feminism,

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and here you have these white power liberal women,

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white women in charge producing these shows

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but they have an old agenda that says race is one issue

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and feminism is another issue when in fact,

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challenging racism is part of our agenda as feminists.

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(soft music)

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- The media in general is hooked on showing conflict,

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is hooked on describing problems without giving solutions.

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Because they\'re into conflict,

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they show feminism as an irritant

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or as an adversary all the time.

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Instead of showing a feminist dealing with

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the Moral Majority or the Christian Coalition

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or all these folks who are really organized against feminism

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prefer to show two women fighting with each other

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in order to divide and conquer.

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- I keep waiting for the day we\'ll just have one day

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where we\'ll say all women who believe that we don\'t

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wanna see these many women killed today on television

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and those who support us will turn off their TV sets

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for 24 hours, I think it\'s just so sad that people

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have just lost sight of that kind of easy form

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of political activism that doesn\'t require necessarily

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that you leave your house even to challenge

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the portrayal women of all races in mass media.

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- It is about mega huge money, we are talking about

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multi-national corporate interest,

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they do not want their interest to be exposed and revealed

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for the corrupt, shoddy, imperialist, capitalist,

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misogynist things that they are and they are

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and I use all of those words quite, quite,

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quite deliberately but I fl that it\'s our job

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as feminists to expose that, to reveal it, to name it,

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to say how the media actually functions.

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(soft music)

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- There are really, really serious problems

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with the way women are presented in the media

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and pornography is an extreme example of that problem

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that often what pornography presents as titillating

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is really sexual torture.

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(glass breaking)

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If what were being done to animals,

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the Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

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would get it stopped one way or another

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and it wouldn\'t look like censorship somehow.

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- The difference between pornography and erotica

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is present in the words themselves.

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Porne means female slaves,

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thus is material about female slavery

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or men playing the role of female slaves.

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Erotica comes from Eros which has an idea of love,

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free choice, equal pleasure, mutual pleasure,

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so it\'s something very different.

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Pornography and erotica are as different from each other

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as rape is from sex.

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(soft guitar music)

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- We\'re not gonna see effective legal regulation

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of pornography for a number of reasons in the near future.

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One because it\'s such a multi-million dollar industry

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that effective regulation isn\'t gonna happen.

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No matter how much we fight among ourselves

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about theoretically what we should do.

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Another problem is that you\'re not gonna have

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effective regulation because electronic technology

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has developed to the point where it\'s going to be

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very hard to regulate pornography.

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Anybody can copy videos at home,

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anybody can make pornography at home.

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(soft music)

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- Where legislation has been passed around censorship,

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it\'s not the evil pornographic patriarchal pornographers

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that get censored but usually it really affects

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marginal groups, usually progressive groups.

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- Especially now with move tot he right (mumbles)

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the state has the power to censor,

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they\'re going to censor erotica, gay and lesbian erotica,

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feminist erotica, whatever.

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There\'s a potential for society to move in a more

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anti-sexuality direction and then I think the power

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of censorship could be quite scary.

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- I\'m not on the side of censorship.

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I don\'t believe however that freedom of expression

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is an absolute that exists in a non-politicized environment

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where you can say well we uphold it forever.

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I don\'t think it means even when you say you have

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freedom of expression, there are very many people

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who don\'t have that, who don\'t have a voice even,

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so what does it mean for them?

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(soft music)

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- There are many ways, implicitly and explicitly

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in which women are censored under patriarchy

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that many ways in which we are prevented from speaking,

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prevented from expressing ourselves,

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that is what censorship actually is.

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It\'s not just about censoring certain kinds of information,

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it is about preventing people from being able

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to express themselves in ways that they need

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to express themselves to develop their full human capacity.

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(soft music)

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- I don\'t think women with real choices and real economic

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opportunities very often choose prostitution,

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but we\'re going to have sex workers and women working

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in the sex trade as long as women are valued more for sex

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than for other skills.

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You can make more as a prostitute than you can

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as a child care worker.

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That tells you something about the way in which

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a society values women and as long as that\'s true

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you\'re going to have lots of women for economic reasons

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working in the trade.

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(soft music)

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- Certainly in India, it\'s poverty, a lot of poverty

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which has led to women being prostitutes

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and prostitutes are terribly oppressed by their pimps

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and by the police who exploit them,

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use them when they wish to,

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throw them into jail when they wish to.

