As I read the Terror Dream tonight I realized that while I understood the plight of feminism in a post-911 America, I didn't really understand what feminism was like before 911. Women won the right to vote decades ago, as well as the right to own property and have a job, so what exactly were feminists fighting for? I've decided to embark on a mini study of feminism in the United states in the 1990s. I lived through the nineties, yet my breadth of knowledge on what women out there, and some men I'm sure, were fighting to provide me with, is very limited. I'm also interested in examining what manifests when feminism is Googled in a few different ways.

I will begin my search by typing "american feminism 1990s" into Google. The first few pages are wikipedia articles, which I'm choosing to skip as I worry the articles could easily be biased or inaccurate. What I did extract from the blurb below the first wikipedia link was the term "postmodern feminists." Since we're living in the postmodern age, I'm refining my search and using "postmodern feminists America" as my second search. The first yielded very few fruitful results, and as I now find so does the second. Besides for Wikipedia articles, the sites elicited are ultra specific, focusing on particular groups of feminists such as black feminists or Argentine feminists. I broadened my search to "feminism america" and immediately found more promising results.

The first page I'm examining is for the organization Feminists for Life. They have various different sayings or apparent motivations of people who should join the group on their mission page. A few of them are, "If you reject violence and exploitation," "If you refuse to choose between women and children," and "If you believe no woman should be forced to choose between sacrificing her education and career plans and sacrificing her child." The website appears to focus on giving women the right or support to be educated and to work as well as to have a family. I immediately wonder what the website is fighting for. Are they hoping to give support to women who struggle with societal pressures to choose between life in the workplace and life in the home? Do they hope to push for harsher laws punishing husbands or boyfriends who beat women? What's interesting is that the top of the browser reads "Feminists for Life - Pro Woman Pro Life. The term "pro life," carries serious weight as it is ubiquitously applied to people who are anti-abortion. Is this a group of feminists who believe abortion is wrong?Apparently that is exactly what this site is about. After reading all the, "if you ares..." there is a small link to the page that uses the actual term abortion. In all honesty the website was terribly vague before this page.

Even after I clicked on the "FFL's mission," page I had to study the site to find the actual mission. These women believe that abortion rates in America are a sign of society not giving women what they need. It confuses me how abortion connects to societal neglect of women. It seems that giving women the choice for abortion is recognizing them as being fully capable of controlling their reproductive lives. At the same time, I wonder if societal pressures make women feel that having a child will interfere in their work lives and prevent them from having a career. I wonder how this site views teenage pregnancy, which often leads to women being incapable of finishing high school let alone going to college and entering a profession they desire. This website has given me valuable information on the reach of feminism. Women in large numbers are capable of being feminists and being pro-choice.

I do wonder though when this group was created. According to Susan Faludi, the post-911 America has increasingly encouraged women to return to the home, to have children and families, and let their husbands work and protect their livelihood and happiness. Is this site a post-911 compromise between feminists and American sentiments? Is it a unification of women who want women to feel they can have a career and have children, and anti-abortion, and in some ways pro family, feeling.

I next Google "American feminism," and at the very bottom of the page I found a site with quotes from a book about American feminism titled, "American Feminism: A Contemporary History" by Ginette Castro. A few quotes that popped out to me were as follows, "Consciousness-raising has continued because of the perpetual nature of the issues involved, and analysis of these issues has gradually become much more profound. The first of these is the socioeconomic oppression of women...," "The second issue that has retained the attention of feminist thinkers is sexuality...," and "The third issue addressed by feminist theorists has been the cultural oppression of women." These quotes helped me to understand a few of the goals of feminism in America. I'm not sure what decade these issues refer to, but they seem to be continual issues facing women. Also, the topic of sexuality was not freely talked about until later in the twentieth century so I can figure that these aims of feminism were similar to those of feminists in the 1990s pre-911 America. Also the book says the issues are perpetual which contributes to my belief that these quotes are a decent summary of American feminist aims in the 1990s. I wonder, of course, what socioeconomic oppression of women the author perceives in America, and how exactly women are oppressed sexually. I'm quite interested to know what these issues are, and how feminists in America are combatting these problems.

The patterns in feminism throughout the ages seem to be based on similar goals. Although at one point in time feminists were fighting for the legal right to do various things, social injustices still pervade our culture. Percentages of distribution of female and male executives and leaders in the workplace still tip significantly towards the side of men. Feminists in pre-911 America seemed to be fighting to lift these percentages, to see change in the workplace, and to also lift societal pressures on woman that constantly push them to change and conform. Some members of our society view women who work and have kids in a negative light. Some members of society pressure women to be thinner or to change their looks in some way. Of course, our society puts pressure on men to conform and change, but it seems that only feminism has taken a serious punch since 911.