Feminism

Feminism is the belief that women should have the same social, economic, and political rights as men. Throughout history, feminists have fought to gain more rights for women, such as the right to own property, receive an education, vote, and hold public office. They have also fought for women’s reproductive rights, such as the right to contraception, legal abortions, and maternity leave.

While feminism has existed since ancient times, feminist historians divide feminism into three waves, or time periods. The First Wave (1848–1920) was mainly concerned with women’s suffrage. The Second Wave (1963–1980s) focused on sexism in society and culminated with the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade. Feminists during the Third Wave (1991–present) continued the work of their predecessors but focused more on diversity. It also centered on the 1991 Anita Hill hearings and the 1990s emergence of Riot Girl groups. Some feminists argue for the inclusion of a fourth wave, largely because of the Me Too movement, during which women used social media to fight against sexual harassment and violence.

Early Feminism

Feminism has existed since ancient times. In his Republic (375 BCE), the ancient Greek philosopher Plato stated his belief that women are equal to men and that some women possess the capacity to rule, although many during his time disagreed. Plato was more concerned with individuality and the needs of the community than generalizing the superiority of one biological sex.

The fifteenth-century medieval writer and historiographer Christine de Pisan was a feminist. Scholars consider her works to be some of the earliest feminist writings. De Pisan wrote about the sources of women’s oppression, the lack of education for women, and combatting a misogynistic society.

Other feminists include the famous eighteenth-century writers Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft. Because she lived during a time when men dominated women, Austen took care to ensure that her novels were not overtly feminist. However, Austen chose to remain single because married women were essentially under the control of their husbands. She supported herself by writing.

In 1792, Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Women, in which she argued that women should not be confined to the domestic sphere. According to Wollstonecraft, women and men should receive equal opportunities in education, employment, and politics.

First Lady Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, the second US president, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth US president, was a women’s rights activist. A voracious reader who also excelled at math, Adams advocated for women’s right to an education.

The Wave Metaphor

People began using the wave metaphor to describe different eras and generations of feminists during what is now referred to as the Second Wave of feminism. The metaphor was first used by bestselling writer Martha Weinman Lear in her article “The Second Wave of Feminism,” which was published in 1968 in the New York Times. Not everyone approves of the wave metaphor being linked to feminism, however. The feminist writer and professor Linda Nicholson argued against it in 2010, noting that a wave is not particularly helpful in describing the movement because it peaks and recedes. This makes feminism seem as if it has distinct time periods with each linked to a single goal. However, feminists have been fighting for the same goals for a longer time. For example, the fight for women’s legal and political rights is often associated only with the Second Wave of feminism. However, feminists also fought for these goals during the First Wave, which centered on suffrage.

The First Wave (1848–1920)

During the First Wave of feminism, women primarily fought for the right to vote—and it was not an easy battle. They faced opposition from other women who believed that voting was a man’s responsibility and a woman’s place was in the home. Some distrusted politicians and worried that if women were given the right to vote, male politicians would manipulate them into choosing a certain candidate. Upper-class women opposed the right to vote because they feared that it would strip them of the political power and privilege that they already possessed. According to a New York Times article published in 1894, “To give women the suffrage would only increase the ignorant vote and bring refined women into contact with an element that should not be brought into their lives.”

When the Civil War began in 1861, most attempts at suffrage were halted. However, some women, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, allied themselves with the abolition movement because they hoped it would lead to suffrage for all women. They thought that once the Union won the war and enslaved people in the South were free and granted the right to vote, women would also receive this right.

Women of color joined them and played an important role in the suffrage movement during this time. These women included Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, one of the first Black writers of African American protest poetry; and Sojourner Truth, a powerful speaker who had been enslaved. However, because of racism, the women’s suffrage movement eventually concerned only white, privileged women, who still faced an uphill battle. After the war, the Republican Party feared that if women were given the right to vote, white women in the South (who were almost all Democrats), might outnumber the formerly enslaved Black men there, who would mostly vote Republican (Abraham Lincoln’s party). Therefore, they did not include women in the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, which gave Black men the right to vote.

This infuriated the feminists involved in the suffrage movement. They considered the freed Black men to be “field hands” while they were middle-class and educated. They felt that white women were better suited to choose the country’s leaders.