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(police siren blares)

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- What criminalization does is make these workers

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much more vulnerable, vulnerable to harassment

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by the police and vulnerable to violence

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from customers and pimps who can beat and rape them

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pretty much with impunity, although prostitutes are raped

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more than any other category of women.

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Prostitutes\' rapes are always ignored by the legal system.

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Were prostitution decriminalized,

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you wouldn\'t see an overnight change in it

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but I think you would make a move towards seeing

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prostitutes as legitimate people with real needs

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and who can be violated.

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- We\'re so fearful as women of violence in general

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and sexual violence in particular that it\'s,

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we don\'t even know that we were fearful until it\'s gone.

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I was walking around Tokyo once and realizing

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that I was bigger than most of the men

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and it was the most odd feeling of freedom.

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Now I don\'t think of myself as being afraid,

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but the consciousness is obviously there.

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- I\'m often actually quite scared in my own city, Dublin.

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There are certain parts of the city I don\'t go to

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on my own and yet I would perceive myself as being quite

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big and brave and strong, or able to defend myself

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but that fear is very, very, very difficult

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to get out of your head.

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- When you travel in India, there\'s any number of men

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who will feel you up, so you learn to push them off,

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live with it, you learn to walk on the streets

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holding yourself very carefully and if somebody tries to

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go past on a bike and again, feel you up,

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you shout and scream or something, I used to hit them.

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I used to walk around with a bag with a chain

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and if anybody did that I hit them.

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A couple of times they would hit back,

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but if you\'re able to hit them and they don\'t know what,

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they don\'t expect that kind of reaction.

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- Women are certainly as capable of being violent

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in self-defense as men are.

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But men commit 90% of the violent crimes in North America

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because they are not about self-defense,

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they are about control and about

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proving masculinity and so on.

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It isn\'t that women are more moral or less violent,

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it\'s just that we don\'t have our masculinity to prove.

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(soft Eastern music)

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- Most five year olds probably come very quickly

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to understand watching cartoons in the society that

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violence is an effective means of social control.

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Male violence against women has to be condoned

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because it\'s the lynch pin of sexism, it\'s central to

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any notion of submission and subordination of females

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and rape is one of the most effective means

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of registering one\'s desire to dominate,

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to subordinate, to terrorize.

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(soft Eastern music)

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- The statistics on rape have been growing

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in the last few years.

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It\'s difficult to say whether this is because

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women\'s movement has actually taken up the issue

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in a big way and therefore more women are reporting it

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or more rapes are coming to light, or whether the number

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of rapes are actually growing.

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A large number of these rape by policeman

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and a large number of these rapes are poor rural women.

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If there\'s a woman who has been raped,

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she will not speak about it openly

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and her family won\'t either.

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It\'s almost as if it\'s her fault that she\'s been raped,

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and I think that\'s common across the world.

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- The forcing of another human being to engage

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in sexual activity is the most debasing and horrific

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kind of violence that one person can perpetrate on another.

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Men are raped as well and women are raped

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in a far larger number than men, so I condemn both kinds

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of rape, all kinds of rape, sexual coercion is wrong,

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and it\'s not hysterical to say that,

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it\'s a moral imperative.

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We must say that.

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We\'ve gotta teach people that it\'s wrong.

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That anybody can do that to another human being

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and that others would stand by

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and say well she asked for it indicates that

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something\'s seriously damaged in our psyches.

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That we can tolerate this kind of violence on each other.

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We\'re degraded by every act of rape as human beings.

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- Until we change media presentations of sexuality

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and the way young people think of sexuality,

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it\'s gonna be very hard to really do enough

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about violence against women and I think

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the media feels itself much a conflict of interest

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in dealing with these issue,

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because the media makes a fortune out of sexual violence.

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It\'s therefore in the media\'s interest to present

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sexual violence in a way that isn\'t too threatening,

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and one way in which this is done in the United States

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I think is that anybody who\'s a rapist

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or a sexually violent person has to be pathological.

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Normal men don\'t do this.

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Of course the truth is normal do engage in sexual violence

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in a culture that\'s tolerant of rape,

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and our culture is tolerant of rape.

