1st wave:
The first wave of feminism (or the suffragette movement) was during the 19th and early 20th century. It primarily focused on gaining women the right to vote, and other legal issues. The movement stemmed from “Unmarried women [being] seen as the property of their fathers, and married women the property of their husbands. They didn’t have the ability to file for divorce or be granted custody of their children” (source), among other things. Women were treated as second class citizens. This wave’s main concern was gaining rights for upper class white women. The last state to ratify the 19th Amendment (granting white women the right to vote) was Tennessee in 1920. The movement ended with the ratification of this amendment, which shows the exclusivity of the wave as a whole. Women of color and lower class women were still greatly oppressed, and still couldn’t vote. Overall, first wave feminists believe that women should be united in their “womanness” or “sisterhood”, and they valued biological sex highly when judging how they feel about a person.
2nd wave:
The second wave of feminism was around the 1960’s-80’s and focused on more than just legislative changes. This wave began when women returned to housework and were fired from jobs to be replaced by men after the second world war. Women resisted this after having a taste of liberation through being in the workforce and free from male domination. Issues like workplace safety, reproductive rights, rape, and domestic violence were at the forefront of this movement. The second wave is thought to have begun when a book titled The Femenine Mystique was published, discussing “the problem that has no name” (the unhappiness of housewives and women in general). The push for women to remain in the household doing “menial tasks... result[ed] in a loss of identity and individuality” (source). Notable reforms during this era include the Women’s Educational Equality Act, Title X, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. “The outlaw of marital rape by all states in 1993 and the legalization of no-fault divorce greatly reduced the dependence of wives on their husbands and gave them the tools to live healthier lives.” (source) The second wave of feminism gave rise to new sects of feminism as well, such as: radical feminism, socialist feminism and ecofeminism. Prominent feminists were white middle-class women who wrote feminist theory centered around their own experiences and troubles. While there were many black, Latina, Asian and Native American members of the movement, they felt excluded from the narrative and ignored. bell hooks, a well respected feminist theorist, elaborates “As long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized”. hooks explains that the agenda of the leading white feminists was often in contrast to the agenda of feminists of color. Many women felt that it was unwise to discuss gender equality without taking into consideration racial inequality too. “While the Second Wave was invaluable to broadening the scope of the feminist cause, it had flaws and failures. It is from issues of racial discrimination within the Second Wave that rose Intersectional Feminism”. (source) For example, a second wave feminist would have voted for a female presidential candidate over a male one simply because of their biological sex.
3rd wave:
The third wave of feminism began in the 90’s (it is often cited as beginning with the Anita Hill vs. Clarence Thomas case) and is thought to have ended in 2012. One of the main shifts in this wave was the view that gender(article on sex vs gender) is a social construct, exists on a spectrum, and rejects the very idea of a gender binary. Judith Butler, a prominent feminist theorist, writes on this shift, saying “The view that gender is performative sought to show that what we take to be an internal essence of gender is manufactured through a sustained set of acts, posited through the gendered stylization of the body. In this way, it showed that what we take to be an ‘internal’ feature of ourselves is one that we anticipate and produce through certain bodily acts, at an extreme, an hallucinatory effect of naturalized gestures”. Many steps were made in the right direction during this era with the Family Medical Leave Act and the Violence Against Women Act being signed into law, as well as first female Attorney General and first female Secretary of State taking office. “The Third Wave...primarily tried to bring in communities that were previously left out of feminist goals and recognize the intersectionality(intersectionality article) of oppression. It focused on race and gender and grew out of the sex-positive debates of the second wave.” (source) This wave continued to focus on reproductive rights, equal pay, and access to birth control, as the second wave did. A unique aspect of the third wave of feminism was its increasing presence in the media and pop culture and its emphasis on empowering young women. This led to the increase in strong female lead characters in film and TV (like Legally Blonde). “The Third Wave was concerned with reclaiming terms used to oppress or label women by the patriarchy and use them as tools of liberation. Terms like ‘bitch’, ‘slut’, [and] ‘cunt’, were embraced and claimed by feminists.”(source) This wave brought rise to transfeminism, and the rights of transgender people. The third wave also sought to raise awareness about rape culture and victim blaming with the creation of SlutWalks and the like. Third wave feminists believe that a person’s gender is not necessarily an “essential” aspect of their character.. For example, a third wave feminist would have judged both candidates in the presidential election on their policies and character etc. and then voted without regard to gender.
4th wave:
There is a lot of controversy about whether or not the fourth wave of feminism exists, but some think that we are currently moving into a different wave, and that wave would include a deeper connection to online engagement than the former.