Thehistory of feminism comprises the narratives (chronological or thematic) of themovements andideologies which have aimed atequalrights for women. Whilefeminists around the world have differed in causes, goals, and intentions depending on time,culture, and country, mostWestern feminist historians assert that allmovements that work to obtainwomen'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 themodern 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]
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]
People and activists who discuss or advance women's equality prior to the existence of thefeminist movement are sometimes labeled asprotofeminist.[6] Some scholars criticize this term because they believe it diminishes the importance of earlier contributions or that feminism does not have a single begin or linear history as implied by terms such asprotofeminist orpostfeminist.[4][15][16][17]
Around 24 centuries ago,[18]Plato, according to Elaine Hoffman Baruch, "[argued] for the total political and sexual equality of women, advocating that they be members of his highest class, ... those who rule and fight".[19]
Andal, a female Tamil saint, lived around the 7th or 8th century.[20][21] She is well known for writingTiruppavai.[21] Andal has inspired women's groups such as Goda Mandali.[22] Her divine marriage to Vishnu is viewed by some as a feminist act, as it allowed her to avoid the regular duties of being a wife and gain autonomy.[23] In the 12th century, theWaldensians Christian sect espoused some feministic ideas.[24]
Italian-French writerChristine de Pizan (1364 – c. 1430), the author ofThe Book of the City of Ladies andEpître au Dieu d'Amour (Epistle to the God of Love) is cited bySimone de Beauvoir as the first woman to denouncemisogyny and write about the relation of the sexes.[25] Christine de Pizan also wrote one of the early fictional accounts ofgender transition inLe Livre de la mutation de fortune.[26] Other early feminist writers include the 16th-century writersHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa,Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi, andJane Anger,[27][28] and the 17th-century writersHannah Woolley in England,[29]Juana Inés de la Cruz in Mexico,[30]Marie Le Jars de Gournay,Anne Bradstreet,Anna Maria van Schurman[31] andFrançois Poullain de la Barre.[27] The emergence of women as true intellectuals effected change also inItalian humanism. Cassandra Fedele was the first woman to join a humanist group and achieved much despite greater constraints on women.[32]
Renaissance defenses of women are present in a variety of literary genre and across Europe with a central claim of equality. Feminists appealed to principles that progressively lead to discourse of economic property injustice themes. Feminizing society was a way for women at this time to use literature to create interdependent and non-hierarchical systems that provided opportunities for both women and men.[33]
Men have also played an important role in the history of defending that women are capable and able to compete equally with men, includingAntonio Cornazzano,Vespasiano de Bisticci, andGiovanni Sabadino degli Arienti.Castiglione continues this trend of defending woman's moral character and that traditions are at fault for the appearance of women's inferiority. However, the critique is that there is no advocacy for social change, leaving her out of the political sphere, and abandoning her to traditional domestic roles. Although, many of them would encourage that if women were to be included in the political sphere it would be a natural consequence of their education. In addition, some of these men state that men are at fault for the lack of knowledge of intellectual women by leaving them out of historical records.[34]
One of the most important 17th-century feminist writers in the English language wasMargaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.[35][36] Her knowledge was recognized by some, such as proto-feministBathsua Makin, who wrote that "The present Dutchess of New-Castle, by her own Genius, rather than any timely Instruction, over-tops many grave Grown-Men," and considered her a prime example of what women could become through education.[37]
Margaret Fell's most famous work is "Women's Speaking Justified", a scripture-based argument for women's ministry, and one of the major texts on women's religious leadership in the 17th century.[38] In this short pamphlet, Fell based her argument for equality of the sexes on one of the basic premises ofQuakerism, namely spiritual equality. Her belief was that God created all human beings, therefore both men and women were capable of not only possessing the Inner Light but also the ability to be a prophet.[39] Fell has been described as a "feminist pioneer".[1]
In 1622,Marie de Gournay publishedThe Equality of Men and Women, in which she argued for equality of the sexes.[40]
TheAge of Enlightenment was characterized by secular intellectual reasoning and a flowering of philosophical writing. Many Enlightenment philosophers defended the rights of women, includingJeremy Bentham (1781),Marquis de Condorcet (1790), andMary Wollstonecraft (1792).[41] Other important writers of the time that expressed feminist views includedAbigail Adams,Catharine Macaulay,[42] andHedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht.
The Englishutilitarian andclassical liberal philosopherJeremy Bentham said that it was the placing of women in a legally inferior position that made him choose the career of a reformist at the age of eleven,[43] though American criticJohn Neal claimed to have convinced him to take up women's rights issues during their association between 1825 and 1827.[44][45] Bentham spoke for complete equality between sexes including the rights to vote and to participate in government. He opposed the asymmetrical sexual moral standards between men and women.[46]
In hisIntroduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781), Bentham strongly condemned many countries' common practice to deny women's rights due to allegedly inferior minds.[47] Bentham gave many examples of able femaleregents.
Nicolas de Condorcet was a mathematician, classical liberal politician, leadingFrench Revolutionary, republican, andVoltaireananti-clericalist. He was also a fierce defender ofhuman rights, including the equality of women and theabolition of slavery, unusual for the 1780s. He advocated forwomen's suffrage in the new government in 1790 withDe l'admission des femmes au droit de cité (For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women) and an article forJournal de la Société de 1789.[48][49][50]
Following de Condorcet's repeated, yet failed, appeals to the National Assembly in 1789 and 1790, Olympe de Gouges (in association with the Society of the Friends of Truth) authored and published theDeclaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791. This was another plea for the French Revolutionary government to recognize the natural and political rights of women.[51] De Gouges wrote the Declaration in the prose of theDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, almost mimicking the failure of men to include more than a half of the French population inegalité. Even though the Declaration did not immediately accomplish its goals, it did set a precedent for a manner in which feminists could satirize their governments for their failures in equality, seen in documents such asA Vindication of the Rights of Woman andA Declaration of Sentiments.[52]
Perhaps the most cited feminist writer of the time wasMary Wollstonecraft, She identified the education and upbringing of women as creating their limited expectations based on a self-image dictated by the typically male perspective.[53] Despite her perceived inconsistencies (Miriam Brody referred to the "Two Wollstonecrafts")[54] reflective of problems that had no easy answers, this book remains a foundation stone of feminist thought.[1]
Wollstonecraft believed that both genders contributed to inequality. She took women's considerable power over men for granted, and determined that both would require education to ensure the necessary changes in social attitudes. Given her humble origins and scant education, her personal achievements speak to her own determination. For many commentators, Wollstonecraft represents the first codification ofequality feminism, or a refusal of thefeminine role in society.[55][56]