Black women fared even worse than white suffragists, however. They were prohibited from attending many women’s rights demonstrations, and those they were allowed to attend required that they stand behind white women.

In 1920, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave all women the right to vote. However, it was difficult for Black women to vote, especially in the South. Jim Crow laws kept many of them from being allowed to register to vote. Those who managed to do so faced racial violence at the polls.

The Second Wave (1963–1980s)

The Second Wave of feminism began with the 1963 publication of the landmark book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. The book addressed the overt sexism that women faced in society after World War II. During this time, a common belief in society was that women received fulfillment from caring for a house and children. If they did not feel fulfilled, they were accused of being mentally ill. In the book, Friedan addressed the discontent women experienced at the time. She voiced her support for equality in schools and the workplace and for women’s rights to contraception and legal abortions. The Feminine Mystique sold three million copies and was translated into twelve languages. It is regarded as one of the most influential works of the twentieth century.

Friedan also worked with feminist Gloria Steinem and attorney Bella Abzug to start the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) in 1971. Still active in the twenty-first century, the NWPC is a grassroots organization supporting women who seek elected and appointed positions in the US government. During the same year, Steinem co-founded Ms. Magazine, a liberal feminist publication.

Feminists also made strides for equality during the 1970s. After a series of US Supreme Court cases in the 1960s and 1970s, both single and married women were given the right to purchase and use contraceptives. In 1972, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment, which banned discrimination based on sex, and sent it to be ratified by the states. However, it did not receive enough votes from states to become law. The following year, women received the legal right to have an abortion with the US Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. Second Wave feminists also worked to win the right for women to have credit cards in their own name and to apply for mortgages. They worked to raise awareness of domestic violence and build shelters for its victims.

Black women’s concerns differed in some respects from those of white women. For example, The Feminine Mystique was written for white women who were discouraged from working outside the home. Most Black women of the time already had to work, so this was not an important concern for them. Black women also sought to end a practice called eugenics, which was the sterilization of people of color and people with disabilities that took place in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Eugenics was purported to improve the genetic quality of the human race; however, it was more about preserving the position of dominant groups in the population. A disproportionate number of those who underwent forced sterilizations were African American, Hispanic, and Native American women. During the Second Wave, some Black women changed their focus from feminism to womanism. Womanists fight for the rights of all women but focus more on issues specific to Black women.

During the conservative Reagan era of the 1980s, people began to perceive Second Wave feminists negatively. They considered them to be angry, man-hating women.

Third Wave (1991–to present)

The Third Wave is shrouded in controversy because feminists of the time disagreed about what they needed to achieve and when the wave began and ended. The Third Wave emerged partly in response to the Second Wave. Feminists wanted to continue the work of their predecessors and address some of their errors. Third Wave feminists wanted their movement to be inclusive of the challenges faced by women of all races, social classes, and gender identities. Most historians agree that two events sparked the beginning of the Third Wave: the 1991 Anita Hill hearings and the 1990s emergence of Riot Girl groups, which are underground feminist punk rock bands.

On October 11, 1991, attorney Anita Hill testified against US Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Hill claimed that Thomas repeatedly sexually harassed her while she worked for him at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to Hill, Thomas pressured her to see him socially and made sexually inappropriate comments to her. The hearing lasted for three days. Thomas denied Hill’s allegations, and the US Senate voted 52–48 in his favor. He was confirmed to the Supreme Court despite Hill’s testimony.

Feminists were furious over the outcome of the hearings and Hill’s treatment on the stand. After the hearings, sixteen hundred African American feminists across the United States collectively raised fifty-thousand dollars for a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, where they published an article expressing their outrage. After watching Thomas get sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, Rebecca Walker (daughter of the famous writer and feminist Alice Walker) published an article in the magazine Ms. in which she said, “I am the third wave.”

Conversations about Hill’s accusations spurred discussions about male-dominated leadership in Congress. The following year, 1992, became known as the “Year of the Woman” because twenty-four women were elected to the House of Representatives and three were elected to the Senate.

