from Mira Schor's essay "The ism that dare not speak its name"

There is no doubt that public identification as a feminist does carry risk. Young women are often afraid of the word, even when they are drawn to the concepts. They want to be at the center. Who wouldn't? And, largely because of feminist activism and feminism's analysis of societal hierarchies, this has become an achievable goal. But feminism is seen as by definition speaking from the margin, for the margin. Thus, by extension, the center is not feminist and will not reward overt demonstrations of feminism. Unfortunately, this analysis of the risk of feminism is probably accurate, but surely it describes a devil's bargain that only reinforces the continued necessity for strong feminist identification and action. And, further, embracing the nonfeminist center also carries a risk for the woman artist: that the new postgendered universal of the center turns out to be the (male) universal of the past in which only feminist specificity can spare a woman artist from being subsumed by a male-oriented art history.