In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the January 2017 women’s march that followed, and the first months of the Trump administration, many feminists are left asking: What’s next?

In this activity, students are challenged to think about what constitutes a feminist in 2017 and what the next steps should be for the women’s movement.

Ask students to read these four excerpts (PDF) from Susan Chira’s piece “Feminism Lost. Now What?” (If they have time, they should read the entire article.)

The article begins:

This was supposed to be the year of triumph for American women. A year that would cap an arc of progress: Seneca Falls, 1848. The 19th Amendment, 1920. The first female American president, 2017. An inauguration that would usher in a triumvirate of women running major Western democracies. Little girls getting to see a woman in the White House. Instead, for those at the forefront of the women’s movement, there is despair, division and defiance. Hillary Clinton’s loss was feminism’s, too. A man whose behavior toward women is a throwback to pre-feminist days is now setting the tone for the country. The cabinet that Donald J. Trump has nominated includes men — and a few women — with public records hostile to a range of issues at the heart of the women’s movement. A majority of white women voted for him, shattering myths of female solidarity and the belief that demeaning women would make a politician unelectable. More broadly, there is a fear that women’s issues as the movement has defined them — reproductive rights, women’s health, workplace advancement and the fight against sexual harassment, among others — could be trampled or ignored.

After students read the article excerpts, they should write about the following questions:

1. Was the election of Donald Trump as president a setback for feminism? Why or why not?

2. Is feminism a proxy for liberalism? Can a person be politically conservative and a feminist?

3. Should the feminist movement work hard to build bridges across racial and ethnic lines, and fight racism along with sexism?

4. What do you think the future of feminism should look like? For what issues should it fight?

5. Do you want to be a part of the feminist movement? Why or why not? What changes do you want to see, and be a part of, in your lifetime?