19th-century feminists reacted to cultural inequities including the pernicious, widespread acceptance of theVictorian image of women's "proper" role and "sphere".[57] The Victorian ideal created a dichotomy of "separate spheres" for men and women that was very clearly defined in theory, though not always in reality. In this ideology, men were to occupy the public sphere (the space of wage labor and politics) and women the private sphere (the space of home and children.) This "feminine ideal", also called "The Cult of Domesticity", was typified in Victorianconduct books such asMrs Beeton's Book of Household Management andSarah Stickney Ellis's books.[58]The Angel in the House (1854) andEl ángel del hogar (The angel in the house) (1857), bestsellers byCoventry Patmore andMaría del Pilar Sinués de Marco, came to symbolize the Victorian feminine ideal.[59]Queen Victoria herself disparaged the concept of feminism, which she described in private letters as the "mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights'".[60][61]
AsJane Austen addressed women's restricted lives in the early part of the century,[62]Charlotte Brontë,Anne Brontë,Elizabeth Gaskell, andGeorge Eliot depicted women's misery and frustration.[63] In her autobiographical novelRuth Hall (1854),[64] American journalistFanny Fern describes her own struggle to support her children as a newspaper columnist after her husband's untimely death.[65]Louisa May Alcott penned a strongly feminist novel,[66]A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866), about a young woman's attempts to flee herbigamist husband and become independent.[67]
Male authors also recognized injustices against women. The novels ofGeorge Meredith,George Gissing,[68] andThomas Hardy,[69] and the plays ofHenrik Ibsen[70] outlined the contemporary plight of women. Meredith'sDiana of the Crossways (1885) is an account ofCaroline Norton's life.[71] One critic later called Ibsen's plays "feministic propaganda".[16]
John Neal is remembered as America's first women's rights lecturer.[72] Starting in 1823[73] and continuing at least as late as 1869,[74] he used magazine articles, short stories, novels, public speaking, political organizing, and personal relationships to advance feminist issues in the United States and Great Britain, reaching the height of his influence in this field circa 1843.[75] He declared intellectual equality between men and women, foughtcoverture, and demanded suffrage, equal pay, and better education and working conditions for women. Neal's early feminist essays in the 1820s fill an intellectual gap betweenMary Wollstonecraft,Catharine Macaulay, andJudith Sargent Murray andSeneca Falls Convention-era successors likeSarah Moore Grimké,Elizabeth Cady Stanton, andMargaret Fuller.[76] As a male writer insulated from many common forms of attack against female feminist thinkers, Neal's advocacy was crucial in bringing the field back into the mainstream in England and the US.[77]
In his essays forBlackwood's Magazine (1824-1825), Neal called for women's suffrage[78] and "maintain[ed] that women are notinferior to men, but onlyunlike men, in their intellectual properties" and "would have women treated like men, of common sense."[79] InThe Yankee magazine (1828–1829), he demanded economic opportunities for women,[80] saying "We hope to see the day ... when our women of all ages ... will be able to maintain herself, without being obliged to marry for bread."[81] At his most well-attended lecture titled "Rights of Women," Neal spoke before a crowd of around 3,000 people in 1843 at New York City's largest auditorium at the time, theBroadway Tabernacle.[82] Neal became even more prominently involved with the women's suffrage movement in his old age following the Civil War, both inMaine and nationally in the US by supportingElizabeth Cady Stanton's andSusan B. Anthony'sNational Woman Suffrage Association and writing for its journal,The Revolution.[83] Stanton and Anthony recognized his work after his death in theirHistory of Woman Suffrage.[74]
At the outset of the 19th century, the dissenting feminist voices had little to no social influence.[citation needed] There was little sign of change in the political or social order, nor any evidence of a recognizable women's movement. Collective concerns began to coalesce by the end of the century, paralleling the emergence of a stiffer social model and code of conduct thatMarion Reid described as confining and repressive for women.[1] While the increased emphasis on feminine virtue partly stirred the call for a woman's movement, the tensions that this role caused for women plagued many early-19th-century feminists with doubt and worry, and fueled opposing views.[84]
InScotland, Reid published her influentialA Plea for Woman in 1843,[85] which proposed a transatlantic Western agenda for women's rights, includingvoting rights for women.[86]
Caroline Norton advocated for changes in British law. She discovered a lack of legal rights for women upon entering an abusive marriage.[87] The publicity generated from her appeal to Queen Victoria[88] and related activism helped change English laws to recognize and accommodate married women and child custody issues.[87]
While many women including Norton were wary of organized movements,[89] their actions and words often motivated and inspired such movements.[citation needed] Among these wasFlorence Nightingale, whose conviction that women had all the potential of men but none of the opportunities[90] impelled her storied nursing career.[91] At the time, her feminine virtues were emphasized over her ingenuity, an example of thebias against acknowledging female accomplishment in the mid-1800s.[91]
Due to varying ideologies, feminists were not always supportive of each other's efforts.Harriet Martineau and others dismissed Wollstonecraft's[92] contributions as dangerous, and deplored Norton's[92] candidness, but seized on theabolitionist campaign that Martineau had witnessed in the United States[93] as one that should logically be applied to women. HerSociety in America[94] was pivotal: it caught the imagination of women who urged her to take up their cause.[citation needed]
Anna Wheeler was influenced bySaint Simonian socialists while working in France. She advocated for suffrage and attracted the attention ofBenjamin Disraeli, the Conservative leader, as a dangerous radical on a par withJeremy Bentham.[citation needed] She would later inspire early socialist and feminist advocateWilliam Thompson,[95] who wrote the first work published in English to advocate full equality of rights for women, the 1825 "Appeal of One Half of the Human Race".[96]
Feminists of previous centuries charged women's exclusion from education as the central cause for their domestic relegation and denial of social advancement, and women's 19th-century education was no better.[citation needed]Frances Power Cobbe, among others, called for education reform, an issue that gained attention alongside marital and property rights, and domestic violence.
Female journalists like Martineau and Cobbe in Britain, andMargaret Fuller in America, were achieving journalistic employment, which placed them in a position to influence other women. Cobbe would refer to "Woman's Rights" not just in the abstract, but as an identifiable cause.[97]
Barbara Leigh Smith and her friends met regularly during the 1850s in London's Langham Place to discuss the united women's voice necessary for achieving reform. These "Ladies of Langham Place" includedBessie Rayner Parkes andAnna Jameson. They focused on education, employment, and marital law. One of their causes became the Married Women's Property Committee of 1855.[citation needed] They collected thousands of signatures for legislative reform petitions, some of which were successful. Smith had also attended the 1848Seneca Falls Convention in America.[87][98]
Smith and Parkes, together and apart, wrote many articles on education and employment opportunities. In the same year as Norton, Smith summarized the legal framework for injustice in her 1854A Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women.[99] She was able to reach large numbers of women via her role in theEnglish Women's Journal. The response to this journal led to their creation of theSociety for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW). Smith's Married Women's Property committee collected 26,000 signatures to change the law[clarification needed] for all women, including those unmarried.[87][98]
Harriet Taylor published herEnfranchisement in 1851, and wrote about the inequities of family law. In 1853, she marriedJohn Stuart Mill, and provided him with much of the subject material forThe Subjection of Women.
Emily Davies also encountered the Langham group, and withElizabeth Garrett created SPEW branches outside London.
