When I was in grad school in the early 1960s, there were two women professors there who were feminists from an earlier era. I didn't want to know anything about them. I just wasn't interested. She says it took an awakening on her part to realize that those earlier, forgotten feminists mattered, and that the trials they suffered continue to be relevant to women. The women's movement has been waxing and waning for centuries, she says.
Feminism ebbs and flows.
Waves come and get pushed back. There's a movement and it opens up a certain amount of space, and young women enjoy it. But at some point the space starts closing in and they have to get aware. That's why she keeps plugging away in her tireless effort to transform the world to a matriarchal paradigm. Sooner or later, she figures, women will cycle back around.