Everywhere and Nowhere ─ Contemporary Feminism in the United States

Challenging the idea that feminism in the United States is dead or in decline, Everywhere and Nowhere examines the contours of contemporary feminism. Through a nuanced investigation of three feminist communities, Jo Reger shows how contemporary feminists react to the local environment currently shaping their identities, tactics, discourse, and relations with other feminist generations. By moving the analysis to the community level, Reger illustrates how feminism is simultaneously absent from the national, popular culture--"nowhere"--and diffused into the foundations of American culture--"everywhere." Reger addresses some of the most debated topics concerning feminists in the twenty-first century. How do contemporary feminists think of the second-wave generation? Has contemporary feminism succeeded in addressing racism and classism, and created a more inclusive movement? How are contemporary feminists dealing with their legacy of gender, sex, and sexuality in a world of fluid identity and queer politics? The answers, she finds, vary by community.

Everywhere and Nowhere offers a clear, empirical analysis of the state of contemporary feminism while also revealing the fascinating and increasingly complex development of community-level feminist groups in the United States.

Jo Reger is an associate professor of sociology and the director of the Women and Gender studies program at Oakland University in Michigan. She is the editor of Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women's Movement and a co-editor of Identity Work in Social Movements.