The interrelated barriers to education and employment formed the backbone of 19th-century feminist reform efforts, for instance, as described by Harriet Martineau in her 1859Edinburgh Journal article, "Female Industry".[clarification needed] These barriers did not change in conjunction with the economy. Martineau, however, remained a moderate, for practical reasons, and unlike Cobbe, did not support the emerging call for the vote.[citation needed]
The education reform efforts of women like Davies and the Langham group slowly made inroads.Queen's College (1848) andBedford College (1849) in London began to offer some education to women from 1848. By 1862, Davies established a committee to persuade the universities to allow women to sit for the recently established Local Examinations,[clarification needed] and achieved partial success in 1865. She publishedThe Higher Education of Women a year later. Davies and Leigh Smith founded the first higher educational institution for women and enrolled five students. The school later becameGirton College, Cambridge in 1869,Newnham College, Cambridge in 1871, andLady Margaret Hall at Oxford in 1879. Bedford began to award degrees the previous year. Despite these measurable advances, few could take advantage of them and life for female students was still difficult.[clarification needed]
In the 1883Ilbert Bill controversy, aBritish India bill that proposed Indian judicial jurisdiction to try British criminals, Bengali women in support of the bill responded by claiming that they were more educated than the English women opposed to the bill, and noted that moreIndian women had degrees than British women at the time.[100][clarification needed]
As part of the continuing dialogue between British and American feminists,Elizabeth Blackwell, one of the first American women to graduate in medicine (1849), lectured in Britain with Langham support. She eventually took her degree in France. Garrett's very successful 1870 campaign to run for London School Board office is another example of a how a small band of very determined women were beginning to reach positions of influence at the local government level.[citation needed]
Campaigns gave women opportunities to test their new political skills and to conjoin disparate social reform groups. Their successes include the campaign for theMarried Women's Property Act (passed in 1882) and the campaign to repeal theContagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869, which united women's groups and utilitarian liberals likeJohn Stuart Mill.[101]
Generally, women were outraged by the inherent inequity and misogyny of the legislation.[citation needed] For the first time, women in large numbers took up the rights of prostitutes. Prominent critics included Blackwell, Nightingale, Martineau, and Elizabeth Wolstenholme. Elizabeth Garrett, unlike her sister,Millicent, did not support the campaign, though she later admitted that the campaign had done well.[citation needed]
Josephine Butler, already experienced in prostitution issues, a charismatic leader, and a seasoned campaigner, emerged as the natural leader[102] of what became theLadies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1869.[103][104] Her work demonstrated the potential power of an organized lobby group. The association successfully argued that the Acts not only demeaned prostitutes, but all women and men by promoting a blatant sexualdouble standard. Butler's activities resulted in the radicalization of many moderate women. The Acts were repealed in 1886.[citation needed]
On a smaller scale,Annie Besant campaigned for the rights ofmatchgirls (female factory workers) and against the appalling conditions under which they worked in London. Her work of publicizing the difficult conditions of the workers through interviews in bi-weekly periodicals like The Link became a method for raising public concern over social issues.[105]
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Feminists did not recognize separate waves of feminism until the second wave was so named by journalist Martha Weinman Lear in a 1968New York Times Magazine article"The Second Feminist Wave", according toAlice Echols.[106] Jennifer Baumgardner reports criticism by professorRoxanne Dunbar-Ortiz of the division into waves[107] and the difficulty of categorizing some feminists into specific waves,[108] argues that the main critics of a wave are likely to be members of the prior wave who remain vital,[108] and that waves are coming faster.[108] The "waves debate" has influenced how historians and other scholars have established the chronologies of women's political activism.[2]
The 19th- and early 20th-century feminist activity in theEnglish-speaking world that sought to winwomen's suffrage, female education rights, better working conditions, and abolition of gender double standards is known as first-wave feminism. The term "first-wave" was coined retrospectively when the termsecond-wave feminism was used to describe a newer feminist movement that fought social and cultural inequalities beyond basic political inequalities.[109]In the United States, feminist movement leaders campaigned for the nationalabolition of slavery andTemperance before championing women's rights.[110][111] American first-wave feminism involved a wide range of women, some belonging to conservative Christian groups (such asFrances Willard and theWoman's Christian Temperance Union), others resembling the diversity and radicalism of much ofsecond-wave feminism (such as Stanton, Anthony,Matilda Joslyn Gage, and theNational Woman Suffrage Association, of which Stanton was president). First-wave feminism in the United States is considered to have ended with the passage of theNineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1920), which granted women the right to vote in the United States.
Activism for the equality of women was not limited to the United States. In mid-nineteenth century Persia,Táhirih, an early member of theBábí Faith, was active as a poet and religious reformer. At a time when it was considered taboo for women to speak openly with men in Persia, and for non-clerics to speak about religion, she challenged the intellectuals of the age in public discourse on social and theological matters.[112] In 1848 she appeared before an assemblage of men without a veil and gave a speech on the rights of women, signaling a radical break with the prevailing moral order and the start of a new religious and social dispensation.[112] After this episode she was put under house arrest by the Persian Government until her execution by strangling at the age of 35 in August 1852.[112] At her execution she is reported as proclaiming "You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women."[113][114] The story of her life rapidly spread to European circles and she would inspire later generations of Iranian feminists.[115][116] Members of theBahá'í Faith recognize her as the first women's suffrage martyr and an example of fearlessness and courage in the advancement of the equality of women and men.[115]
Louise Dittmar campaigned for women's rights, in Germany, in the 1840s.[117] Although slightly later in time,Fusae Ichikawa was in the first wave of women's activists in her own country of Japan, campaigning for women's suffrage.Mary Lee was active in the suffrage movement in South Australia, the first Australian colony to grant women the vote in 1894. In New Zealand,Kate Sheppard andMary Ann Müller worked to achieve the vote for women by 1893.
In the United States, the antislavery campaign of the 1830s served as both a cause ideologically compatible with feminism and a blueprint for later feminist political organizing. Attempts to exclude women only strengthened their convictions.[citation needed]Sarah andAngelina Grimké moved rapidly from the emancipation of slaves to the emancipation of women. The most influential feminist writer of the time was the colourful journalistMargaret Fuller, whoseWoman in the Nineteenth Century was published in 1845. Her dispatches from Europe for theNew York Tribune helped create to synchronize thewomen's rights movement.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton andLucretia Mott met in 1840 while en route to London where they were shunned as women by the male leadership of the firstWorld's Anti-Slavery Convention. In 1848, Mott and Stanton helda woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, where adeclaration of independence for women was drafted.Lucy Stone helped to organize the firstNational Women's Rights Convention in 1850, a much larger event at whichSojourner Truth,Abby Kelley Foster, and others spoke sparkedSusan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women's rights. In December 1851, Sojourner Truth contributed to the feminist movement when she spoke at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio. She delivered her powerful "Ain't I a Woman" speech in an effort to promote women's rights by demonstrating their ability to accomplish tasks that have been traditionally associated with men.[118]Barbara Leigh Smith met with Mott in 1858,[119] strengthening the link between thetransatlantic feminist movements.
