Feminism's Fourth Wave

A new activist movement is gathering women across faiths

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, California psychotherapist Kathlyn Schaaf was overwhelmed by a powerful thought. Watching the violent images on television, she suddenly felt the time had come to "gather the women." She wasn't alone. Schaaf and 11 others who shared her response soon created Gather the Women, a Web site and communications hub that 5,000 women have used to chronicle their local events in support of world peace. As women assembled near the pyramids in Egypt and held potluck dinners in Alaska, staged candlelight vigils and other rituals in countries around the world, it confirmed Schaaf's gut instinct that an untapped reserve of energy "lies like oil beneath the common ground the women share."

Since then, the group has organized a series of congresses to connect women's groups. Their work is one example of a new kind feminism, slowly growing for a decade and now bursting out everywhere. At its heart lies a new kind of political activism that's guided and sustained by spirituality. Some are calling it the long-awaited "fourth wave" of feminism -- a fusion of spirituality and social justice reminiscent of the American civil rights movement and Gandhi's call for nonviolent change.

This phenomenon is most visible in the popular conferences organized by women spiritual and religious leaders. Just as important are those meeting privately to meditate and pray, to study the world, and to support each other in social action. These gatherings share a commitment to a universal spirituality that affirms women's bonds across ethnic and religious boundaries. They're also exploring a new feminine paradigm of power that's based on tolerance, mutuality, and reverence for nature -- values they now see as crucial to curing the global pathologies of poverty and war.

Previous advances in American feminism have rarely happened smoothly; the gains of one generation have often both shaped and conflicted with the ambitions of the next. First-wave feminists fought for women's suffrage. Led in the 1970s by icons like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, a second wave pushed for economic and legal gains. Their ideals would eventually clash with the spirited individualism of third-wave feminists, women in their 20s and 30s who still advocate for women's rights while embracing a "girlie culture" that celebrates sex, men, gay culture, and clothes.

But as never before, today's conservative political environment has united women across the feminist spectrum. The result differs from earlier forms of feminism in several ways. For one, it espouses a new activism based not in anger, but in joy. It also tends to be focused outward, beyond the individual to wider issues, often global in scope. In the words of author Carol Lee Flinders, "Feminism catches fire when it draws on its inherent spirituality," which means something else can happen as well. "When you get Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi women all practicing their faith in the same room," she recently said, "another religion emerges, which is feminine spirituality."