The "Waves" of Feminism
When talking to a female Trump fan, I asked if she considered herself to be a feminist. Her response was “Current Day Feminist? No. First-Wave Feminist? Yes.” Looking past the over-exuberant capitalization, I was not shocked that she used the same answer every other person who ‘doesn’t hate men’ uses. For some reason, conservatives and people our parents’ age and older in general see all feminists as men-haters, but why? Besides the fact that the literal definition of ‘feminism’ disputes that, where does the idea even come from? Point worth noting: My hot bf is a feminist, and goodness knows he is a man and I couldn’t imagine harboring a single ounce of hate for him or any other man (or person in general but that’s beside the point).
Now to move on to the theory of waves. I have seen discussion of the “Four Waves of Feminism” on Facebook and Twitter since around Election Day*. In these posts, it is implied that feminism has evolved from being centered around equality to being centered around women wanting/striving to be superior. This is simply false. Yes, there are ‘waves’ of feminism, but the waves only represent an increase in involvement throughout the movement, not a change in belief or motivation. Over time, there have been periods of increased unrest within America when the status quo would need to be challenged, and consequently feminism was more prevalent in those times. If you look at what started each wave, it is clear that the movement still revolves around the fight for equality for all (aka not just women). Here are a few facts about the surges of feminism, according to a study done by Pacific University in Oregon.
First Wave: Late 19th to early 20th century time period. This stretch was focused on creating more opportunities for women outside of the home and went hand-in-hand with the suffrage movement. This branch formally began in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, with more than 300 men and women rallying for equality.
Second Wave: 1960s-1990s time period. Reproductive and sexuality rights were heavily fought for this time and it went hand-in-hand with anti-war and civil rights movements. During this branch, men and women were working to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, which gave legal security to social equality despite biological sex. The second wave formally began in 1968 and 1969 during protests against the Miss America brand.
Third Wave/Fourth Wave: There is controversy around whether there are three waves or four, but it is said that the third wave began in the 1990s and ended sometime before the fourth wave, which consists of activities from 2008 up until the present. During the third wave, more “girly-girls” were involved. Before then, many feminists ignored and suppressed basically any trait that was seen as a typical womanly characteristic (red lipstick, high heels, push-up bras, etc.). Channeling those features, women of this wave worked to be seen as more than just a sex object as a way to disrupt the traditional patriarchy. With this, men and women also made way in encouraging the crossing of gender roles and boundaries, encouraging more creativity/experimentation/people to be who they are and not who society tells them they are. This leads into the ‘fourth wave.’ The possible fourth wave does/would encompass reproductive justice (because for some reason we still don’t have it), transgender rights and support, acceptance/approval of sex work, and body-posi campaigns/similar campaigns.
So yes, there are waves, BUT they all essentially stand for the same thing and aren’t bad like anti-feminists are trying to make them out to be. Looking through the cause behind each wave and the changes they led to, it is clear that they were all used as an effort to achieve equality for not only women, but also for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
*I have no doubt the posts started before then, that is just when I began seeing them being posted and shared.
kb.