Stanton andMatilda Joslyn Gage sawthe Church as a major obstacle to women's rights,[120] and welcomed the emerging literature on matriarchy. Both Gage and Stanton produced works on this topic, and collaborated onThe Woman's Bible. Stanton wrote "The Matriarchate or Mother-Age"[121] and Gage wroteWoman, Church and State, neatly invertingJohann Jakob Bachofen's thesis and adding a uniqueepistemological perspective, the critique of objectivity and the perception of the subjective.[121][jargon]
Stanton once observed regarding assumptions of female inferiority, "The worst feature of these assumptions is that women themselves believe them".[122] However this attempt to replaceandrocentric (male-centered) theological[clarification needed] tradition with agynocentric (female-centered) view made little headway in a women's movement dominated by religious elements; thus she and Gage were largely ignored by subsequent generations.[123][124]
By 1913, Feminism (originally capitalized) was a household term in the United States.[125] Major issues in the 1910s and 1920s includedsuffrage, women's partisan activism, economics and employment, sexualities and families, war and peace, and aConstitutional amendment for equality. Both equality and difference were seen as routes to women's empowerment.[clarification needed] Organizations at the time included theNational Woman's Party, suffrage advocacy groups such as theNational American Woman Suffrage Association and theNational League of Women Voters, career associations such as theAmerican Association of University Women, theNational Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, and theNational Women's Trade Union League, war and peace groups such as theWomen's International League for Peace and Freedom and theInternational Council of Women, alcohol-focused groups like theWoman's Christian Temperance Union and theWomen's Organization for National Prohibition Reform, and race- and gender-centered organizations like theNational Association of Colored Women. Leaders and theoreticians includedJane Addams,Ida B. Wells-Barnett,Alice Paul,Carrie Chapman Catt,Margaret Sanger, andCharlotte Perkins Gilman.[126]
The women's right to vote, with its legislative representation, represented a paradigm shift where women would no longer be treated as second-class citizens without a voice. The women's suffrage campaign is the most deeply embedded campaign of the past 250 years.[127][dubious –discuss]
At first, suffrage was treated as a lower priority. The French Revolution accelerated this,[clarification needed] with the assertions of Condorcet and de Gouges, and the women who led the1789 march on Versailles. In 1793, theSociety of Revolutionary Republican Women was founded, and originally included suffrage on its agenda before it was suppressed at the end of the year. As a gesture, this showed that issue was now part of the European political agenda.[citation needed]
German women were involved in theVormärz, a prelude to the1848 revolution. In Italy, Clara Maffei,Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso, and Ester Martini Currica were politically active[clarification needed] in the events leading up to 1848. In Britain, interest in suffrage emerged from the writings of Wheeler and Thompson in the 1820s, and from Reid, Taylor, andAnne Knight in the 1840s.[citation needed] While New Zealand was the first sovereign state where women won the right to vote (1893), they did not win the right to stand in elections until later. The Australian State ofSouth Australia was the first sovereign state in the world to officially grant full suffrage to women (in 1894).
The Langham Place ladies set up a suffrage committee at an 1866 meeting at Elizabeth Garrett's home, renamed the London Society for Women's Suffrage in 1867.[128] Soon similar committees had spread across the country, raising petitions, and working closely with John Stuart Mill. When denied outlets by establishment periodicals, feminists started their own, such asLydia Becker'sWomen's Suffrage Journal in 1870.
Other publications includedRichard Pankhurst'sEnglishwoman's Review (1866).[clarification needed] Tactical disputes were the biggest problem,[clarification needed] and the groups' memberships fluctuated.[clarification needed] Women considered whether men (like Mill) should be involved. As it went, Mill withdrew as the movement became more aggressive with each disappointment.[clarification needed] The political pressure ensured debate, but year after year the movement was defeated in Parliament.
Despite this, the women accrued political experience, which translated into slow progress at the local government level. But after years of frustration, many women became increasingly radicalized. Some refused to pay taxes, and thePankhurst family emerged as the dominant movement influence, having also founded theWomen's Franchise League in 1889, which sought local election suffrage for women.[129]
The Isle of Man, a UK dependency, was the first free standing jurisdiction to grant women the vote (1881), followed by the right to vote (but not to stand) in New Zealand in 1893, whereKate Sheppard[130] had pioneered reform. Some Australian states had also granted women the vote. This included Victoria for a brief period (1863–5), South Australia (1894), and Western Australia (1899). Australian women received the vote at the Federal level in 1902, Finland in 1906, and Norway initially in 1907 (completed in 1913).[131]
In the early part of the 20th century, also known as the Edwardian era, there was a change in the way women dressed from the Victorian rigidity and complacency. Women, especially women who married a wealthy man, would often wear what we consider today, practical.[132]
Books, articles, speeches, pictures, and papers from the period show a diverse range of themes other than political reform and suffrage discussed publicly.[citation needed] In the Netherlands, for instance, the main feminist issues were educational rights, rights to medical care,[133] improved working conditions, peace, and dismantled gender double standards.[134][135][136][137][138][139] Feminists identified as such with little fanfare.[citation needed]
Emmeline Pankhurst formed theWomen's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. As she put it, they viewed votes for women no longer as "a right, but as a desperate necessity".[140] At the state level, Australia and the United States had already granted suffrage to some women. American feminists such asSusan B. Anthony (1902) visited Britain.[clarification needed] While WSPU was the best-known suffrage group,[citation needed] it was only one of many, such as theWomen's Freedom League and theNational Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) led byMillicent Garrett Fawcett.[clarification needed] WSPU was largely a family affair,[clarification needed] although externally financed.Christabel Pankhurst became the dominant figure and gathered friends such asAnnie Kenney,Flora Drummond,Teresa Billington,Ethel Smyth,Grace Roe, and Norah Dacre Fox (later known asNorah Elam) around her. Veterans such as Elizabeth Garrett also joined.
In 1906, theDaily Mail first labeled these women "suffragettes" as a form of ridicule, but the term was embraced by the women to describe the more militant form of suffragism visible in public marches, distinctive green, purple, and white emblems, and theArtists' Suffrage League's dramatic graphics. The feminists learned to exploit photography and the media, and left a vivid visual record including images such as the 1914 photograph of Emmeline.[141]
The protests slowly became more violent, and included heckling, banging on doors, smashing shop windows, and arson.Emily Davison, a WSPU member, unexpectedly ran onto the track during the 1913Epsom Derby and died under the King's horse. These tactics produced mixed results of sympathy and alienation.[citation needed] As many protesters were imprisoned andwent on hunger-strike, the British government was left with an embarrassing situation. From these political actions, the suffragists successfully created publicity around their institutional discrimination and sexism.
At the beginning of the 20th century,feminist science fiction emerged as a subgenre ofscience fiction that deals with women's roles in society. Female writers of theutopian literature movement at the time offirst-wave feminism often addressed sexism.Charlotte Perkins Gilman'sHerland (1915) did so.[clarification needed]Sultana's Dream (1905) byBengaliMuslim feministRoquia Sakhawat Hussain depicts a gender-reversedpurdah in a futuristic world.
