After decades of breaking through “glass ceilings,” female veterans of the gender equality war are calling on their younger counterparts to finish the job.

“We went around breaking every glass ceiling we could find,” former Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt said of her peers in the 1960s and 1970s.

But today, with so many obstacles already overcome, Feldt said she watches young women unable to identify with feminism and confused by their own social roles.

Two recent lectures on the Tempe campus featured feminist leaders and women’s studies experts who identified the current state of gender inequality as one in flux.

On Oct. 13, the School of Social Transformation brought together a panel of four multi-generational women with different views on feminism, including Feldt.

Thursday, the ASU Diversity Scholars Series presented psychologist and women’s studies scholar Alice Eagly’s research on women in leadership positions.

Visiting lecturers, ASU professors and students agree that women’s roles in society today are drastically unlike those of women 20, 30 and 40 years ago — but more needs to be done to achieve equality.

The call to youth

Feldt said the cause of young feminists’ disconnection is not for lack of support but for lack of awareness.

With all the strides women have made, many think the battle is over, she said.

“They win,” she said, “and they become a little timid.”

Feldt’s co-panelist and editor of blog Feministing.com Courtney Martin, 27, said she once shied away from identifying with feminism because it was a popular movement in her parents’ time.

“Young people need to see themselves reflected in a movement,” Martin said. For example, she said, President Barack Obama’s popularity spiked when celebrities who appeal to youth, like Will.i.am, signed on.

With the mixed messages and disconnected silence from young feminists, Feldt and Martin asked: How will people come together today to fight for the rights still needed to achieve equality?

A divided workforce

Mirna Lattouf, a women’s studies lecturer in the College of Letters and Sciences, said she currently sees young women struggling with making choices that women before them never had.

“Today, the struggle for young women is the pursuit of career, the pursuit of family and the pursuit of recognition in the social sphere,” she said. “Up until very recently, women were conditioned to go to college just to find a husband.”

Now, Lattouf said her students often view modern feminism with a “culturally negative” bias.

What she tries to emphasize to these students is the idea of feminism as a social struggle, much like movement for racial equality, she said.

“It’s about choice and equity,” Lattouf said. “Do we have as many choices as men and are they equitable?”

Today’s most prominent gender inequality, Lattouf said, is bias in the workplace.

In 2007, the average woman made only 78 cents to a man’s $1, according to a report by the National Women’s Law Center.

When women do rise to higher-paying positions, Lattouf said, companies are not always accommodating of their needs.

“We do not have a reasonable time in this country for maternity leave.

We see pregnancy as an illness,” she said, adding that fathers are also shortchanged by the lack of time provided to new parents.

Temporary strides?

Psychologist and traveling lecturer Alice Eagley said women in higher positions also face psychological barriers.

There is inconsistency in how female leaders are received, Eagley said, which is reflected in how women approach leadership roles.

“On one hand you’re supposed to be the leader,” she said. “But on the other hand, you don’t get out of being a woman. You don’t get to shed your sex when you go to work.”

For many companies, the need to provide maternity leave also sways hiring decisions — something college women seeking employment need to be concerned about, Lattouf said.

“In the workplace, most organizations are going to look at profits first,” she said.

The recession has only accentuated companies’ gender biases, Lattouf said.

Because more men have higher-paying jobs than women, more men have lost their jobs, causing them to stay at home while women work, Lattouf said.

“We see a shift in domestic work being done by whoever’s home,” she said. “Somebody has to be working, and somebody has to be the caregiver.”

Now that signs are pointing to economic recovery, Lattouf said she wonders if the men who became primary caregivers when they lost their jobs will feel the need to maintain their at-home roles.

“When the men do go back to work, will their roles go back as well?” she said.

Fighting for women’s rights

Women and gender studies sophomore and co-director of ASU Womyn’s Coalition Sarah Norman interned with Planned Parenthood last semester and witnessed what she called the biggest issue facing Arizona women — the fight for reproductive rights.

The coalition, an umbrella network of organizations on campus like VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood, sees a pressing need on campus to make reproductive rights a priority, Norman said.

Norman, who is also earning a degree in justice studies, said the biggest blow to securing reproductive rights was state legislation passed last year that introduced new policies into the abortion process, including a 24-hour waiting period between the consultation and procedure, the reading of patients’ rights and ensuring that doctors — as opposed to Planned Parenthood’s nurse practitioners — perform abortion procedures.

Planned Parenthood is also no longer allowed to screen the personalities of potential employees, leading many anti-abortion activists to secretly push their agendas as employees of the organization, Norman said.

These policies ultimately hurt women who are confused about their
options and seeking information about the procedures, Norman said.

“When college women are in that position, they ask themselves so many hard questions,” she said. “And for those [anti-abortion activists], it’s never about the woman.”

The issue lies in the government’s treatment of citizens and citizens’ rights, she said.

Though some aspects of government control have changed over the years — like voting rights — many more haven’t, she said.

“Over time we see the government trying to control more and more people,” she said.

Still, the young activist said the solution needs to come from the people first and the government second.

“Everyone’s ideals have to change before the institutions change,” she said.

Blayne Bennett, a finance senior and president of the Network of Enlightened Women at ASU, said she agrees that reproductive rights are on the minds of young women but that abortion goes beyond women’s issues.

“Abortion is not only a concern of college women but a concern for our entire society,” she said. “It’s more pressing of an issue for the generation of unborn children.”

Bennett said the abortion debate stems from a larger issue — the stress put on young women.

“The biggest issue facing college women is the pressure from society to make so many choices,” she said. That pressure makes women feel they must make life-altering decisions at a quick pace, she said.

“It’s gone from ‘you can be anything’ to ‘you must be everything.’ A woman must be career-oriented and successful, but also sexy and a supermom,” Bennett said. “We need to develop a sense of confidence and identity so that we can overcome those images society forces us into.”

Student action

As a director for Womyn’s Coalition, Norman said she seeks to build the much-needed singular voice for her generation’s feminist movement.

The organization is planning a “Love Your Body” day on Oct. 28 as an event to encourage positive self-image — something Norman said is at the heart of women’s issues.

“It’s really important to educate our communities about positive image and how to eat and how to eat right,” Norman said. “It’s not addressed in our schools, it’s not addressed in our communities. It’s become a trend where it’s acceptable to joke about things like bulimia.”

Norman said she hopes these self-image issues will also be addressed by a new women’s center being created by the Womyn’s Coalition with support from the Undergraduate Student Government.

“We’re just so happy that this is finally getting attention,” she said. “[This year’s USG is] the first student government at ASU to take initiative and to acknowledge that women’s issues exist.”

Norman said her vision for the center is “a safe space on campus that resonates and identifies with women.”

This, she said, includes having a staff of professionals who could assist women with personal issues as well as professional skills, like writing resumes.

Norman formerly worked for USG, helping to plan and propose the center.

When the plan for the center lost part of the Womyn’s Coalition vision, she resigned from USG and became an adviser for the center’s planning instead.

The differing visions for the center provide another example of how the fight for women’s rights is burdened with mixed messages and influences, she said. The key to creating a unified message is to understand there is more work left to do, Norman said.

“I don’t think women’s issues are getting enough attention,” she said. “Many feminists feel the fight is over.”

Gloria Feldt said this complacency must be combated with a vocal, unified mission from today’s generation to finish the work that her generation set out to do.

“The doors are open,” Feldt said. “But it’s up to us — it’s up to you — to walk through them for good.”

Reach the reporter at jessica.testa@asu.edu.