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Overview of Feminism's Three Waves

Feminism aims to establish equal rights and legal protections for women. It has been divided into three waves - the first wave focused on women's suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the second wave from the 1960s fought legal and social inequalities, and the third wave began in the 1990s as a reaction to perceived failures of the second wave and the backlash against it. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements and campaigns.

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102 views2 pages

Overview of Feminism's Three Waves

Feminism aims to establish equal rights and legal protections for women. It has been divided into three waves - the first wave focused on women's suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the second wave from the 1960s fought legal and social inequalities, and the third wave began in the 1990s as a reaction to perceived failures of the second wave and the backlash against it. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements and campaigns.

Uploaded by

Sergio Arboleda
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic

movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women.
Although the terms "feminism" and "feminist" did not gain widespread use until the
1970s, they were already being used in the public parlance much earlier.
Feminists and scholars have divided the movement's history into three "waves".
The first wave refers mainly to women's suffrage movements of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries (mainly concerned with women's right to vote). The
second wave refers to the ideas and actions associated with the women's liberation
movement beginning in the 1960s (which campaigned for legal and social rights for
women). The third wave refers to a continuation of, and a reaction to the perceived
failures of, second-wave feminism, beginning in the 1990s.
Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements.

First wave
First-wave feminism refers to an extended period of feminist activity during the
nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the
United States. Originally it focused on the promotion of equal contract and property
rights for women and the opposition to chattel marriage and ownership of married
women (and their children) by their husbands. However, by the end of the
nineteenth century, activism focused primarily on gaining political power,
particularly the right of women's suffrage.
The term first wave was coined retrospectively after the term second-wave
feminism began to be used to describe a newer feminist movement that focused as
much on fighting social and cultural inequalities as political inequalities.

Second wave
Second-wave feminism refers to the period of activity in the early 1960s and lasting
through the late 1980s. The second wave was a continuation of the earlier phase of
feminism involving the suffragettes in the UK and USA. Second-wave feminism has
continued to exist since that time and coexists with what is termed third-wave
feminism.
The first wave focused on rights such as suffrage, whereas the second wave was
largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as ending discrimination.

Third wave
Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived
failures of the second wave and also as a response to the backlash against
initiatives and movements created by the second wave. Third-wave feminism seeks
to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's essentialist definitions of
femininity, which (according to them) over-emphasize the experiences of upper
middle-class white women.

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