First-wave feminism

First-wave feminism occurred throughout the world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and mainly focused on fighting for women's right to vote. The wave was influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft and begun by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. First-wave feminism was heavily intertwined with both the temperance and abolitionist movements.

First-wave feminists accomplished their primary goal in 1920 when the US government amended its Constitution to give all women the right to vote, but many of their secondary goals remained unaccomplished. Second- and third-wave feminists focused on these goals, rallying against conservative gender roles, unequal pay, and other forms of discrimination.

Background

Feminism refers to a political or social movement that pushes for equality for women. Before the first feminists, women had few legal rights. In most parts of the world, they were not allowed to own property, vote, or hold political office.

Mary Wollstonecraft, a well-known early feminist, independently earned her living through writing and translating. She published several notable feminist pieces, including Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman (1798), and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Through these works, Wollstonecraft advocated for women to have the right to receive the same education as men. She also protested against women being kept in the household, arguing that such a confined existence had a profoundly negative effect on them.

Overview

Wollstonecraft's writings profoundly impacted twentieth-century feminists and eventually influenced the first-wave feminism movement. Her views on marriage and education heavily influenced the founders of the US feminist movement, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Together, the two formed the Seneca Falls Convention.

The Seneca Falls Convention was the first feminist convention in the United States. Many of the women who attended knew each other from their activities in the temperance and abolition movements. (The temperance movement sought to convince the public that alcohol was detrimental to society, and the abolition movement fought against slavery and sought to free enslaved people.) Feminists were already passionately politically active and were familiar with protests, writing pamphlets, and other forms of raising awareness.

Before the convention, Stanton drafted the Declaration of Sentiments, a list of grievances based on the Declaration of Independence. She planned to allow those who attended the Seneca Falls Convention to debate these grievances, and then sign the Declaration of Sentiments to make a political statement. Together, the grievances demanded that women be treated as equal members of society and men and women be held to the same social standards. This included women being able to speak publicly during religious services, the invalidation of laws interfering with the general happiness of women, and women being allowed to vote.

The Seneca Falls Convention and its Declaration of Sentiments quickly drew the attention of newspapers and other press outlets. Unfortunately, most of the coverage was negative. The newspapers ridiculed the convention's demands and criticized the convention as a whole. Despite this, Stanton remained positive. She argued that negative attention from the press benefitted the feminist movement by spreading feminists' ideas to others who might agree.

The women's rights movement soon spread across the US. Members of the movement first achieved victory in 1860, when New York's state legislature passed the Married Women's Property Act. Once this act became law, women in New York State were finally allowed to have joint custody of their children and legally own their property.

In 1869, Stanton, Mott, and fellow suffragist Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), an organization that lobbied for a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote. Such an amendment would give women suffrage in every state, marking a major victory for the women's rights movement. However, the organization quickly began to also lobby for marriage reform and increased pay for working women. Unlike many previous organizations, men could not be full members of the NWSA.

Though first-wave feminism primarily focused on granting women the right to vote, later waves continued to fight for full social and economic equality. Second-wave feminism focused on the perception and role of women in society. It included and sought to change gender roles within society, seeking to prove that women could break out of traditional, restrictive places. Second-wave feminists fought to open new areas of the workforce to women, asserting that women's purpose in society was more than maintaining a home and raising children.

By the 1970s, second-wave feminism was rapidly growing. At this time, many feminists also began to campaign for legalized abortions. They viewed the restrictions on abortions as legislatures trying to control women's bodies, which they considered wrong.

Third-wave feminism began in the 1990s. Many third-wave feminists continued the work of second-wave feminists, which they believed was unfinished. They fought for economic equality for women, the end of traditional gender roles, and women to have control of their reproductive rights. Fourth-wave feminism began in the 2010s, when social media and digital technology facilitated the mass mobilization of the feminist movement to continue the work of the previous waves.

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