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- There was a case here in the United States

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in which a woman was tied to the bed by her husband,

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tortured by hours, her breasts were cut with a knife.

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He video taped this, the jury saw it.

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The jury had eight women on it and the jury exonerated him,

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they said he needed help.

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So the impulse in us to take care of men first

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and to fail to identify with the female victim

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because we don\'t wanna admit it could be us

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is a big enemy, a big enemy.

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- You just don\'t need more police departments

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and more prisons, you have to be out in the community

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and in the schools, talking to people and educating people

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about the realities of the problem and intervening

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in violence wherever you can.

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All the statistics that show that people don\'t know

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what to do when their neighbor is being

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beat up by her husband.

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That\'s domestic violence.

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Or that they sit silently by and we walk by in the street

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when a couple is having a heated argument

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and one hits the other.

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I think we should intervene.

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- There are societies in the world with much less violence

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against women and I think it\'s not so much

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because of the counter measures,

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though those are very important,

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but because children are raised in a different way.

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Boys are not taught that they have to be controlling

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or even violent in order to be masculine

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and girls aren\'t taught to put up with it.

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As Olof Palme, a former chief of state

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in Sweden always said, it is the deepest responsibility

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of governments in this world to humanize the gender roles

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because they are the root of violence.

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(children singing in foreign language)

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- I first realized that I wanted to oppose patriarchy

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in my teen years where such incredible distinctions

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were made between what my brother could do,

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the access to privilege and power that he could have

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as opposed to any of us girls.

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That was not based on his age or experience,

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that was simply based on their sense of him as being male

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and therefore entitled.

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I can still remember his 16 and 17 years where it was like,

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oh he\'s sowing his oats or what have you.

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Which of course all we were hearing was

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don\'t bring any babies into this house,

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a whole different construction of our sexualities.

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(soft music)

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In that very woman dominated household,

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females are in the majority but have no power

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and so much power is invested in these other individuals

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who you see do very little to see domestic life going.

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- Well at least in my generation, our mothers often met

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pretty rough fates and that\'s what happened to my mother.

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Her spirit really was broken by not any particularly

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bad person but just the way the world ran.

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She had to give up everything she loved, her profession,

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everything she cared about,

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and she became literally a broken person.

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So it took me awhile to admit that what had happened to her

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was not her fault and therefore to really allow myself

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to totally identify with her.

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- I am the first generation of women in Ireland who are able

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to be feminist on the second wave of feminism.

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Because of course there was feminism,

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in Ireland as elsewhere in Europe and North America

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and elsewhere throughout the world, at the end of the 19th,

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beginning of the 20th centuries

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but then we went into obeyance for all kinds of

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complicated reasons which are remarkably similar

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across the globe, which is quite amazing I think.

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But my mother then grew up in a world in which she had

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to occupy a very narrowly restricted place as a woman.

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- Feminism is always being called the cause of divorce.

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And I always say, no, no, feminism is not

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the cause of divorce, marriage is the cause

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of divorce (chuckling), but it depends what we mean

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by the institution of marriage.

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If we think of it as not a partnership

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but as an institution which is male dominant

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which you take his name, his residence and so on and so on,

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then yeah, feminism is not having a good impact on that,

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I\'m happy to say (chuckles).

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But if you think of it as a loving, mutual,

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shared partnership, then I think it\'s making it

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possible for the first time.

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(soft music)

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- But then if there\'s a divorce, we live in a no fault era

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and any husband is free to walk out at any time

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and get a divorce.

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If that happens, then she has a lower ability

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to earn wages in the labor force,

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and we live in a culture in which she and the children

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are not gonna be given good economic supports.

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- I actually don\'t think anybody ever at a capacity

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owns a child, but if you give birth to this little thing,

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you should actually be prepared to support it

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to the very best of your ability.

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I think it\'s disgusting that men don\'t pay

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their child support.

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They are their children as much as the children

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of the women who\'ve actually born them,

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so they should pay up and they don\'t.

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This is absolutely the global pattern of men not paying up.

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(soft music)

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- I can understand their bitterness perhaps

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towards their ex-wives but why doesn\'t their love

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for their children mean that they\'ll pay child support

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regardless of whether there\'s any enforcement system?

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It\'s very hard I think to understand that.

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(soft music)

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- There has to be a strengthened connection between

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men and children that is just as strong

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as the connection between women and children.

