Baumgardner has long been a fixture of the 1990s third-wave feminist movement, as an activist and author of two books, Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism and Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, both co-written with long-time friend Amy Richards. Last year she also published Look Both Ways, a candid narrative of her bisexual identity.
Having grown up in Fargo, North Dakota, she became actively involved in feminism during her university years at a small liberal arts college in her home state. Soon after graduation, Baumgardner came to New York, to find that her drop-in day at a model agency was sheer “humiliation,” and an audition for Cats was a “cattle call.” She decided to take an unpaid internship at feminist magazine Ms instead, and soon climbed the ladder from coffee maker to staff writer. At the time, she and other feminists like Richards were reassessing what the feminist movement meant to them, and coming to liberal conclusions. “Assumptions about feminism were that you wouldn’t get married or you wouldn’t take your husband’s name, that your kids wouldn’t play with a Barbie doll. We were like — that’s not the point. There isn’t a laundry list of things you do. Even being pro-choice — I don’t think you need to be pro-choice to be a feminist. It’s not the decision you make but the ability to make that decision.” She insists that feminism is not about what she calls the “70s package”; the image of bra-burning, and shunning lipstick and high heels. And it’s not only for women. “It’s the belief in the full political, social and economic equality of all people.”
It was meeting and falling in love with a female intern at Ms that alerted Baumgardner to her bisexuality. She has since had relationships with men and women, including Amy Ray of folk duo The Indigo Girls, who she met while on an assignment for the magazine. “I saw her on MTV and I was looking at them and I was like, ‘Oh my God, those women are so different and I can’t put my finger on it. The minute we met in the lobby it was foretold. It was clear we were attracted to each other.” Baumgardner says it was Ray who finally made her comfortable with her sexuality. She met Skuli’s father soon after that relationship ended, and though they too have split up, he lives close by.
Baumgardner says that she’s sure that there is a fourth wave of feminism underway, and that both transgenderism and technology — “with whatever equalizing capabilities that has” — are at the heart of it. And with that, she’s gone; the feminist provocateur rushing back to take care of her young son.
RSS