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Is feminism dead? A common belief is that the feminist movement is passé, outdated – exclusively meant for Victorian radicals and 1970s bra-burners. But as last week’s events illustrate, feminism isn’t dead and is not “old news.” This past Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people, including Bruins, participated in the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C.

Participants demanded that the Bush administration support – not curtail – reproductive rights. This kind of activism – direct, topical and ardent – is an important representation of feminism today.

“I really believe that life has been breathed into the activist spirit of this campus,” said march participant Baylee DeCastro, a third-year international development studies student and founder of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.

The march left a lasting mark. According to event organizers, it was the largest women’s rights rally in American history and drew around one million participants, including political figures such as Hillary Clinton, and celebrities Charlize Theron and Whoopi Goldberg.

The rally, organized by seven national groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women, was meant to ensure that women are guaranteed continued access to safe, legal abortions and contraceptives. Rally organizers are committed to the belief of a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices and marchers from across the globe made this point clear.

But some women’s groups don’t consider such issues important. They believe feminism has reached its final plateau. In other words, that feminism has died and the struggle is over. One of the organizations that follows this notion is the Independent Women’s Forum, founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney. The group’s Web site features an article in response to Sunday’s rally titled “Feminists March Toward Irrelevance,” claiming the rally organizers failed to connect with today’s women.

“The feminist war is done. (Groups like Feminist Majority and NOW) want to keep on fighting battles and pretending we haven’t won,” said Carrie Lukas, the Independent Women’s Forum director of policy.

The Independent Women’s Forum contends that college campuses have gone too far and aims to “combat corrosive feminist ideology on campus.”

Lukas criticizes women’s studies programs at universities because, as she says, they “use terrible data and misleading statistics to make women feel like they are victims.”

But women’s studies professors disagree.

“You’ll learn that everybody is a victim but that women are particularly victims,” said Katherine Callen King, a classics professor who teaches a women’s studies class. “(Feminists have) always had to defend our position,” she said.

Feminism is still important, and women’s rights remain fundamental issues.

The March For Women’s Lives was organized because the Bush administration endangers reproductive rights. Immediately after being sworn into presidency, Bush reinstated the global gag rule, which reduced funding for international family care programs, including abortion services. His policies only heightened pressure on women around the globe.

In November 2003, President Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban into law, a measure that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called “a slap in the face to women across America,” according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban makes abortion providers less accessible to the women who need them. Finally, the president signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act earlier this month, which rendered fetuses victims in murder cases and brought the Bush administration one step further in its anti-abortion agenda.

Today, women’s rights are under attack. Precisely for this reason, universities must continue women’s and gender studies programs.

Feminism isn’t dead. But it is different than before. It is true that feminists have accomplished incredible goals in the past century – which include acquiring voting rights, receiving higher wages, showing greater attendance numbers in colleges, and having professional careers. It is also true that feminism today doesn’t inspire the bra-burning frenzy it provoked in the 1970s. But the movement isn’t stagnant or obsolete.

Modern feminist issues still impact every woman, especially now with the current assault on reproductive rights that were formerly taken for granted by young women.

Twenty-first century feminism is actively embracing the changing social and political climate of today – and perhaps groups like UCLA’s Feminist Majority are up to the challenge.

Women made their point clear Sunday: They won’t support efforts that undermine the rights they’ve already won.

Fried is a first-year history student. E-mail her at ifried@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.