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And we\'re a very long way from that.

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In ongoing marriages, very few men take care of children

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and the home as much as women do even though the women

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also work outside the home.

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- The other thing that we I think have to do

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is to deal with the realities of motherhood in a better way

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as a society than we have.

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I mean daycare is still a luxury for most people,

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and that\'s just preposterous.

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We still expect women to perform the superhuman function

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of working to help support their families and coming home

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and taking care of the husband and the kids.

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So that\'s another kind of economic issue

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that society has yet to deal with

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and I think it\'s a problem the world over.

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(indistinct chatter)

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- When I was first out of college, I had an abortion

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and it was an era when it was illegal here.

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I happened to be in England where it was quasi legal,

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you had to get to physicians to sign saying that you,

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I don\'t know what they signed but anyway (chuckles),

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saying that you would perish without this.

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So I went through the same agonizing that many people do

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and afterwards, because there was no women\'s movement

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for support then, I spent a lot of years trying to

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make myself feel guilty.

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I used to think I ought, and I never could.

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I mean no matter how I tried to make myself feel guilty,

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I couldn\'t and in my heart I knew it was the first time

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that I had really taken responsibility for my own life.

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So for me it was, certainly not a positive experience,

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I wish I hadn\'t needed it, but it was a pivotal

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and constructive experience.

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(sparse dark music)

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- We look so often as if we\'re absolutely focused

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as feminists just on abortion.

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It\'s not that, it\'s because you actually don\'t have

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the means or you sometimes don\'t have the right

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to control your fertility in ways that are going to be

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gentler for your system.

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Because you know abortion is after all

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a surgical intervention so you don\'t go out looking

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for this surgical intervention, but until such time

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as we have those means and they are truly available

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and accessible in a fully educated way for all women to use,

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we are going to have to have abortions

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so they better be legal so women don\'t die.

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- We know that women will get abortions

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whether they\'re legal or not,

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and so you have a situation where there\'s terrible violence

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done to women through illegal abortions which can be

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very easily prevented, unlike male violence against women.

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And if you\'re for making abortion illegal

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then you\'re promoting that kind of violence against women.

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- [Crowd] Lead us not into temptation.

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- What is happening now as even that most basic right

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of abortion is being challenged and questioned,

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we are in the process of having to reclaim

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the initial, more complex discourse around

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reproductive rights, one to remind the world

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that we are not anti-family, in fact the whole move

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to empower women to exercise reproductive rights was about

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how to build better families, healthy families,

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families that are rooted in choice.

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(soft music)

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- We have an ultra right wing that is intent

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on saying that human sexuality is only intended

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for procreation inside marriage,

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so they oppose anything else.

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They oppose birth control, they oppose abortion,

33:28.860 --> 33:32.670
they oppose sexuality between two men or between two women

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and this means they oppose sex education in schools,

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so we see that in North America in general,

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there is about the same degree of sexual activity

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that there is in Scandinavian countries,

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yet in Scandinavian countries, the rate of unwanted births

33:49.670 --> 33:51.813
is a tiny fraction of what it is here.

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- Women are bombarded from the moment of birth almost

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with the message that without children,

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one cannot be fulfilled.

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But I\'m really glad I don\'t have children.

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I\'m happier with my life without children

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than I would have been with children,

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and I sort of lucked out into that,

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that if things had just been different at various points,

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for example, in marriages, I might well have had children

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and I don\'t think that society really gave me

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enough of a choice, presented childlessness

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as a real positive option for women,

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and I think it\'s very important that women not be pressured

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into having children regardless of whether that really is

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going to be most fulfilling for them.

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- Why, why, why is it such an important issue?

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Why are reproductive rights, whether it\'s abortion,

34:48.940 --> 34:51.072
whether it\'s the absence of contraception

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as in Eastern European countries, for example,

34:53.770 --> 34:56.699
whether it\'s issues of sex education

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and forced sterilization, the abuse of hysterectomies,

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whatever it is, why is that so really important?

35:04.939 --> 35:09.287
Because they are so centrally about that autonomy,

35:09.287 --> 35:11.890
the freedom, that independence to live our lives

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in the way we\'ve so diversely determined to live our lives.

