International Women’s Day participants at URI yesterday included graduate student Barkisu Cole, in foreground, and, in background, Ludivica Almeida, left, and Cassandra Santos. The three were preparing for a dance routine.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

KINGSTON Amy Richards, who claims to be a third-wave feminist, says the history of feminism for most people goes like this: “First they got the right to vote, Eleanor Roosevelt did something, and then the ’70s came along.”

As keynote speaker for International Women’s Day at the University of Rhode Island, Richards traced the history of feminism to its current form and, in answering the question “Can I Be A Feminist And … Shave My Legs, Have A Boyfriend, Be A Man,” dealt with many misconceptions about the women’s rights movement.

Her message was that you can be yourself and still be a feminist.

Billed with Jennifer Baumgardner, her coauthor for Manifesta: Young Women Feminism and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism, Richards explained that she was speaking alone so Baumgardner could represent the duo at a memorial service for their mutual mentor, Barbara Seaman, who wrote the 1969 book The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill and co-founded the National Women’s Health Network.

Richards, a mother of two who is not married but lives with her life partner, their father, described the circumstances of her birth, to a single mother in 1970, saying: “In many ways I was a feminist in utero.”

She has worked for Gloria Steinem and Ms. Magazine, is an advocate for Planned Parenthood New York City and started the Third Wave Foundation, which identifies itself as a feminist activist organization that works nationally to support young women and transgender youth ages 15 to 30.

“One thing Gloria showed me is I didn’t have to stop being who I was,” Richards said.

The first wave of feminism, she said, was Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, realizing, in Richards’ words, “We’re fighting so hard for black Americans to have these rights that we as women don’t even have.” It took 73 years to get women the right to vote.

Then Alice Paul in 1920 wrote the Equal Rights Amendment, “which has still yet to pass.”

“But so much legislation passed,” Richards said, like “Title IX, that prevents discriminatory practices in resource allocation on college campuses, the Equal Pay act, more subtle things warning labels on pills,” which Seaman helped bring about.

In the second wave of feminism, she said, women demanded “what we needed to live in a more just society.” Back then, breast cancer testing was done only on men, single people couldn’t get the pill, abortions were illegal.

“What the women’s movement did so well was give names to what had previously been unnamed,” she said, such as date rape and battered woman.

“The second wave is still going strong,” she said. “It’s still alive and in action.”

Today, she said, the way to honor the legacy of those feminists is to play team sports, run for president, fight for health-care legislation, get the pill or other reproductive technologies and use it.

The next phase of women’s organizations needs men, she said. “They’re our brothers, sons, lovers. We need them to be our allies, we also need them because they have a lot more power than we do, in the boards, on tenure committees.

“Men need to be feminists on our behalf, and on their own behalf.” She cited the work of the Ready, Willing and Able organization, which began by helping men transitioning out of prison have relationships with their children, get health care and adopt healthy lifestyles.

She would like the significance of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, to be seen as giving women authority over their reproductive lives.

“It’s as much about their right to continue a pregnancy if they choose as to terminate a pregnancy, if that’s what they choose.”

Today, she said, the question should be: “Do I have the right to take away rights from women?”

Can I be a feminist and be pro-life? Yes, she said, suggesting that feminists who oppose abortions could “work on better prenatal testing, birth control, better access to health care, providing homes” for babies of unwanted pregnancies and working “to expand the constituency” for adoptions of mixed-race babies.

Can I be a feminist and be religious? She said feminists began to realize that instead of feeling complete, “now I feel conflicted that I’m not participating in my religion.”

A review of many of the world’s religions, she said, showed “it isn’t the religion, it’s the interpretation” that put women in intolerable conditions.

She also wants to retire the debate about women working or not working, saying it “minimizes the importance that parenting affects all our lives.”

The significance of this historical moment, she said, is when that women find themselves asking “how do we simultaneously play the game that society gives to us … how do we invisibly change the rules?”

dnaylor@projo.com