Finding Common Feminist Ground: The Role of the Next Generation in Shaping Feminist Legal Theory

This article explores the ways in which current feminist frameworks are dividing the women’s movement along generational lines, thereby inhibiting progress in the struggle for gender equality. Third-wave feminists, or the generation of feminists that came of age in the 1990s and continues today, have been criticized for focusing on personal stories of oppression and failing to influence feminist legal theory. Yet this critique presupposes that third-wave feminism is fundamentally different from the feminism of past generations. In contrast, this article argues that third-wave feminism is rooted in the feminist legal theory developed in the prior generation. This article demonstrates that the third-wave appears to be failing to influence feminist legal theory not because it is theoretically different, but because third-wave feminists approach activism in such a different way. For example, third-wavers envision “women’s issues” broadly, and rely on new tactics such as online organizing. Using the case study of Spark, a nonprofit organization employing third-wave activism to support global grassroots women’s organizations, this article provides a model of this new brand of feminism in practice. This article proposes the adoption of social justice feminism, which advocates casting a broader feminist net to capture those who have been traditionally neglected by the women’s movement, such as low-income women and women of color. Social justice feminism is a way to broaden the focus from a rights-based approach to an examination of the dynamics of power and privilege that continue to shape women’s lives even when legal rights to equality have been won. Adopting social justice feminism can be a way to bridge second- and third-wave feminism and create a more robust and unified feminist movement, thereby mending the divisions that currently prevent unification in the women’s movement

A roadmap to surgery in osteogenesis imperfecta: results of an international collaboration of patient organizations and interdisciplinary care teams

Background and purpose - Involvement of patient organizations is steadily increasing in guidelines for treatment of various diseases and conditions for better care from the patient's viewpoint and better comparability of outcomes. For this reason, the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Federation Europe and the Care4BrittleBones Foundation convened an interdisciplinary task force of 3 members from patient organizations and 12 healthcare professionals from recognized centers for interdisciplinary care for children and adults with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) to develop guidelines for a basic roadmap to surgery in OI.Methods - All information from 9 telephone conferences, expert consultations, and face-to-face meetings during the International Conference for Quality of Life for Osteogenesis Imperfecta 2019 was used by the task force to define themes and associated recommendations.Results - Consensus on recommendations was reached within 4 themes: the interdisciplinary approach, the surgical decision-making conversation, surgical technique guidelines for OI, and the feedback loop after surgery.Interpretation - The basic guidelines of this roadmap for the interdisciplinary approach to surgical care in children and adults with OI is expected to improve standardization of clinical practice and comparability of outcomes across treatment centers

Finding Common Feminist Ground: The Role of the Next Generation in Shaping Feminist Legal Theory

This article explores the ways in which current feminist frameworks are dividing the women’s movement along generational lines, thereby inhibiting progress in the struggle for gender equality. Third-wave feminists, or the generation of feminists that came of age in the 1990s and continues today, have been criticized for focusing on personal stories of oppression and failing to influence feminist legal theory. Yet this critique presupposes that third-wave feminism is fundamentally different from the feminism of past generations. In contrast, this article argues that third-wave feminism is rooted in the feminist legal theory developed in the prior generation. This article demonstrates that the third-wave appears to be failing to influence feminist legal theory not because it is theoretically different, but because third-wave feminists approach activism in such a different way. For example, third-wavers envision “women’s issues” broadly, and rely on new tactics such as online organizing. Using the case study of Spark, a nonprofit organization employing third-wave activism to support global grassroots women’s organizations, this article provides a model of this new brand of feminism in practice. This article proposes the adoption of social justice feminism, which advocates casting a broader feminist net to capture those who have been traditionally neglected by the women’s movement, such as low-income women and women of color. Social justice feminism is a way to broaden the focus from a rights-based approach to an examination of the dynamics of power and privilege that continue to shape women’s lives even when legal rights to equality have been won. Adopting social justice feminism can be a way to bridge second- and third-wave feminism and create a more robust and unified feminist movement, thereby mending the divisions that currently prevent unification in the women’s movement