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(soft music)

35:38.500 --> 35:40.540
- Nothing that is a concern of women\'s health

35:40.540 --> 35:42.790
has received as much funding, as much attention,

35:42.790 --> 35:46.230
as much research as that which is concerned

35:46.230 --> 35:48.958
with men\'s health, it just is a function of

35:48.958 --> 35:51.630
who is perceived as important

35:51.630 --> 35:54.543
and who makes the decisions and so on.

35:59.740 --> 36:03.456
You see for instance that heart disease is as big a killer

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of women as of men, at least after menopause,

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still the aspirin tests and all these other medications

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have not been tested on women or even on female rats,

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I might add, so (chuckles),

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there\'s really a great distance to go.

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- Proportionately the amount of federal dollars spent

36:24.320 --> 36:28.780
on women\'s health have been minuscule compared to

36:28.780 --> 36:31.610
the proportion of women in the society

36:31.610 --> 36:35.582
and to the overall budget, so because of feminist agitation,

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issues like breast cancer, ovarian cancer are rising

36:39.700 --> 36:41.874
to the top of the research agenda.

36:41.874 --> 36:44.291
(soft music)

36:48.390 --> 36:51.430
- Women are beginning to realize that activism here

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can be incredibly productive and that the need

36:54.780 --> 36:56.820
is so great with respect to cancer research,

36:56.820 --> 37:00.104
because certainly as women approach my age,

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one knows so many women with breast cancer,

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and one realizes how endemic the problem is

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that we really have to make it a very, very high priority

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and I think be willing to do very activist

37:11.770 --> 37:15.195
and disruptive things in order to really force people

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to fund at an appropriate level.

37:17.739 --> 37:20.156
(soft music)

37:28.700 --> 37:32.038
- It was the women\'s health movement that really

37:32.038 --> 37:35.410
called a halt to the unnecessary mastectomies

37:35.410 --> 37:39.070
and all the other bad treatment, so when I was diagnosed

37:39.070 --> 37:42.130
with breast cancer, I certainly had much more advantage

37:42.130 --> 37:47.130
of information than most women and yet I also had to fight

37:47.870 --> 37:51.120
for good treatment, I had to go to Boston actually

37:51.120 --> 37:53.000
because I wanted conservative surgery

37:53.000 --> 37:55.360
and I could see that I wasn\'t going to

37:55.360 --> 37:57.919
get it here in New York.

37:57.919 --> 38:00.270
I probably could have but I would have had

38:00.270 --> 38:04.231
to fight much harder, so if that happens to me

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with the access to information, it certainly happens

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much more to other people.

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(mysterious Eastern music)

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- Many of the most sexist notions held by societies

38:22.750 --> 38:25.141
are embedded in religious tradition.

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Whether it\'s Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam or Judaism,

38:29.170 --> 38:30.570
there are sexist traditions.

38:32.020 --> 38:35.357
In many parts of the world where fundamentalism is growing,

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you\'re seeing these religious movements transform

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those societies in ways that are bad for women,

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in ways that are setting back the gains that have been

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made by the feminist movement.

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(mysterious Eastern music)

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- I come obviously from a culture in which religion

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plays a very important part, the holy Roman Catholic church

39:09.035 --> 39:13.716
has been responsible, ably aided and abetted and reinforced

39:13.716 --> 39:18.716
by the holy Irish Catholic state to keep women in a state

39:19.220 --> 39:23.004
of submission, subordination, fear,

39:23.004 --> 39:27.450
to restrict and constrict and constrain us

39:27.450 --> 39:29.994
in every way that it can possibly think.

39:29.994 --> 39:32.661
(horns honking)

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That means of course that men should have the power

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to actually make sure that women don\'t have any power

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and that we as women should stay in our places

39:43.263 --> 39:46.590
as mothers and man servers.

39:46.590 --> 39:50.748
No of course I don\'t believe in a religion which can

39:50.748 --> 39:54.610
actually mind fuck people to that kind of extent.

39:54.610 --> 39:58.228
No I won\'t subscribe to it, I won\'t support it in any way.

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(soft music)

40:05.020 --> 40:08.083
- I was raised Catholic but I\'m not religious now.

40:09.123 --> 40:12.680
I think it\'s very hard although not necessarily impossible

40:12.680 --> 40:16.277
for women to stay within traditional mainstream religions

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and be feminist.

