Women's Studies International Forum
Volume 33, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 125-133

"When it suits me, I'm a feminist:" International students negotiating feminist representations (Article)

Crossley A.D.*
  • a University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Sociology, 3005 Social Sciences and Media Studies, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9430, United States

Abstract

This paper explores young women international students' negotiation of and resistance to feminist identities. Providing a global context to "I'm not a feminist, but" literature, this research builds on social movements, feminist, postfeminist, third wave, and feminist media literature. Based on individual interviews with thirteen women attending Goldsmiths College, University of London, I find evidence that transnational stereotypes of U.S. feminists are pervasive and contribute to these women's resistance to feminist identities. Despite the interviewees' differing cultural backgrounds, they shared strikingly similar understandings of feminism. Such narrow conceptions of the feminist collective identity stand in opposition to the ways feminism is practiced on a day-today basis, and contribute to a complex negotiation of the feminist identity. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Author Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Index Keywords

United Kingdom England feminism gender identity London [England] university sector student

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-77649341957&doi=10.1016%2fj.wsif.2009.11.003&partnerID=40&md5=f90c001b3fb7026235f12c44e465e2b5

DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2009.11.003
ISSN: 02775395
Cited by: 11
Original Language: English