During the 1920s, writers such asClare Winger Harris andGertrude Barrows Bennett published science fiction stories written from female perspectives and occasionally dealt with gender- and sexuality-based topics while popular 1920s and 30spulp science fiction exaggerated masculinity alongside sexist portrayals of women.[142] By the 1960s, science fiction combinedsensationalism with political and technological critiques of society. With the advent of feminism, women's roles were questioned in this "subversive, mind expanding genre".[143]
Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, how reproduction defines gender, and how the political power of men and women are unequal.[144][145] Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes usingutopias to explore societies where gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, anddystopias to explore worlds where gender inequalities are escalated, asserting a need for feminist work to continue.[146]
Women entered the labor market during theFirst World War in unprecedented numbers, often in new sectors, and discovered the value of their work. The war also left large numbers of women bereaved and with a net loss of household income. The scores of men killed and wounded shifted the demographic composition. War also split the feminist groups, with many women opposed to the war and others involved in thewhite feather campaign.[147]
Feminist scholars likeFrançoise Thébaud andNancy F. Cott note a conservative reaction to World War I in some countries, citing a reinforcement of traditional imagery and literature that promotes motherhood. The appearance of these traits in wartime has been called the "nationalization of women."[148]
In the years between the wars, feminists fought discrimination and establishment opposition to advances in women's roles in the social world and workforce.[149][150] InVirginia Woolf'sA Room of One's Own, Woolf describes the extent of the backlash and her frustration. By now, the word "feminism" was in use, but with a negative connotation from mass media, which discouraged women from self-identifying as such.[citation needed] WhenRebecca West, another prominent writer, had been attacked as "a feminist", Woolf defended her. West has been remembered for her comment "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute."[151]
In the 1920s, the nontraditional styles and attitudes offlappers were popular among American and British women.[152]
The United Kingdom'sRepresentation of the People Act 1918[153] gave near-universal suffrage to men, and suffrage to women over 30. TheRepresentation of the People Act 1928 extended equal suffrage to both men and women. It also shifted the socioeconomic makeup of the electorate towards the working class, favouring theLabour Party, who were more sympathetic to women's issues.[citation needed]
The granting of the vote did not automatically give women the right to stand for Parliament and theParliament (Qualification of Women) Act was rushed through just before thefollowing election. Seventeen women were among the 1700 candidates nominated.Christabel Pankhurst narrowly failed to win a seat, andConstance Markievicz (Sinn Féin) was the first woman elected in Ireland in 1918, but as anIrish nationalist, refused to take her seat.[154]
In 1919 and 1920, bothLady Astor andMargaret Wintringham won seats for the Conservatives and Liberals respectively by succeeding their husband's seats. Labour swept to power in 1924. Astor's proposal to form a women's party in 1929 was unsuccessful. Women gained considerable electoral experience over the next few years as a series of minority governments ensured almost annual elections. Close affiliation with Labour also proved to be a problem for theNational Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC), which had little support in the Conservative party. However, their persistence with Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin was rewarded with the passage of theRepresentation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928.[155]
European women received the vote inFinland (that time still an autonomous state under Czar Russia) in 1906, inDenmark andIceland in 1915 (full in 1919), theRussian Republic in 1917,Austria,Germany andCanada in 1918, many countries including theNetherlands in 1919,Czechoslovakia (todayCzech Republic andSlovakia) in 1920, andTurkey andSouth Africa in 1930.French women did not receive the vote until 1945.Liechtenstein was one of the last countries, in 1984.[156]
After French women were given the right to vote in 1945, two women's organizations were founded in the French colony ofMartinique.Le Rassemblement féminin andl'Union des femmes de la Martinique both had the goal of encouraging women to vote in the upcoming elections. Whilel'Union des femmes de la Martinique, founded by Jeanne Lero was influenced by beliefs,Le Rassemblement féminin, founded byPaulette Nardal, claimed to not support any particular political party and only encouraged women to take political action in order to create social change.[157]
The political change did not immediately change social circumstances. With the economic recession, women were the most vulnerable sector of the workforce. Some women who held jobs prior to the war were obliged to forfeit them to returning soldiers, and others were excessed. With limited franchise, the UKNational Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) pivoted into a new organization, theNational Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC),[158] which still advocated for equality in franchise, but extended its scope to examine equality in social and economic areas. Legislative reform was sought for discriminatory laws (e.g., family law andprostitution) and over the differences betweenequality andequity, the accommodations that would allow women to overcome barriers to fulfillment (known in later years as the "equality vs. difference conundrum").[159]Eleanor Rathbone, who became a BritishMember of Parliament in 1929, succeededMillicent Garrett as president of NUSEC in 1919. She expressed the critical need for consideration ofdifference in gender relationships as "what women need to fulfill the potentialities of their own natures".[160][This quote needs a citation] The 1924 Labour government's social reforms created a formal split, as asplinter group of strict egalitarians formed theOpen Door Council in May 1926.[161] This eventually became an international movement, and continued until 1965.[citation needed] Other important social legislation of this period included theSex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 (which opened professions to women), and theMatrimonial Causes Act 1923. In 1932, NUSEC separated advocacy from education, and continued the former activities as theNational Council for Equal Citizenship and the latter as theTownswomen's Guild. The council continued until the end of theSecond World War.[citation needed]
British laws prevented feminists from discussing and addressing reproductive rights.Annie Besant was tried under theObscene Publications Act 1857 in 1877 for publishingCharles Knowlton'sFruits of Philosophy,[162] a work on family planning.[163][164] Knowlton had previously been convicted in the United States. She and her colleagueCharles Bradlaugh were convicted but acquitted on appeal. The subsequent publicity resulted in a decline in the UK's birth rate.[165][166] Besant later wroteThe Law of Population.[167]
In America,Margaret Sanger was prosecuted for her bookFamily Limitation under theComstock Act in 1914, and fled to Britain until it was safe to return. Sanger's work was prosecuted in Britain. She metMarie Stopes in Britain, who was never prosecuted but regularly denounced for her promotion of birth control. In 1917, Sanger started theBirth Control Review.[168] In 1926, Sanger gave a lecture on birth control to the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey, which she referred to as a "weird experience".[169][clarification needed] The establishment of theAbortion Law Reform Association in 1936 was even more controversial. The British penalty forabortion had beenreduced from execution to life imprisonment by theOffences against the Person Act 1861, although some exceptions were allowed in theInfant Life (Preservation) Act 1929.[170][171] FollowingAleck Bourne's prosecution in 1938, the 1939Birkett Committee made recommendations for reform that were set aside at the Second World War's outbreak, along with many other women's issues.[172]
In the Netherlands,Aletta H. Jacobs, the first Dutch female doctor, andWilhelmina Drucker led discussion and action for reproductive rights. Jacobs imported diaphragms from Germany and distributed them to poor women for free.[citation needed]
In most front line countries, women volunteered or were conscripted for various duties in support of the national war effort. In Britain, women were drafted and assigned to industrial jobs or to non-combat military service. The British services enrolled 460,000 women. The largest service,Auxiliary Territorial Service, had a maximum of 213,000 women enrolled, many of whom served in anti-aircraft gun combat roles.[173][174] In many countries, including Germany and the Soviet Union, women volunteered or were conscripted. In Germany, women volunteered in theLeague of German Girls and assisted the Luftwaffe as anti-aircraft gunners, or as guerrilla fighters inWerwolf units behindAllied lines.[175] In the Soviet Union, about 820,000 women served in the military as medics, radio operators, truck drivers, snipers, combat pilots, and junior commanding officers.[176]
Many American women retained their domestic chores and often added a paid job, especially one related to a war industry. Much more so than in the previous war, large numbers of women were hired for unskilled or semi-skilled jobs in munitions, and barriers against married women taking jobs were eased. The popularRosie the Riveter icon became a symbol for a generation of American working women.[citation needed] In addition, some 300,000 women served in U.S. military uniform with organizations such asWomen's Army Corps andWAVES. With many young men gone, sports organizers tried to set up professional women's teams, such as theAll-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which closed after the war. After the war, most munitions plants closed, and civilian plants replaced their temporary female workers with returning veterans, who had priority.[177]