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To stay Catholic and a feminist, which I know many women do,

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and I really respect them, I think it\'s so important

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that women continue to do it, but it\'s beyond what I can do.

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(indistinct whispering)

40:31.730 --> 40:34.570
- I come from a family which is Sikh and Hindu.

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If at all we believed in any religion,

40:36.400 --> 40:39.680
it\'s the Sikh religion because it\'s a more egalitarian one.

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And the only time that we actually subscribed to it

40:42.730 --> 40:45.000
was when my grandmother used to come to live with us.

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She was very religious, and so we\'d pull out

40:47.740 --> 40:50.550
all our religious books and have them there when she came.

40:50.550 --> 40:53.320
And I enjoyed as a child going to the Sikh temple

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because you get into a whole social thing

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of listening to the wonderful music and so on,

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but I\'m not particularly religious.

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(mysterious Eastern music)

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Still, the ritual of religious practice enabled women

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at least to get out of the house,

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have a space where they can sing and be together

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and talk in a temple.

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It\'s not great, but it\'s something,

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it\'s more than they have,

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so I think I wouldn\'t knock religion,

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even though I don\'t subscribe to it myself.

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- I\'m not a religious person, I\'m a spiritual person.

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The difference for me is that religion is a structure

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which has been, not all the time, but much of the time,

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extremely political.

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It has made God look like the ruling class,

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it has put rules in the sky, in the fact,

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put politics in the sky.

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To me spirituality is something very different

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because it\'s empowering to the individual

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instead of crippling, it\'s saying there is God inside

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each persona and each living thing.

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(mysterious Eastern music)

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- There has been a tendency for the white dominated

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European and North America movement to globalize

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its world view and say the status of women should be thus,

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because it\'s so in our country.

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- There seems to be an assumption that the way things happen

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in North America is the way they ought to be

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happening everywhere else throughout the world.

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That\'s not so, it would be an extremely boring world

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if that were the case and a very limited one,

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so I do feel occasionally that kind of

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unthinking imperialism.

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- On the other hand, there\'s been a tendency I think

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among women in other parts of the world to defend practices

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that I think are indefensible.

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I mean female circumcision.

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I don\'t understand.

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Struggle with me, I don\'t understand why women

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would defend that, and that may be a deeply held

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and cherished cultural tradition.

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It\'s still torture.

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So there\'s a tension between respecting cultural differences

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and talking about a problem from a

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truly pro-woman perspective.

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- It\'s wonderful to be able to step out of your culture

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and talk to the woman from a completely different culture

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but know you have something in common.

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But it\'s really saddening to see that the expectations

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are that you will reach where they are.

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I don\'t want to reach where western feminists sell.

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I\'m really happy reaching where many

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of my compatriots want to reach.

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(people applauding)

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- Race and class divide women from each other

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in ways that make coalitions that we need desperately,

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very difficult to achieve.

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White women of course tend to see things from

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the perspective of white women, tend not to realize that

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that\'s what they\'re doing, tend to set an agenda

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that\'s really a white woman\'s agenda without realizing it.

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- One of the things I find with this issue too

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is that white women get very hurt.

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That as soon as women of color start talking about racism,

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white women take it personally, and I actually saw this

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in my class with men, young men,

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as soon as you start talking about discrimination

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against women, young men take it personally.

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They say, \"Well it wasn\'t my fault,

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\"it was my father\'s fault.\"

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And it\'s the same thing with white women.

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A lot of white women seem to think that if

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a woman of color says there\'s racism in this organization,

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then that women is accusing you of being a racist.

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My attitude is, if someone says that something I said

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is racist, then I\'ll look at that

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and maybe I did say something racist

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and then I\'ll apologize for it.

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- We have divisions among us as women

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and those divisions are based on political ideology,

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on economic difference, on racial difference,

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so we may all be women and we may all be feminists,

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but we don\'t necessarily all like each other,

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agree with each other, trust each other, or get along.

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I think that it\'s a complete myth to think that

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any political movement is going to have unanimity,

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or uniformity on every issue.

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Feminism does not.

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- People often say about the feminist movement

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that it\'s very fragmented, that it\'s finished

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because you don\'t see it as holding together.

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I\'m an eternal optimist, I prefer to look

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at what people see as fragmentation as diversification

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and as enrichment, that it\'s going

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in many different directions and you can see

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its influence spreading, (mumbles) everywhere.