Also part of the Third Wave were feminist punk rock bands such as Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. Part of the Riot Grrrl movement, their lyrics were about sexism, racism, patriarchy, sexuality, and violence against women. One of the founders of the movement was Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of Bikini Kill. During performances, she encouraged female audience members to come to the front of the crowd. The gesture was symbolic. The band members wanted women to advance in many areas of their lives. Hanna helped create a small feminist magazine called Riot Girl and the fanzine The Bikini Kill Zine.

Prior to the Riot Grrrl movement, the Guerrilla Girls formed in 1985 to achieve similar goals in the art world. Members of the movement wore guerilla masks and protested anonymously. They created posters and billboards to convey their message. One of the most famous included the very small number of female artists featured in the Modern Art section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art alongside the very large number of art pieces featuring female nudes.

Further Insights

The dates of the feminist waves are fluid, with some activists contending that a Fourth Wave began in the twenty-first century. This wave used social media to hold the world’s most powerful men accountable for their behavior. Feminists have connected and conversed online to plan demonstrations. The 2017 Women’s March on Washington was one of these demonstrations. The world’s largest single-day protest, the Women’s March, took place on the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency. Hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets in the nation’s capital, wearing pink hats and holding signs. More than three million sister marches were held in cities across the country and throughout the world. During the 2016 presidential campaign, a recording surfaced of Trump using vulgar language to explain how his celebrity status allowed him to force himself on women. After this, at least twenty-six women came forward to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct. Trump denied their accusations, however, and dismissed the recording as “locker room talk.”

Those participating in the Women’s March hoped to send the message that women will continue to fight for social justice and equality. Feminists likened the march in 2017 to the protest held by suffragists who picketed the White House in 1917.

Also included in the Fourth Wave is the Me Too movement. The phrase “me too” was coined in 2006 by activist and sexual assault survivor Tarana Burke. However, the Me Too movement officially began in October 2017 after widespread allegations of sexual harassment and assault were made against former film producer Harvey Weinstein. (Weinstein was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women in 2020 and sentenced to more than twenty years in prison.) The Me Too movement was initiated by actress Alyssa Milano, who asked everyone who had been assaulted to respond to her tweet with the words “me too.” Milano hoped that the many responses would help people understand the magnitude of the problem. The Me Too movement went viral and soon became international, with the hashtag #MeToo being shared nearly one million times in forty-eight hours.

 On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, or Roe v. Wade (1973), with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The reversal ended the nearly fifty year federal decision, angering many feminists who viewed the decision as an attack on body autonomy and reproductive rights. Marches and protests ensued around the country. In 2024, forty-one states had some form of abortion ban, while fourteen states had a total abortion ban. Despite the ban, feminists continued to fight for the reproductive rights of women, particularly in states with the strictest bans.

About the Author

Adrienne Kennedy holds bachelor’s degrees in communications and secondary education from King’s College and a master’s degree in English from the University of Scranton. She is a former college instructor and has worked in educational publishing for more than twenty years. She is also a published author of both nonfiction and fiction.

Bibliography

Brooks, Kim. (2021, January 2). What Has Feminism Achieved? The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/opinion/letters/feminism.html.

Caprino, Kathy. (2017, March 8). What Is Feminism And Why Do So Many Women And Men Hate It? Forbes, www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2017/03/08/what-is-feminism-and-why-do-so-many-women-and-men-hate-it/?sh=1ba481277e8e.

History. (2022, April 8). Feminism’s Long History. www.history.com/topics/womens-history/feminism-womens-history.

Grady, Constance. (2018, July 20). The waves of feminism and why people keep fighting over them. Vox, www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth.

Jahdziab, St. Julien and Emily Hallgren. (2021, July 20). The Gaps of White Feminism and the Women of Color who Fall Through. New America,

www.newamerica.org/the-thread/the-gaps-of-white-feminism-and-the-women-of-color-who-fall-through/

Lewis, Helen. (2020, October 17). The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism. The Atlantic, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/feminism-womens-rights-coronavirus-covid19/608302/

Mackay, Finn. (2021, October 2) Don’t write off radical feminism—it’s always been ahead of its time. The Guardian, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/17/radical-feminism-social-justice

Spillar, Kathy. (2023, January 23). Feminists React: 50 Years After Roe, the Fight Is Far From Over. Ms. msmagazine.com/2023/01/21/feminists-react-50-years-after-roe/