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"Second-wave feminism" identifies a period offeminist activity from the early 1960s through the late 1980s that saw cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized and reflective of asexist power structure. As first-wave feminists focused on absolute rights such as suffrage, second-wave feminists focused on other cultural equality issues, such as ending discrimination.[178]
A landmark feminist work appeared in 1949 calledThe Second Sex, a book written bySimone de Beauvoir. The critical text pertained to every facet of what would later be defined as gender discourse. Beauvoir goes into detail on the treatment of women throughout entire history of the world and analyses the modes of oppression enforced by patriarchy and then critiques it.[179] In 1963,Betty Friedan's exposéThe Feminine Mystique became the voice for the discontent and disorientation women felt in being shunted into homemaking positions after their college graduations. In the book, Friedan explored the roots of the change in women's roles from essential workforce during World War II to homebound housewife and mother after the war, and assessed the forces that drove this change in perception of women's roles.[citation needed]
The expression "Women's Liberation" has been used to refer to feminism throughout history.[180] "Liberation" has been associated with feminist aspirations since 1895,[181][182] and appears in the context of "women's liberation" in Simone de Beauvoir's 1949The Second Sex, which appeared in English translation in 1953. The phrase "women's liberation" was first used in 1964,[183] in print in 1966,[184] though the French equivalent,libération des femmes, occurred as far back as 1911.[185] "Women's liberation" was in use at the 1967 AmericanStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) convention, which held a panel discussion on the topic. In 1968, the term "Women's Liberation Front" appeared inRamparts magazine, and began to refer to the whole women's movement.[186] In Chicago, women disillusioned with theNew Left met separately in 1967, and publishedVoice of the Women's Liberation Movement in March 1968. When theMiss America pageant took place in Atlantic City in September 1968,[187] the media referred to the resulting demonstrations as "Women's Liberation". TheChicago Women's Liberation Union was formed in 1969.[188] Similar groups with similar titles appeared in many parts of the United States.Bra-burning, although fictional,[189] became associated with the movement, and the media coined other terms such as "libber".[clarification needed] "Women's Liberation" persisted over the other rival terms for the new feminism, captured the popular imagination, and has endured alongside the older term "Women's Movement".[190]
This time was marked by increased female enrolment in higher education, the establishment of academicwomen's studies courses and departments,[191] and feminist ideology in other related fields, such as politics, sociology, history, and literature.[15] This academic shift in interests questioned the status quo, and its standards and authority.[192]
The rise of the Women's Liberation movement revealed "multiple feminisms", or different underlying feminist lenses, due to the diverse origins from which groups had coalesced and intersected, and the complexity and contentiousness of the issues involved.[193]bell hooks is noted as a prominent critic of the movement for its lack of voice given to the most oppressed women, its lack of emphasis on the inequalities of race and class, and its distance from the issues that divide women.[194]Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman",[195]John Lennon's "Woman is the Nigger of the World" andYoko Ono's "Josei Joui Banzai" were 70s feminist songs. Feminist's wrong protest against rock music movement was started inLos Angeles, whereWomen Against Violence Against Women was founded in 1976; they campaigned against theRolling Stones' 1976 albumBlack and Blue.[196]
The publication of Betty Friedan'sThe Feminine Mystique has been credited with beginning the so-called "second wave" of feminist activism, during which time feminist writers furthered conversations about women's political and sexual concerns.[197] Examples includeGloria Steinem'sMs. magazine andKate Millett'sSexual Politics. Millett's bleak survey of male writers, their attitudes and biases, to demonstrate that sex is politics, and politics is power imbalance in relationships.Shulamith Firestone'sThe Dialectic of Sex described a feminist revolution based in Marxism, referenced as the "sex war."[198] Considering the debates over patriarchy, she claimed that male domination dated to "back beyond recorded history to the animal kingdom itself."[198]
Germaine Greer'sThe Female Eunuch,Sheila Rowbotham'sWomen's Liberation and the New Politics, andJuliet Mitchell'sWoman's Estate represent the English perspective.[citation needed] Mitchell argued that the movement should be seen as an international phenomenon with different manifestations based on local culture. British women drew onleft-wing politics and organized small local discussion groups, partly through theLondon Women's Liberation Workshop and its publications,Shrew and the LWLW Newsletter.[199] Although there were marches, the focus was onconsciousness-raising, or political activism intended to bring a cause or condition to a wider audience.[183][200]Kathie Sarachild ofRedstockings described its function as such that women would "find what they thought was an individual dilemma is social predicament".[This quote needs a citation]
US women's writing included works such asSusan Brownmiller's 1975Against Our Will, which introduced an explicit agenda against male violence, specifically male sexual violence, in a treatise on rape. Her work has been referred to as "groundbreaking" due to its framing of rape as a social problem; it also had a fair number of critics, primarily from feminists of color, who took issue with Brownmiller's approach to race.[201] Brownmiller's other major book,In Our Time (2000), is a history of women's liberation.
In Academic circles, feminist theology was a growing interest.Phyllis Trible wrote extensively throughout the 1970s to critique biblical interpretation of the time, using a type of critique known asRhetorical criticism.[202] Trible's analysis of biblical text seeks to explain that the bible itself is not sexist, but that it is centuries of sexism in societies that have produced this narrative.[203]
Susan Griffin was one of the first[citation needed] feminists to write onpornography's implications in her 1981Pornography and Silence. Beyond Brownmiller and Griffin's positions,Catharine MacKinnon andAndrea Dworkin influenced debates and activism around pornography and prostitution, particularly at theSupreme Court of Canada.[204] MacKinnon, a lawyer, has stated, "To be about to be raped is to be gender female in the process of going about life as usual."[205] She explained sexual harassment by saying that it "doesn't mean that they [harassers] all want to fuck us, they just want to hurt us, dominate us, and control us, and that is fucking us."[206] According to Pauline B. Bart, some people see radical feminism as the only movement that truly expresses the pain of being a woman in an unequal society, as it portrays that reality with the experiences of the battered and violated, which they claim to be the norm.[207] Critics, including some feminists, civil libertarians, and jurists, have found this position uncomfortable and alienating.[1][208][209]
This approach has evolved to transform the research and perspective on rape from an individual experience into a social problem.[210]
Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s in response to what young women perceived as failures of thesecond-wave. It also responds to the backlash against the second-wave's initiatives and movements.[citation needed] Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid second-wave "essentialist" definitions offemininity, which over-emphasized the experiences of white, upper-middle-class women. Apost-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality, or an understanding of gender as outside binary maleness and femaleness, is central to much of the third wave's ideology.[citation needed] Third-wave feminists often describe "micropolitics",[clarification needed] and challenge second-wave paradigms about whether actions are unilaterally good for females.[178][211][212][213][clarification needed]
These aspects of third-wave feminism arose in the mid-1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave likeGloria Anzaldúa,bell hooks,Chela Sandoval,Cherríe Moraga,Audre Lorde,Luisa Accati,Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, called for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They wanted prominent feminist thought to consider race-related subjectivities.[clarification needed] This focus on the intersection between race and gender remained prominent through the 1991Hill–Thomas hearings, but began to shift with theFreedom Ride 1992,[citation needed] a drive to register voters in poor minority communities whose rhetoric intended to rally young feminists. For many, the rallying of the young is the common link within third-wave feminism.[178][211]
Lesbianism during the second wave was visible within and without feminism. Lesbians felt sidelined by both gay liberation and women's liberation, where they were referred to by Betty Friedan as a "lavender menace", provoking "The Woman-Identified Woman," a 1970 manifesto from theRadicalesbians that put lesbian women at the forefront of the liberation movement.[214]
A few years later,Jill Johnston's 1973Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution argued forlesbian separatism, a practice by which lesbian women would separate themselves from the rest of society.[215]
Inreproductive rights, feminists sought the right to contraceptives (i.e., birth control), some of which were widely restricted in the US until the late 1960s and through the 1970s; thebirth control pill, for example, was primarily available only to married women until the mid 1970s, though other women did find ways to get the pill anyhow.[216] Access toabortion was also widely demanded so as to increase women's economic independence and bodily autonomy, but was more difficult to secure due to existing, deep societal divisions over the issue.
