The Four Waves of Feminism
Feminism is one of the oldest movements in global history. There’s no single definition, but feminism is essentially about ending gender discrimination and bringing about gender equality. Within this goal, there are many types of feminism. Instead of describing them in isolation from each other, feminism can be divided into four “waves.” The wave metaphor is the most common explanation for feminism’s movements, but it is still an oversimplification of a complicated history of values, ideas, and people that are often in conflict with each other. The history of feminism is also not as linear as the wave metaphor indicates, but is much messier. There are many sub-movements building on and sometimes clashing with each other. While the concept of waves may not tell the whole story, it provides an outline to help us understand and discuss feminism.
The first wave
The first wave in the late 19th-century was not the first appearance of feminist ideals, but it was the first real political movement for the Western world. In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published the revolutionary Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In 1848, about 200 women met in a church. They came up with 12 resolutions asking for specific rights, such as the right to vote. Reproductive rights also became an important issue for early feminists. After years of feminist activism, the U.S. Congress finally passed the 19th amendment in 1920 and gave women the vote.
The second wave
Second-wave feminism took place in the 1960s and ‘70s. It built on first-wave feminism and challenged what women’s role in society should be. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War, activists focused on the institutions that held women back. This meant taking a closer look at why women were oppressed. Traditional gender and family roles were questioned. Queer theory became more established. There were major victories in this era including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Roe v. Wade in 1973, and other Supreme Court cases.
Three main types of feminism emerged: mainstream/liberal, radical, and cultural. Mainstream feminism focused on institutional reforms, which meant reducing gender discrimination, giving women access to male-dominated spaces, and promoting equality. Radical feminism wanted to reshape society entirely, saying that the system was inherently patriarchal and only an overhaul would bring liberation. It resisted the belief that men and women were basically the same. Cultural feminism taught that there’s a “female essence” that’s distinct from men.
The third wave
Thanks to the institutional victories of second-wave feminism, women enjoyed more rights and power going into the 1990s. They were able to think about other aspects of their identity, welcoming individuality and rebellion. This was an era of reclaiming. Important cultural touchstones include Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, the Guerilla Girls, and punk rock riot grrls. Many women more freely expressed their sexuality in how they spoke, dressed, and acted. This sometimes bewildered 2nd-wave feminists, many of whom had resisted traditional femininity. While many ideas and mini-movements swirled around, the one “rule” was that there weren’t rules. A woman should choose how she lived her life.
Third-wave feminism also became more conscious of race. While mainstream first and second-wave feminism had largely ignored or neglected racial disparities within gender, the Third wave paid more attention. When the internet became more commonplace, it was even easier to hear perspectives and ideas from feminists around the world. Feminism was expanding.
The fourth wave
Some people think we’re still in the third wave of feminism since the fourth wave isn’t so much of a shift as the continued growth of the movement. However, with the MeToo movement and a resurgence of attacks on women’s rights, many believe we’re living in a new wave. Social media activism has propelled the movement firmly into the technological age. It builds on the third wave’s emphasis on inclusivity and asks hard questions about what empowerment, equality, and freedom really mean.
Many fourth-wave feminists are working to combat issues of exclusion that have pervaded all waves of feminism, emphasizing the importance of intersectionality. As with every wave before it, the fourth wave is complex, encompassing many movements that both complement and clash with each other.
(Adapted from "Types of Feminism: The Four Waves" from Human Rights Careers)
AudreLorde | © Rooturu/WikiCommonsAudre Lorde
A Caribbean-American writer and self-described, ‘black, lesbian, warrior, mother, poet.’ She dedicated her life’s work to confronting issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia. She was especially critical of white women’ persistent blindness to their own privilege, and her writing raised awareness about the ways identity prejudices play out in daily life. She encouraged people react against it.
bell hooks | © Montikamoss/WikiCommons
bell hooks is the pen name for Gloria Jean Watkins. hooks is a postmodern feminist thinker and writer whose work focuses on issues of capitalism, race, and gender, and how the three interact and operate as driving forces of oppression within society. She also emphasizes the need for diversity and recognition of intersectional within feminism. She is known for having an informal writing style that makes her work more accessible to and inclusive of a broader audience.
Simone de Beauvoir with Antonio Nuñez, Che Guevara, and Jean-Paul Sarte | © Alberto Korda
Known for her intellectual brilliance, Simone de Beauvoir is the famed companion of existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre. She first emerged on the scene of feminism in France after the publication of The Second Sex in 1949. In this book, she explains how society defines woman as the object or ‘other,’ and man as the subject. This conceptualization has vast repercussions in terms of our identities and interactions, things that play out on a macro level and ultimately affect culture as a whole. She was a pioneer in the realms of feminist theory at large, as well as feminist existentialism
Betty Friedan | © Fred Palumbo/WikiCommons
Betty Friedan is the author of The Feminine Mystique. The book discusses the phenomenon of women in industrial societies that put their husbands’ careers and education ahead of their own, and were subsequently vulnerable as homemakers in the wake of death or divorce. She believed this way of life was stifling and empowered women to gain independence. With a background in psychology, Her work is believed to have helped launch the Women’s Rights Movement of the 1970s.
Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality,’ She discussed how the feminist movement was dominated by the voices and perspectives of educated white women, Her work led to greater efforts to reform feminism into a more inclusive and diverse coalition of people with many different perspectives.
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is a feminist thinker and philosopher who is largely connected with developing queer theory, an offshoot of gender studies that serves to deconstruct our notions of gender around a binary. Butler regards gender as a performance rather than an identity. Butler has also been active in global affairs and has been a vocal supporter of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Black Lives Matter Movement in the U.S.
Historically, there has been a focus on equality and women's rights in the U.S. from the perspective of white cisgender women, while women with other identities have been sidelined or made invisible within the feminist movement.
Intersectional Feminism, a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, is the understanding of how women's overlapping identities — including race, class, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation — impact the way they experience oppression and discrimination. For example, while the gender wage gap affects women as a group, that gap is significantly larger for most women of color (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018) . Also, transgender women are more likely to be victims of murder, and that number climbs for trans women of color
"Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects." -Kimberlé Crenshaw
"Intersectionality is such a vital framework for understanding systems of power, because ‘woman’ is not a catchall category that alone defines all our relationships to power. The work towards women’s rights must be intersectional – any feminism that purely represents the experiences of white, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual etc. women will fail to achieve equality for all. - Zoe Samudzi
" 'Woman' does not refer to a single unified concept... The different aspects of our identity intersect — white women’s experiences as women are partly defined by their race, just like black women’s experiences are, it’s just that it’s easier for white women to ignore their race. So if 'feminism' is supposed to represent 'women' it has to attend to those differences." -Nancy J. Hirschmann, Director of the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality
"There isn't just one 'feminism. There are 'feminisims.' "White women need to recognize that gender isn't a single category. There is a need to acknowledge underrepresented women and domestic groups that have different histories and are at a tremendous disadvantage." -Ruth Enid Zambrana, Director of the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity at the University of Maryland.
Image courtesy of HumanRightsCareers.com
