The State of Feminism

I've been thinking a lot about what is foundational in feminism, what are the core values? And it's ultimately universal human needs, like equality, freedom, freedom of choice, safety, joy, being able to live lives of pleasure. And I think most people resonate with that. And throughout time and space, we've seen when these values, when these human needs are under attack, there's resistance. Whenever there are forces of oppression, there are forces of resistance. And that gives me a lot of hope.

It's not always in the name of feminism. Like, my family is from Iran, and the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement of a couple of years ago continues in forms of daily resistance, mostly led by young women. But it really was and has been very intergenerational — people of all genders, across religious secular divides — which has been incredible to see. And I would say that most people on the ground aren't saying that this is a “feminist" movement, but it is in so many ways a feminist movement. So I've been thinking a lot about how do we connect across these differences? The movement in Iran looks the way it does because it needs to within that context; it can't look like the movement here. And yet, fundamentally, we're talking about the same stuff and we're dealing with the same structures of authoritarianism. So how do we connect across that, whether or not "feminism" is used as the term, but that, again, the values underpinning the work are so similar?

These remarks have been edited for clarity and length. Portions of these remarks appeared at Women’s Media Center.