Shulamith Firestone, active during the second wave of feminism, argued reproductive technology is connected to reproductive rights.[217] Firestone believed in the enhancement of technologically concerning reproduction, in order to eliminate the obligation for women to reproduce and end oppression and inequality against them. Enhancing technology to empower women and abolish the gender hierarchy are the main focuses of a newer developing philosophy in feminism, known ascyberfeminism. Cyberfeminism has strong ties to reproductive rights and technology.
Third-wave feminists also fought to hasten social acceptance of female sexual freedom. As societal norms allowed men to have multiple sexual partners without rebuke, feminists sought sexual equality for that freedom and encouraged "sexual liberation" for women, including sex for pleasure with multiple partners, if desired.[citation needed]
In 1946, the United Nations established aCommission on the Status of Women,[218][219] which later joined theUN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In 1948, the UN issued itsUniversal Declaration of Human Rights, which protects "the equal rights of men and women",[220] and addressed both equality and equity.[clarification needed] Starting with the 1975 World Conference of theInternational Women's Year in Mexico City as part of theirDecade for Women (1975–1985), the UN has held a series of world conferences on women's issues. These conferences have worldwide female representation and provide considerable opportunity to advance women's rights.[citation needed] They also illustrate deep cultural divisions and disagreement on universal principles,[221] as evidenced by the successive Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985) conferences.[clarification needed] Examples of such intrafeminism divisions have included disparities between economic development, attitudes towards forms of oppression, the definition of feminism, and stances on homosexuality,female circumcision, and population control.[citation needed] The Nairobi convention revealed a less monolithic feminism that "constitutes the political expression of the concerns and interests of women from different regions, classes, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds. There is and must be a diversity of feminisms, responsive to the different needs and concerns of women, and defined by them for themselves. This diversity builds on a common opposition to gender oppression and hierarchy which, however, is only the first step in articulating and acting upon a political agenda."[222] The fourth conference was held in Beijing in 1995,[223] where theBeijing Platform for Action was signed. This included a commitment to achieve "gender equality and the empowerment of women"[224] through "gender mainstreaming", or letting women and men "experience equal conditions for realising their full human rights, and have the opportunity to contribute and benefit from national, political, economic, social and cultural development".[225]
"The definitional moment of third-wave feminism has been theorized as proceeding from critiques of the white women's movement that were initiated by women of color, as well as from the many instances of coalition work undertaken by U.S. third world feminists"[226] Third world feminists since the 1980s have been critics of class-bias, racism, and Eurocentrism among women and feminists, and theories of multiplicity and difference given by these feminists such as Sandoval, Minh-ha, and Mohanty have enabled young feminists to dismantle the idea of monolithic feminism. They have empowered them to recognize the differences and declare multiple identities of being female, despite constantly feeling caught between modernity and tradition. Even though Asian women found it difficult to relate completely with the western women's white problems, they related much with the women of color, and thus remolded it and built a bridge between both halves of feminism, the eastern and western, via interconnectedness among women around the world. They adapted and borrowed the 'western' ideas of feminism and women in the west incorporated the effects of women's movements in other parts of the world, while reinventing itself. Asian feminists acknowledged the need of recognizing multiple sources of domination in women's lives all across the world, refused to universalize women's experience as one, and instead recognized the differences among them due to different social locations. They claimed that although academic feminism introduced them to the idea of feminism, it failed to bring them closer to the sisters and mothers in their lives, and rather took them further away. Some have also argued that many goals of western feminism are not enough to assess women's progress in Asia because they are not necessarily relevant or exportable across the boundaries. Thus, they redefined it as one that drew upon their heritage, history, and experiences. As Grewal puts it, "These transnational feminist scholars enable us to rethink the way we construct and write the history of feminists in national and transnational contexts. Seeking to articulate transnational connections among women, they have suggested ways to move beyond constructed oppositions without ignoring the histories that informed these conflicts or the valid concerns about power relations that have represented or structured the conflicts up to this point."[227]
Fourth-wave feminism is a recent development within the feminist movement.Jennifer Baumgardner identifies fourth-wave feminism as starting in 2008 and continuing into the present day.[228]Kira Cochrane, author of All the Rebel Women: The Rise of the Fourth Wave of Feminism,[229] defines fourth-wave feminism as a movement that is connected through technology.[230][231] Researcher Diana Diamond defines fourth-wave feminism as a movement that "combinespolitics,psychology, andspirituality in an overarching vision of change."[232]
In 2005, Pythia Peay first argued for the existence of a fourth wave of feminism, combining justice withreligious spirituality.[233] According toJennifer Baumgardner in 2011, a fourth wave, incorporating online resources such associal media, may have begun in 2008, inspired partly byTake Our Daughters to Work Days. This fourth wave in turn has inspired or been associated with: the Doula Project for children's services; post-abortion talk lines; pursuit ofreproductive justice;plus-size fashion support; support fortransgender rights; male feminism;sex work acceptance; and developing media includingFeministing, Racialicious,blogs, andTwitter campaigns.[234]
According toKira Cochrane, a fourth wave had appeared in the U.K. and several other nations by 2012–13. It focused on: sexual inequality as manifested in "street harassment, sexual harassment, workplace discrimination[,] ... body-shaming";[235] media images, "online misogyny",[235] "assault[s] on public transport";[235] onintersectionality; onsocial media technology for communication and online petitioning for organizing; and on the perception, inherited from prior waves, that individual experiences are shared and thus can have political solutions.[235] Cochrane identified as fourth wave such organizations and websites as theEveryday Sexism Project andUK Feminista; and events such asReclaim the Night,One Billion Rising, and "a Lose the Lads' mags protest",[235] where "many of [the leaders] ... are in their teens and 20s".[235]
In 2014,Betty Dodson, who is also acknowledged as one of the leaders of the early 1980s pro-sex feminist movement, expressed that she considers herself a fourth wave feminist. Dodson expressed that the previous waves of feminist were banal and anti-sexual, which is why she has chosen to look at a new stance of feminism, fourth wave feminism. In 2014, Dodson worked with women to discover their sexual desires through masturbation. Dodson says her work has gained a fresh lease of life with a new audience of young, successful women who have never had an orgasm. This includes fourth-wave feminists - those rejecting the anti-pleasure stance they believe third-wave feminists stand for.[236]
In 2014, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter released their book,The Vagenda. The authors of the book both consider themselves fourth wave feminists. Like their website "The Vagenda", their book aims to flag and debunk the stereotypes of femininity promoted by the mainstream women's press.[237] One reviewer of the book has expressed disappointment withThe Vagenda, saying that instead of being the "call to arms for young women" that it purports to be, it reads like a joyless dissertation detailing "everything bad the media has ever done to women."[238]
The Everyday Sexism Project began as a social media campaign on 16 April 2012 by Laura Bates, a British feminist writer. The aim of the site was to document everyday examples of sexism as reported by contributors around the world.[239] Bates established the Everyday Sexism Project as an open forum where women could post their experiences of harassment. Bates explains the Everyday Sexism Project's goal, ""The project was never about solving sexism. It was about getting people to take the first step of just realising there is a problem that needs to be fixed."[240]
The website was such a success that Bates decided to write and publish a book,Everyday Sexism, which further emphasizes the importance of having this type of online forum for women. The book provides unique insight into the vibrant movement of the upcoming fourth wave and the untold stories that women shared through the Everyday Sexism Project.[241]
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In November 2015, a group of historians working with Clio Visualizing History[3] launchedClick! The Ongoing Feminist Revolution.[4] This digital history exhibit examines the history of American feminism from the era of World War Two to the present. The exhibit has three major sections: Politics and Social Movements; Body and Health; and Workplace and Family. There are also interactive timelines linking to a vast array of sources documenting the history of American feminism and providing information about current feminist activism.
