Feminism is the movement that advocates for social, political, economic and cultural equality for women, and every generation over the past century has seen some kind of uprising for an agenda, represented as a 'Wave'.
The waves of feminism are all important in their own right, as each passing wave has granted women the freedoms and rights that we have today, and we are even in a wave right now, where the issues of sexual violence and misogyny are at the forefront. In any context, it is important to be informed about the past, because they can lead to a smarter future.
Just to note, the waves of feminism movements are often focussed on the actions and voices of American women, and so experiences and histories of feminism are different in other countries, including Australia.
First Wave:
The First Wave of Feminism took place in the late 19th and early 20th Century and is arguably the biggest wave-- as it generated the most fundamental changes in the experience of being a woman in what really was “a Mans World.”
It was the movement that saw women shift from being the property of husbands and fathers, into autonomous humans with self-determination. The First wave also granted women rights that we cannot imagine modern life without having. It was up to women of the time to prove that they did have the education and mental capacity to make their own choices and were entitled to the rights to attain education, employment, property and finally, the right to vote.
However, the First Wave was still held back by other biases of the time, like racism.
Women of colour were not embraced in this revolutionary change and were actively held back from acting on the newfound rights and still found themselves stuck in the same place in the social hierarchy. This is despite there being feminist figures of the time who were women of colour. It was a long time before people of colour were heard by the feminist movement.
The first wave is also credited with inspiring the second wave, wherein women had become used to the rights granted, and realised that they deserved better equality (and more freedom to express themselves). Women of the second wave took things far further than the first wave.
Second Wave:
The second wave began in the 1960s, just long enough for women to become used to the changes brought upon by the first wave and decide that it just was not enough. While women were in a world where they could vote, they were also in a world that saw a massive wage-gap between men and women-- that’s if (in some places) a woman could get permission from her husband to have a job, and if that woman got sexually harassed at work, not much could be done about it. Also, unmarried women did not have access to birth control, and marital rape was not taken seriously.
There was always a man in the way of any path in life a woman dared to take.
The issues tackled in this wave pertained to cultural freedoms in regards to sex, relationships and domestic labour, and provided access to abortions, issues that hadn’t been considered political until feminists made them political, with the key slogan “The Personal is Political” garnering a lot of attention. The main focus of this wave was to change the societal perception of women and to push the notion that women were more than home-makers and pretty things for men to look at. Feminists of the time sought to expose the sexism and tear it apart. Successes of the movement saw legislation in place to tackle the many issues raised above and gave women the encouragement that inspired future movements because there was still more afterwards that needed to be addressed by society.
Unlike the first wave of feminism, the second wave tackled issues of race, the treatment of women was highlighted. By nature, feminism is a movement that lies with anti-capitalist and anti-racist ideas. The Second wave is where the narrative of the ‘man-hating’ and ‘bra-burning’ feminist came from, as it was radical and emotional in nature.
Third Wave:
Third-wave feminism began in the 1990s, with the women who were the daughters of the women from the second wave (metaphorically, and in some cases, probably literally). Even though they lived with the significant rights and legal benefits afforded to them by the second wave, they critiqued the ‘unfinished work’ left by the women of the second wave and sought to complete the feminist picture.
The women of the third wave grew up hearing the empowering messages of the second wave, with the founders of the wave being the daughters of prominent ‘Second Wavers’. The Third Wave Foundation was a corporation dedicated to supporting “groups and individuals working towards gender, racial, economic and social justice.”
Because of social media, stories of women were shared and spread like wildfire, instant communication and accessibility was already the norm, and so people utilised it with one simple hashtag saying “Me too.” A can of worms was opened, and many people realised that the world really was full of people who viewed women as objects that could be oogled and assaulted without consequence, and women were silent about it or kept silent by inactive authorities. ault accusations being public.
In the 1990s, there was a great deal of improvement in political representation and equality for women. By 1993, 5 women had joined the US Senate, and 1991 was often called the ‘Year of the Woman’. The first female Attorney General and first female Secretary of State took office. Hilary Clinton gave her famous ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’ speech at the UN in 1995, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the second woman in the Supreme Court in 1993.
Modern Feminism (The Fourth Wave):
The claiming that the 2010s is the fourth wave of feminism is still up for debate, with some sources claiming that the third wave of the 1990s hasn’t ended. I personally believe that we are in a new era of feminism, which has been amplified by social media as a public sphere of endless possibilities.
Many point to the New York Times article detailing sexual assault and harassment allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2016 as the triggering of awareness of the fourth wave, as it catapulted #MeToo, which brought attention to feminism in general. Weinstein quickly became the symbol of what was wrong: men in power were still able to get away with making the women in their subordination feel powerless and women were still objectified and sexual assault and harassment is rampant. This inspired women all over the world to share their stories of sexual assault and harassment in everyday life, bringing to light the fact that the majority of women have been made to feel scared, unsafe or violated by men. It was the tearing down of rape culture that relied on women being silent about their struggles and gave men in power or in everyday life safe in the knowledge that they could get away with it.
Because of social media, stories of women were shared and spread like wildfire, instant communication and accessibility was already normal, and so people utilised it. This saw many people realise that the world was full of people who viewed women as objects that could be assaulted without consequence, and the sheer amount of women who had experienced some form of sexual assault was astounding to many.
Social media has also played a massive role in the volume of modern feminism, in that the internet and social media have created a new public sphere that creates an instant discussion with anyone from anywhere in the world. The sheer amount of engagement made the movement hard to ignore. Feminism has become one of the most influential movements of the Western world.
All of these waves are huge in their own right, they have raised conversations to empower and have brought rights that we could not imagine life today without. All over the world, women have inspired each other to reach for change and challenge the systems around them. It is not only important that women stand with each other, but that men join them.
Unanimous community support around an issue, be it voting rights, reproductive rights or violence, can bring around meaningful change