Jennifer Baumgardner

In the prologue of Manifesta, the two authors recall the most vital achievements of women's liberation, which can be credited to the 2nd Wave of Feminists of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

Jennifer Baumgardner (born 1970) is a writer, activist, filmmaker, and lecturer whose work explores abortion, sex, bisexuality, rape, single parenthood, and women's power.

"The Third Wave grew out of an enormous cultural shift. By the late 1980s, a cohort of women and men who'd been raised with the gains, theories, flaws, and backlash of the feminist movement were beginning to come of age. Whether or not these individual men and women were raised by self-described feminists—or called themselves feminists—they were living feminist lives: Females were playing sports and running marathons, taking charge of their sex lives, being educated in greater numbers than men, running for office, and working outside the home. For those who were consciously feminist, the splits of the 1980s formed the architecture of their theories. Kimberlé Crenshaw's description of 'intersectionality' drew on the work of the Combahee River Collective and advanced the idea that gender might be just one of many entry points for feminism.

The Third Wave rejected the idea of a shared political priority list or even a set of issues one must espouse to be feminist.

It inherited critiques of sexist dominant culture (having grown up in a feminist-influenced civilization) and embraced and created pop culture that supported women, from Queen Latifah to Bell hooks to Riot Grrrl.

Girlie feminists created magazines and fashion statements (and complicated the idea of what a feminist might look like).

Sex positivity undermined the notion that porn and sex work are inherently demeaning, and revealed a glimpse of The Range of potential sexual expression.

Trans feminism, both the idea (much of it from Judith Butler) that gender is performed and a growing belief that gender exists on a spectrum, complicated the legitimacy of women-only spaces as sites of unadulterated liberation.

Reclaiming words like 'slut' and 'girl' was as urgent as protests had been.

Transparency about whether a feminist had worked out her body image issues, felt upset by an abortion, or believed that any hair could be unwanted replaced strong, black-and-white statements.

Activists spoke from personal places, not to overshare, but to tell the truth about their lives and what had happened to them.

Third Wave feminism was portable—you didn't have to go to a meeting to be feminist; you could bring feminism into any room you entered.

Where the Second Wave radicals believed in mass movement and the liberal feminists believed in creating women's institutions to influence men's, a Third Waver might say, 'Every time I move, I make a women's movement,' indicating a feminism that is more individually driven.

Institutions like NOW and Ms. magazine attenuated, in part because Third Wave feminists didn't need any members to be feminist."

She attended Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, graduating in 1992.

While at Lawrence, she helped organize an anti-war "Guerrilla Theater," led a feminist group on campus, and co-founded an alternative newspaper called The Other that focused on intersectional issues of liberation.

She moved to New York City after graduation and in 1993 began working as an unpaid intern for Ms. magazine.

They broke up in 1996, but the relationship inspired her to write the memoir Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics.

By 1997 she had become the youngest editor at Ms.

While working at Ms., Baumgardner fell in love with a female intern, Anastasia.

In 1997 she began dating Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls; the couple broke up in 2002.

She currently lives in New York with her husband Michael and two sons, Skuli and Magnus.

Baumgardner left Ms. in 1998 and began writing independently for magazines and news organizations, including the New York Times and NPR.

She has since written for numerous magazines, including Glamour, The Nation, Babble, More, and Maxim.

Her books include Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism written with Amy Richards, and Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics.

On October 4, 2000 Baumgardner and Amy Richards published their first co-authored book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future.

Speaking directly to young third wave feminists, Baumgardner and Richards wrote the book to inspire women of the current generation to consciously embrace the liberation of today while remembering the work of previous feminist generations, writing:

"Consciousness among women is what caused this [change], and consciousness, one's ability to open their (sic) mind to the fact that male domination does affect the women of our generation, is what we need... The presence of feminism in our lives is taken for granted. For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice we have it—it's simply in the water."

Prologue: A Day Without Feminism

In 2003, the Commonwealth Club of California hailed her in their centennial year as one of six "Visionaries for the 21st Century," commenting that "in her role as author and activist, [Jennifer has] permanently changed the way people think about feminism...and will shape the next 100 years of politics and culture."

Through public appearances, books, articles, and film, Baumgardner promoted a positive, matter-of-fact, and accessible approach to speaking publicly about controversial issues—which she referred to as "common-but-silenced" —such as abortion, rape, and sexuality.

Called "dependably attentive to the gray areas around divisive issues, " this "simple" approach also elicits criticism of her work from feminists and other who find her "off-puttingly naive".

In 2004 she produced the documentary film Speak Out: I Had an Abortion, which tells the story of ten women's abortion experiences from the 1920s to the present, including the reproductive justice architect Loretta Ross, feminist and journalist Gloria Steinem, and activist Florence Rice.

She has written about purity balls (rituals celebrating virginity), Catholic hospitals taking over secular ones and eliminating their reproductive services, rape, and breastfeeding her friend's son.

Baumgardner's work has been featured on shows from The Oprah Winfrey Show to NPR's Talk of the Nation, as well as in the New York Times, BBC News Hour, Bitch, and various other venues.

She has keynoted at more than 250 universities, organizations, and conferences, including the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, Amherst College, Take Back The Night UW-Madison, and the New Jersey Women and Gender Studies Consortium.

In her 2009 collection of essays entitled F 'em: Goo Goo, Gaga, and Some Thoughts on Balls, Baumgardner described the Third Wave she helped to define and represent:

From 2013 to 2017, she served as the Executive Director/Publisher at The Feminist Press at the City University of New York (CUNY), a feminist institution founded by Florence Howe in 1970.

She is most known for her contribution to the development of third-wave feminism.

Baumgardner grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, the middle of three daughters.