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- We made those waves by working together

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to build a movement which is inclusive, militant,

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highly visible, ongoing, and yes, truly fucking pissed off.

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(crowd cheering)

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- Right now probably central issues fighting the

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right-wing and social agenda because if the right-wing

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is successful and they\'re being successful,

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that is, turning a deficit reduction into a holy war

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on the deficit so that nothing else matters

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but the bottom line, then all the social services

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which have been incredibly important in terms of

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women\'s equality are gonna get destroyed.

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Access to post-secondary education for women

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is gonna be limited and a lot of the gains

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that we made, well they\'re not being rolled back

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in the name of driving women back into the home

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or an anti-feminist, explicitly anti-feminist motivation,

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they\'re being driven back by a right-wing economic

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and political agenda.

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- The question is how do we take it to another level?

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How do we maintain the passion for justice

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that was so much of the heart of that early

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women\'s movement, that took its pedagogy for liberation

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from black power struggle and how we can bring

47:16.060 --> 47:21.060
that centrality of justice, that anti-racist, anti-sexist,

47:21.648 --> 47:26.648
anti-class hierarchy agenda back to the forefront

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in such a way that people are more committed

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to sacrifice and struggle on its behalf.

47:33.360 --> 47:35.777
(soft music)

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- There has been a law in India in last few years

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which is that in village political bodies,

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which it\'s always been an all-male body,

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now it has to have 30% reservation for women,

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and it is potentially a tremendously empowering thing,

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because all over the country now there are women

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who understand elections and who are being prepared

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by women\'s groups to go into leadership,

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so the discussions are being held, they\'re being trained

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and so on and I think if that really comes through,

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there\'s going to be a tremendous change,

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because if you have power at the grassroots level,

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there\'s a lot that can be done.

48:15.579 --> 48:17.996
(soft music)

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- I would like to think that third wave feminism

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would be global.

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That it would be this international wave that would

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finally link all the different women\'s movements

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and feminist movements around the world together

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into a human rights movement.

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The feminist movement has accomplished nothing less

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than a major revolution in the lives of women.

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I think it\'s been amazing.

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It has opened up possibilities to women and girls

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that never existed before.

48:50.560 --> 48:55.560
It has created the potential for men to change

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their understanding of themselves as fathers,

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as brothers, as lovers.

49:01.370 --> 49:03.787
(soft music)

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I feel very encouraged and excited about what feminism

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has accomplished \'cause I\'ve seen a change in my life.

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It has touched my life in a very personal way.

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- When I was in high school, even in university,

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women worked for pin money, even though 30%,

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35% of women were in the workforce then,

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much against mythology.

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I was told women can\'t be doctors, women can\'t be lawyers,

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we should be a teacher, nurse.

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You couldn\'t go out to a restaurant by yourself

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or a bar without everybody assuming you were there

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to be picked up.

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It\'s impossible practically to explain and I try,

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I try to explain when I was teaching my classes

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what it was like when I was young.

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And I feel like this old woman

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and I\'m not that old, you know?

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We\'re talking 25, 30 years ago, and so there\'s been

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an enormous transformation in attitude.

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That\'s been the biggest change, I think the attitude.

50:11.014 --> 50:13.431
(soft music)

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- Maybe one day somebody will be sitting in a movie

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like this one trying very hard to convince viewers

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that once upon a time, there were societies in which

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people\'s whole human futures were dictated

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by how much melanin was in their skin,

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or people really thought that one\'s genitals

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dictated your brain, and people will be watching

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and saying, oh give me a break.

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I don\'t believe that.

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There\'s enormous amount to do and probably many more waves

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before we\'ll be done.

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It\'s begun and I think it\'s irresistible.

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- It\'s a way of seeing the world in relationships

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in the world and it\'s a way of being and acting

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and being able to act and be in the world

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that we as women are, and are entitled to be

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fully active in whatever spheres we like.

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That comes to us from feminism.

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We did not pick it up off up the street.

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We weren\'t born with that knowledge.

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We\'ve had to invent and create that knowledge for ourselves

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and that I think is one of its great, great,

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great achievements which can never be taken away

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from feminism or from women, \'cause once you learn it,

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it\'s something that you never forget.

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(soft music)