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The history of feminism comprises the narratives (chronological or thematic) of the movements and ideologies which have aimed at equal rights for women. While feminists around the world have differed in causes, goals, and intentions depending on time, culture, and country, most Western feminist historians assert that all movements that work to obtain women's rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not (or do not) apply the term to themselves.[1][2][3][4][5] Some other historians limit the term "feminist" to the modern feminist movement and its progeny, and use the label "protofeminist" to describe earlier movements.[6]
Modern Western feminist history is conventionally split into time periods, or "waves", each with slightly different aims based on prior progress:[7][8]
- First-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on overturning legal inequalities, particularly addressing issues of women's suffrage
- Second-wave feminism (1960s–1980s) broadened debate to include cultural inequalities, gender norms, and the role of women in society
- Third-wave feminism (1990s–2000s) refers to diverse strains of feminist activity, seen by third-wavers themselves both as a continuation of the second wave and as a response to its perceived failures[9]
- Fourth-wave feminism (early 2010s–present) expands on the third wave's focus on intersectionality, emphasizing body positivity, trans-inclusivity, and an open discourse about rape culture in the social media era
Although the "waves" construct has been commonly used to describe the history of feminism, the concept has also been criticized by non-White feminists for ignoring and erasing the history between the "waves", by choosing to focus solely on a few famous figures, on the perspective of a white bourgeois woman and on popular events, and for being racist and colonialist.[10][11][12][13][14]
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Bottingwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Humm, Maggie (1990), "wave (definition)", in Humm, Maggie (ed.), The dictionary of feminist theory, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, p. 251, ISBN 9780814205075.
- ^ Rebecca, Walker (January 1992). "Becoming the Third Wave". Ms. New York: Liberty Media for Women. pp. 39–41. ISSN 0047-8318. OCLC 194419734.
- ^ Krolokke, Charlotte and Anne Scott Sorensen, "From Suffragettes to Grrls" in Gender Communication Theories and Analyses: From Silence to Performance (Sage, 2005).
- ^ Nicholson, Linda (2010). McCann, Carole; Seung-Kyung, Kim (eds.). Feminism in "Waves": Useful Metaphor or Not? (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 49–55.
- ^ "De las huelgas de mujeres a un nuevo movimiento de clase: la tercera ola feminista" (in Spanish). Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ García, Esther M. (January 31, 2018). "Arde Feministlán: Una entrevista a Dahlia de la Cerda". Liberoamérica (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on May 7, 2019. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ Mc, H. (February 4, 2019). "Das Greves de Mulheres para um Novo Movimento de Classe: A Terceira Onda Feminista". Desacato (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ "Sobre el feminismo y sus corrientes". Grazia (in European Spanish). January 11, 2017. Retrieved May 7, 2019.