In the summer of 1998, Time magazine asked, “Is Feminism Dead?” In reality, it was very much alive. On the margins of mainstream media coverage, lesbians, women of color, and international coalitions were paving the way for 21st-century feminism, including the 2017 Women’s March and the #MeToo movement.

On today’s show, guest host Nan Enstad explores this untold history of 90s feminism and its connection to our current moment with historian Lisa Levenstein. “I set out to research feminism in the 90s,” says Levenstein, “but the story I found was about women of color, working-class women, and LGBT activists.” And this vast and sprawling movement two decades ago, she argues, gives us insight into how we can mobilize today under an intersectional banner.

Lisa Levenstein is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where her research focuses on women and gender studies, transnational and U.S. feminism, and postwar social movements. She is the author of A Movement Without Marches: African American Women and the Politics of Poverty in Postwar Philadelphia (UNC Press, 2009) and They Didn’t See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties (Basic Books, 2020).

Cover photo of the DC Women’s March by chloe s. on Unsplash