A History of Feminism

History
• “Three Waves” of Feminism
– 19th through early 20th centuries
– 1960s-1980s
– 1990’s-Present
• First Wave:
– First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the
nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It focused primarily
on gaining the right of women's suffrage.
Images of First Wave Feminism
Images of First Wave Feminism
• The Seneca Falls Convention, July 19–20, 1848
– Held in Seneca Falls, New York over two days.
– The convention was seen by some of its contemporaries, including organizer
and featured speaker Lucretia Mott, as but a single step in the continuing
effort by women to gain for themselves a greater proportion of social, civil and
moral rights, but it was viewed by others as a revolutionary beginning to the
struggle by women for complete equality with men.
 History
• Frances Willard and the Woman’s Christian Temperance
Union
– Although still unable to vote in the late nineteenth century, women were far
from apolitical; the WCTU demonstrated the breadth of women's political
activity in the late nineteenth century.
– Frances Willard radically changed the direction of the WCTU, moving it away
from religiously oriented programs to a campaign that stressed alcoholism as a
disease rather than a sin and poverty as a cause rather than a result of drink.
– In a shrewd political tactic, Willard capitalized on the cult of domesticity to
move women into public life and gain power to ameliorate social problems.
– The WCTU, which had over 200,000 members in the 1890s, gave women
valuable experience in political action.
 History
– Progressives tackled the problems of the city with many approaches,
among them: the settlement house movement, the social gospel, and
the social purity movement.
– The settlement house movement, begun in England, came to the
United States in 1886 with the opening of the University Settlement
House in New York City .
– Women, particularly college-educated women such as Jane Addams
and Lillian Wald, formed the backbone of the settlement house
movement and stood in the forefront of the progressive movement;
the number of settlement houses grew from six in 1891 to more than
four hundred by 1911.
– Some churches confronted the urban social problems by enunciating a
new social gospel, one that saw its mission as to reform not only the
individual, but also society.
 History
– Margaret Sanger promoted a progressive new cause, birth control, as
a movement for social change.
– Sanger and her followers saw birth control not only as a sexual and
medical reform, but also as a means to alter social and political power
relationships and to alleviate human misery.
– Birth control became linked with freedom of speech when Margaret
Sanger's feminist journal, The Woman Rebel, was confiscated by the
post office for violating social purity laws, and Sanger faced arrest,
forcing her to flee to Europe.
 History
– Women made real strides during the Progressive Era, but World War I
presented them with new opportunities; more than 25,000 women served in
France as nurses, ambulance drivers, canteen managers, and war
correspondents.
– At home, long-standing barriers against hiring women fell when millions of
working men became soldiers and few new immigrant workers made it across
the Atlantic.
– In 1918, Wilson gave his support to suffrage, calling the amendment “vital to
the winning of the war” and by August 1920, the states had ratified the
Nineteenth Amendment, granting woman suffrage.
Key Tenets of First Wave Feminism
• Women’s suffrage
• Birth control movement
• Jobs for women
• Female-led political and social movements
such as the settlement houses in New York
and Chicago
Images of Second Wave Feminism
Images of Second Wave Feminism
 History
• Second Wave Feminism:
– The "second-wave" of the Women's Movement began
during the early 1960s and lasted throughout the late
1970s. Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on
overturning legal (de jure) obstacles to equality (i.e. voting
rights, property rights), second-wave feminism addressed
a wide range of issues, including unofficial (de facto)
inequalities, official legal inequalities, sexuality, family, the
workplace, and, perhaps most controversially,
reproductive rights
 History
– The movement is usually believed to have begun in 1963,
when Betty Friedan published her bestseller, The Feminine
Mystique and President John F. Kennedy's Presidential
Commission on the Status of Women released its report on
gender inequality. The report, which revealed great
discrimination against women in American life, along with
Friedan's book, which spoke to the discontent of many
women (especially housewives), led to the formation of
many local, state, and federal government women's groups
as well as many independent women's liberation
organizations. Friedan was referencing a "movement" as
early as 1964.
 History
– Legal victories:
• Title IX and women’s educational Equity Act
• Equal Opportunity Act (non-discrimination in regard to gender)
• Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (no discrimination in the
workplace for pregnant women)
• Illegalization of marital rape
• Legalization of no-fault divorce in all states
• Military admittance of women
• Roe v. Wade
 History
• By the early 1980s it was largely perceived that women had
met their goals and succeeded in changing social attitudes
towards gender roles, repealing oppressive laws that were
based on sex, integrating the boys' clubs such as Military
academies, the United States Military, NASA, single-sex
colleges, men's clubs, and the Supreme Court, and illegalizing
gender discrimination. In 1982 the Equal Rights Amendment
to the United States Constitution failed, only three states
short of ratification, but due to the successes of the
movement, however, many women felt they no longer
needed an ERA.
 Key Tenets of Second Wave Feminism

• Sexual Revolution
• Roe v. Wade
• Non-discrimination in the workplace and in
education
• Women’s empowerment in the military
Images of Third Wave Feminism
Images of Third Wave Feminism
 History
• Third Wave Feminism:
– Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to
perceived failures of the second wave and also as a response to the
backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second
wave. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua,
bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine
Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, sought to negotiate
a space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related
subjectivities
– Intersectionality—Third Wave Feminists argued that the discussion
of feminism could not be solely a female conversation, but must also
include an understanding of race, class, and sexual orientation
 History
– The “Third Wave” Agenda:
• the creation of domestic abuse shelters for women and children
• the acknowledgment of abuse and rape of women on a public
level
• access to contraception and other reproductive services
including the legalization of abortion, the creation
• enforcement of sexual harassment policies for women in the
workplace
• child care services
• equal or greater educational and extracurricular funding for
young women, women’s studies programs
Key Tenets of Third Wave Feminism
• Intersection of gender, race, geography, and
class is important
• Power to women of color
• Power to women in poverty
• Power to the GLBTQ community
• Empowering women against gender violence
and rape
 Recap
First Wave Second Wave Third Wave
• Women’s • Sexual • The intersection
suffrage revolution of gender, race,
• Women’s voice • Roe v. Wade class,
in politics • Non- geography,
• Reproductive discrimination language, and
Rights in the work heritage.
place • Women of color