Abstract

"Passing on Feminism" examines generational discourses that have circulated around North American feminisms since the turn of the twentieth century but particularly from the early 1970S until 2008. It reflects upon the ways relationships between feminists and feminist histories and theories have been represented by and reproduced through the use of generational frames and wave metaphors, and critiques these frameworks in terms of what is ultimately passed on via their use. Chapter One considers generational discourses as affective narratives steeped in often competing understandings of what it means to pass on feminism. The second chapter locates these discourses within a broader context of what constitutes "legitimate" feminist history and historiography, while Chapter Three delineates feminisms' "problem of generations" as one constructed in multiple spheres simultaneously: the personal, the scholarly, and the public. Chapter Four analyzes thirty-eight years of generational discourses as disseminated by The Globe and Mail , noting the repetition of news frames used to discuss feminisms from 1970 to the present time, while the final chapter contrasts that data by bringing over-looked feminist discourses to light. Together, these chapters articulate generational debates as struggles over not only what has already been passed down , but also about what the association between feminisms' past, present and future conveys; raising the question, of course, of which feminisms ultimately count and which ones get passed over in the process.