New generation of feminists to march for reproductive rights

Some young women say many their age take abortion rights for granted.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
At 6 a.m. Sunday, Stav Birnbaum, a 32-year-old Web site developer in New York, will hop in her dad's Subaru and drive to Washington for something that hasn't happened here in 12 years: a big march for women's rights.
She will come alone, but not for lack of looking for companions. Two friends had already booked trips elsewhere. Another has midterms. If there were a greater sense of urgency about the issues -- most centrally, the right to abortion -- wouldn't they have dropped everything and marched? "Definitely," Birnbaum says. "But it's not like abortion is going to be illegal tomorrow, which is why some people don't see it as so important."
For every young woman who shrugs, there are others packing buses and cars and planes and heading to Washington. March organizers predict hundreds of thousands of people will attend, and they point to the hundreds of buses from college campuses as a sign that young women -- the ones born well after 1973, when abortion was legalized -- are engaged.
Goals of march
The march's primary goal is to raise alarm over the steady erosion of reproductive rights in the last decade -- and the possibility that the right to abortion could vanish altogether if President Bush is re-elected and can replace crucial Supreme Court justices.
But just as important, organizers say, is the effort to mobilize the next generation of leaders at a time when "feminism" has evolved far from its radical '60s roots.
"The world is so different now," says Sara Evans, a historian of the women's movement at the University of Minnesota.
"The people who started this wave of feminism came of age in a world that was before Roe vs. Wade [which legalized abortion] and when married women couldn't get credit in their own names, when medical and law schools routinely had quotas for women of about 5 percent, when want ads openly discriminated against women."
Those barriers have come down; parts of feminism have merged into the mainstream, such as the expectation that most women will work and have families, that men will take a greater role in rearing children, that society is more careful about using language that explicitly excludes women.
Key issues
The next generation of women leaders will face surges from two directions, Evans says. One is the focus of Sunday's march: stanching the curtailment of women's reproductive rights in the United States and globally. The other centers on the work-family crunch, "that the world is telling you you should be able to do anything you want, but the reality is that you may pay a heavy price," says Evans.
"On college campuses, what really resonates is conversation about emergency contraceptives, and access to those," says Katy Quissell, a campus organizer for the group Feminist Majority. "These are young women becoming sexually active for the first time, hearing about friends who have had condoms break or been sexually assaulted."
Some of the young women preparing for Sunday's march laugh at the old notions of feminism -- the combat-boot-wearing, nonshaving man-haters who probably never existed in large numbers but nevertheless fulfill a popular stereotype. Outside the National Press Club this week before a march press conference, attractive young women handed out march fliers and sported T-shirts that announced "This is what a feminist looks like."
Concerns for humanity
For many of the women involved, it's not about looks, it's about the future of humanity -- male and female, across the globe.
"To me, feminism extends beyond equality and even beyond gender," says Heather Bradley, who is majoring in women's studies and Latin American studies at George Washington University. "It's also about family planning globally, and LGBTQ rights," she adds, using the acronym for lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered people, and those questioning their sexuality.
But even at her college, located in the heart of Washington, D.C., Bradley admits "we haven't moved beyond" slamming feminists. "Among men here, feminist is still a dirty word. It makes most of them feel a little insecure."
Sara Johnson, a medical student at the University of California in San Diego, will fly out to join a contingent of about 500 medical students representing the next generation of abortion providers. Johnson isn't sure if she will perform abortions as part of her eventual practice, but she's considering it.
No sense of urgency
Johnson also notes that even in that elite, educated world of medical school, there is no sense of urgency among most students who support abortion rights that those rights are being curtailed or could even be overturned. "Many of the students consider themselves pro-choice, but they think the issue is settled and don't need to worry," she says.