In our next IAI Live debate on July 19th, Sonia Poulton, Myriam Francois, Peter Tatchell and Ruth Michaelson will be our panel speakers on The Final Wave. This event is free to those with an IAI subscription, and for those not yet subscribed you can get your tickets here. 

After second wave feminism came a third and then a fourth wave. So, what comes after that? We asked our four speakers the question “What should the future of feminism look like?”

Myriam Francois sees the need for aligning feminism with other related fights for justice, like the recognition of the experiences of the marginalised, but also the need for the reform of capitalism and its exploitative tendencies. Feminism can’t simply be a demand for women to be equally represented in the top echelons of today’s corporate machinery. That machinery itself has to change.

Sonia Poulton on the other hand is adamant that the focus of feminism should remain wholeheartedly on the issues that uniquely afflict women – child brides, female genital mutilation, the sex pay gap - rather than treat feminism as simply an expression of broader social justice concerns for marginalised groups. The need to find common ground between women’s rights and trans rights could not be missing from a discussion about the future of feminism.

Peter Tatchell advocates moving beyond bigoted divisions, and argues that defending trans people from exclusion and hate crimes cannot be achieved by no-platforming.