Fourth-Wave Feminist
Feminist writer Jessica Valenti, whose sixth book was a New York Times bestseller, has rather surprising advice for college students: Don’t be afraid to fail!
While visiting campuses for speaking engagements, Valenti, who flunked out of Tulane University after one year, meets a lot of students hellbent on success. “They’re so hard on themselves when they fail. The reason I ended up successful is that I failed miserably my freshman year. It took me a minute to figure out my next step. Just because you mess up, doesn’t reflect on what the rest of your life will look like,” she says.
After the Tulane debacle, Valenti regrouped. She realized that she’d failed because she couldn’t tolerate the conservative political climate of the private Southern university. “I was a New York City girl, and Tulane was a culture shock for me.”
Valenti’s 1997 transfer to UAlbany, where she double majored in women’s studies and English, opened the door to a brand-new chapter in her life. “Always outspoken about sexism,” she discovered her passion in the Department of Women’s Studies. Under the tutelage of Dr. Vivian Ng, Valenti participated in the Women’s Studies Teaching Collaborative, which enables undergraduates to teach entry-level women’s-studies classes.
“That was super-formative for me,” Valenti remembers, “a very pivotal experience.” Teaching helped her zero in on her identity. “It wasn’t until I joined the collaborative that I realized, ‘I am absolutely a feminist; this is absolutely who I am.’”
The experience bolstered Valenti in other ways. “It was the chance to take a leadership position. It raised my self-confidence and made me realize how competent I was.” Teaching also convinced her that she wanted to attend grad school. “I wasn’t quite done. I didn’t quite know yet what I wanted to work at,” notes Valenti.
She earned a master’s in women’s and gender studies at Rutgers; then, in 2004, she and her sister Vanessa founded the highly successful blog Feministing. Valenti blossomed as a writer and editor and built a huge social-media platform. Soon, she had a contract to write Full Frontal Feminism, which remains her best-selling book. By the time Valenti left Feministing in 2010, she had written three books and edited a fourth, an anthology.
Today, writing for numerous outlets, including The Guardian US, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The Nation, Valenti is regarded as one of the most influential feminist voices of her generation. She considers herself part of the Fourth Wave of feminism, which mushroomed on the Internet. Unlike the Third Wave, in which women’s groups like NOW set out very specific issues they considered important, the Fourth Wave is “decentralized and happening very organically,” she observes. “It’s not just one platform that all feminists agree on. It’s made up of multiple and parallel waves, with many conversations that are constantly moving and evolving.”
It’s no surprise to Valenti that the #MeToo movement exploded when it did. “Trump made women mad, but also, the infrastructure was there, thanks to online feminists connected via social media.”
It used to be that “feminism” was very much a divisive word, Valenti recalls, “and certainly not as popular as it is today. But now, feminism is probably the most powerful cultural movement going.”
Looking back, Valenti admits she’s not sure she would have become a writer if she hadn’t gone through the women’s-studies program. “Actually, I don’t think I would have recognized myself as a feminist if I hadn’t ended up at Albany,” she adds.