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Activist, author gives lecture on focus of feminism

Amy Richards emphasizes everyday stories of women

<p>In her lecture, Richards said many people use the word feminism without knowing what is behind it.</p>

In her lecture, Richards said many people use the word feminism without knowing what is behind it.

Feminist activist and author Amy Richards gave a lecture Wednesday discussing how the feminist movement at times has only focused on the work of well-known, distinguished women.

Her lecture, “The Good Enough Woman,” was sponsored by the Women and Gender Studies Program and the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center.

At times, the feminist movement has only recognized those who do very high-profile, incredible things and has not necessarily focused on the everyday stories of women, Richards said. This influenced her dream job as a young adult and the dreams of her friends as well.

“We only felt that we had to be somebody else because that was proven to be what was good for us. We only had to be exceptional,” Richards said. “I see this still happening today … at the time, when we were projecting what we wanted to be, we could only project to this level of absentness.”

Richards wrote “Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future” and is the president of Soapbox, Inc., a feminist lecture agency. She is also founder of the Third Wave Foundation, a national organization for young feminists, and was a producer of the PBS documentary series “Makers” and an HBO documentary about Gloria Steinem.

In her lecture, Richards said many people use the word feminism without knowing what is behind it.

“Feminism comes with a real medal of responsibility and the responsibility is not to be perfect and not [to] stand up for every act of injustice that you witness,” Richards said. “The responsibility of feminism is that you become mindful of what you’re doing and you become mindful of what is happening in a certain setting and being able to look back on that.”

Richards also said feminism can relate to something as basic as college tuition increases by inspiring institutional change.

“To me, it’s a value statement, again, it’s not an individual, it’s an institution that will allow certain industries to cater to a minority of people,” Richards said. “People always say that with higher education, there’s no incentive to curtail or flatten cost of tuition, because we want it to be elite and yet we will raise millions and millions of dollars more than we need … those are institutional problems.”

Richards ended her talk by asking the audience if they feel like there is a place for them in the feminist movement today and by stating she is frustrated with some established groups and organizations.

First-year College student Anna Wright attended the lecture as part of her Introduction to Women and Gender Studies reflection requirement and said she appreciated Richards’ ideas about accepting differences.

“I think [her ideas were] really important because we compare ourselves to each other all the time and it’s important to accept that everyone is different and has positive things about them,” Wright said. “Looking at other students and comparing yourself … you really don’t understand what’s happening.”

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