Gloria Steinem’s Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992) closes with a personal affirmation for the reader:

“We are so many selves. It’s not just the long-ago child within us who needs tenderness and inclusion, but the person we were last year, wanted to be yesterday, tried to become in one job or in one winter, in one love affair or in one house where even now, we can close our eyes and smell the rooms. What brings together these ever-shifting selves of infinite reactions and returnings [sic] is this: There is always one true inner voice. Trust it.”

Steinem argues that our “true self” changes over the years. The challenge is to discover one’s true voice and to listen to it…or her. Women’s collective embrace of this inner voice would fuel social change. I was struck by how outdated this call to arms sounded, when I recently picked up Steinem’s book off my shelf. The idea that listening to our inner voices would lead to an increase in self-esteem sounded so white, so pre-post-colonialism and second wave. And yet self-esteem was considered a political issue in the 1970s. What are we to make of this change? What has been lost (and gained) alongside this search self-esteem?

Self-esteem was one of the keywords of Canadian feminist organizing in the 1980s. The concept is now so taken for granted that it is a staple of women’s magazines, cosmetic campaigns and even sports coverage, where I recently saw an NFL footballer opine that it had taken him quite awhile to regain his self-esteem after an injury. The term was popularized by William James who’s Principles of Psychology (1890) argued that self-esteem “is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities.” By the end of the 20th century, self-esteem was more than a descriptive term, it was something that a well-adjusted person should have. Developing self-esteem became a critical concern of the boomer generation. The importance of self-esteem was taken up in the late 1960s and 1970s by adherents of the “human potential movement.” At encounter groups, Esalin workshops and erhard seminars training (est) participants learned that self-actualization was the key to success in relationships and employment.

Distinctly feminist interpretations of self-esteem emerged in the 1970s. Women came together to discuss their experiences, sharing their insecurities about their appearance and relationships. Gaining self-esteem and claiming power was one of the solutions offered to everyday experiences of sexism. A number of popular feminist texts of this period, including Fat is a Feminist Issue (1979), further popularized the idea that women’s lack of self-esteem was the result of sense of powerlessness in the world. As problems like anorexia, bulimia, compulsive eating and chronic dieting were “discovered” in the 1980s, they too, were attributed to low-self-esteem. Health activists and professionals successfully harnessed concern over the impact of low self-esteem in the 1980s. Women’s health centres and community health programs promoting self-esteem began to be offered fee. This practice, of community health program targeted at girls and women, continues. The Toronto District School Board recently announced Project GO (Girls Only) an after school project promoting self-esteem in female students.

Feminisms’ impact on Canadian and American women’s self-esteem and happiness has recently been the subject of debate. A study by University of Pennsylvania researchers Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers suggests that while, “the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years…measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men.” Slate DoubleEX blogger Christine Rosen suggested this was evidence of the failure of feminisms promise of greater freedom and happiness to women.

According to Rosen, the problem is that women have become too self-involved. Her complaint is that “Facebook feminism” relies too heavily on symbolic support for political causes, consumption and, cue the Madonna reference, superficial icons of female empowerment. For Rosen, social networking is evidence of our inability to connect to the “real” problems facing women in other countries.

Though Rosen’s post got me thinking about self-esteem and self-involvement, I think she is wrong to suggest that feminist popular culture is superficial. Lifestyle feminism – “this is what a feminist looks like” t-shirts, mommy blogs, breast cancer campaigns and the like – are among a range of ongoing campaigns on gender issues, but not the only ones. Rather than judging the way that some women express their feminism, or lamenting (once again) the death of second-wave feminism, it is important to keep the conversation going.

If anything, feminist popular culture is suggestive of the success of campaigns for self-esteem. Confidence, self-esteem, fulfilling our “potentialities” is not tantamount to talking about “real” feminist topics all the time. Rather, 1970s and 1980s campaigns for self-esteem have given my generation the freedom to say anything, and sometimes everything, online.

One caveat: I am happy to smell the rooms, and embrace the changes in my life alongside Steinem, but I don’t think there is such a thing as one inner voice. The complexity we face – with happiness, self-esteem, consumption and so on – is that there are many voices, many truths, many inner voices. What has been gained alongside self-esteem is an understanding of the complexity and depth of the self, rather than its singularity.