feminism
The Waves of Feminism
Feminism is the advocacy for equality between the genders and sexes. For the past one-hundred and seventy years, feminism has been an integral part of American culture, and it is the sole reason the rights of women have improved so drastically since 1848. However, women did not gain these rights in one full sweep. It has been a long and grueling process to get to where we are today, and today is still far from perfect. Because of this, historians have categorized the fight for equality into four waves (movements) spanning throughout the twentieth-century and into the twenty-first century. However, there is a lot of disagreement about where the waves start and finish and who belongs to what. That being said, many of the goals overlap.
Historians mark the first wave of feminism as the suffragette movement, in which American white women fought for the right to vote, until they gained it in 1920 when the Senate passed the 19th amendment. Though this was the main focus of the suffragists, First-wave feminists also demanded access to higher education, employment opportunities, and rights for married women.
Despite the incredible stride this movement made, it was led nearly exclusively by wealthy white women. American
First-Wave Feminism
women of color were excluded from the movement all together, as were many women from low-income upbringings. White women were oppressed and marginalized, but women of color and poor women were marginalized and oppressed even more so, and the leaders of the movement felt that an even more oppressed group within their movement would only hinder their chances of getting the right to vote. The women felt they had to assimilate and appease men in power in order to gain their right to vote. Though the 15th amendment allowed black men to vote in 1870, it was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Black women in southern states were able to vote, and Latina and Native American women gained their rights to vote a decade later.
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Second-Wave Feminism
Second-wave feminists fought for equality forty years later. Beginning in the early 1960s and fading out in the 1980s, these activists fought for equality in the workplace, reproductive rights, and drew attention to issues such as domestic violence and rape. However, there was a divide in the second-wave feminist movement when it came to rape. Some women believed rape a was a feminist issues while others believed it did not belong to their movement. Because of Second-wave feminism, the Food and Drug Administration approved of the use of birth control in 1960.
Although the inspirational message behind second-wave feminism changed the lives of women in America forever, it too had its flaws. There was a shaming quality that came with second-wave feminism, and it targeted women who valued their appearances, chose to be sexually active, and wanted to be stay-at-home moms. Physical appearance was largely debated within the movement, as feminists were depicted by the media as “ugly women who couldn’t get husbands.” Therefore, some feminists thought that women should focus on their appearances and make themselves beautiful, so as to disprove this notion that feminists were ugly. Others felt that this negated the point behind their movement and wanted to dismantle the belief that women had to be pretty in order to obtain a man or to be happy. Second-wave feminism attacked the conformity in which women are forced to live, and in doing so, they inadvertently created a new set of rules that women felt obliged to adhere to, which carried into the next generations of feminism.
Second-wave feminism was more inclusive than first-wave feminists to women of color. Yet, as the movement grew, many women of color left the movement as they felt it had become “too white,” largely focusing on the plight of the white woman without a lot of effort to integrate women of color into their goal-setting and future ideals.
There is debate over which era of feminism we are in today. But we can definitely say that third wave feminism began in the early 1990s in an attempt to expand the definitions of womanhood and feminism to include those of all races, economic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The term “intersectionality” in terms of feminism was first coined as recently as the mid 1990s, marking the official beginning of the movement. The Third-wave’s focus on reclamation of sexuality and sexual politics is what sets it apart the most from its feminist predecessors. This wave took a far more inclusive and sexually-liberating stance, encouraging women to have ownership over their sex lives and not feel shame for promiscuity. In extremely simplistic terms, third-wave feminists felt that engaging in sex was empowerment, choosing not to deny it. In 2005, technology and growing social media changed the way feminists across the globe were able to communicate, and many activists insisted that these new advancements catapulted us into the fourth wave of feminism.
Third and Fourth-Wave Feminism
Emma Watson made a gender inclusive speech to the U.N. in 2014, and touched on the way men, too, have been hindered by misogyny.
Fourth-Wave
Third-Wave
Female Leadership in Higher Education
While women have made some progress in academic leadership within the past couple of years, men continue to outrank women in US faculty positions such as dean, provost, president or chancellor. Even though women make up more than half of undergraduate, master’s degree’ and Ph.D. students, they account for less than a quarter of college presidents and a third of chief academic officers at doctoral institutions. This phenomenon is sometimes compared to a leaky pipeline because women leak out of the academic system at all career levels and very few make it to the end. Some explanations for these leaks include: unconscious bias, in-group favoritism, and work-family conflicts.
Find out more about each year in Feminism's history