In the 1960s, feminists described their movements as the "second wave" of feminism. As the second wave emerges, the importance of this new wave was to revisit that the current women's right had a venerable past. This wave focused on the idea that these movements were a long tradition of activism and during the second wave, feminists began to rewrite U.S. history through recognizing that the suffrage movement was part of the nineteenth century movement around women's issues.[242] Presently, many contributions about the Second Wave Feminism was correlated with "hegemonic feminism". This feminism views sexism as the main oppression and it was mainly led by white individuals who "marginalized the activism and world views of women of color".[243] Women of color and white antiracist women clarify the rise of multiracial feminism through telling the history of the Second Wave feminism. One of the earlier feminist organizations of the Second Wave was a Chicana group named Hijas de Cuauntemoc (1971) which was named after an underground newspaper written by women during the 1910 Mexican Revolution.[243] Multiple other feminist organizations that were created in the early 1970s with Black, Asian, Latina, and Native American women have created a nationalist tradition of sending out a message that there is a need for people of color-led, independent organizations.[243]
During the 1990s, the United States feminist activity that was present in the 1960s through the 1980s was no longer expressed.[242] The wave metaphor for the Second Wave showed the 1960s movement as anything other than a historical situation, and showed that the nineteenth century movement was a bigger deal and had more impact on history than what was taught.[242] As many pondered on what state was feminism presently in, one idea emerged in the early 1990s as the "third wave". As emerging from the Second Wave and onto the Third Wave, the wave metaphor has reached its usefulness. Individuals are more aware of the significance the nineteenth century had on women's movement and are more aware of the emergence the 1960s had from their long struggle regarding women's issues.
The 18th centuryFrench Revolution's focus onégalité (equality) extended to the inequities faced by French women. The writerOlympe de Gouges amended the 1791Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen into theDeclaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, where she argued that women accountable to the law must also bear equal responsibility under the law. She also addressed marriage as a social contract between equals and attacked women's reliance on beauty and charm as a form of slavery.[244] Two years later, she was executed by guillotine.
The 19th century, conservative, post-Revolution France was inhospitable for feminist ideas, as expressed in the counter-revolutionary writings on the role of women byJoseph de Maistre andViscount Louis de Bonald.[245] Advancement came mid-century under the1848 revolution and the proclamation of the Second Republic, which introduced male suffrage amid hopes that similar benefits would apply to women.[citation needed] Although the UtopianCharles Fourier is considered a feminist writer of this period, his influence was minimal at the time.[246] With the fall of the conservativeLouis-Philippe in 1848, feminist hopes were raised, as in 1790. Movement newspapers and organizations appeared, such asEugénie Niboyet'sLa Voix des Femmes (The Women's Voice), the first feminist daily newspaper in France. Niboyet was a Protestant who had adoptedSaint-Simonianism, andLa Voix attracted other women from that movement, including the seamstressJeanne Deroin and the primary schoolteacherPauline Roland. Unsuccessful attempts were also made to recruitGeorge Sand. Feminism was treated as a threat due to its ties with socialism, which was scrutinized since the Revolution.[citation needed] Deroin and Roland were both arrested, tried, and imprisoned in 1849. With the emergence of a new, more conservative government in 1852, feminism would have to wait until theThird French Republic.
While the wordféminisme previously existed to describe the qualities of women, the wordféministe was coined in 1872 byAlexandre Dumasfils to refer to liberated women.[247]
TheGroupe Français d'Etudes Féministes were women intellectuals at the beginning of the 20th century who translated part ofBachofen's canon into French[248] and campaigned for the family law reform. In 1905, they foundedL'entente, which published articles on women's history, and became the focus for the intellectualavant-garde. It advocated for women's entry into higher education and the male-dominated professions.[249] Meanwhile, theParti Socialiste Féminin socialist feminists, adopted a Marxist version of matriarchy.[clarification needed] Like the Groupe Français, they toiled for a new age of equality, not for a return to prehistoric models of matriarchy.[250][251][clarification needed] French feminism of the late 20th century is mainly associated with psychoanalyticfeminist theory, particularly the work ofLuce Irigaray,Julia Kristeva, andHélène Cixous.[252]
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Modern feminism inGermany began during theWilhelmine period (1888–1918) with feminists pressuring a range of traditional institutions, from universities to government, to open their doors to women. The organized German women's movement is widely attributed to writer and feministLouise Otto-Peters (1819–1895). This movement culminated inwomen's suffrage in 1919. Later waves of feminists continued to ask for legal and social equality in public and family life.Alice Schwarzer is the most prominent contemporary German feminist.
The Iranian women's rights movement first emerged some time after theIranian Constitutional Revolution, in the year in which the first women's journal was published, 1910. The status of women deteriorated after the 1979Iranian Revolution. The movement later grew again under feminist figures such asBibi Khanoom Astarabadi,Touba Azmoudeh,Sediqeh Dowlatabadi,Mohtaram Eskandari,Roshank No'doost,Afaq Parsa,Fakhr ozma Arghoun,Shahnaz Azad,Noor-ol-Hoda Mangeneh,Zandokht Shirazi,Maryam Amid (Mariam Mozayen-ol Sadat).[253][254]
In 1992,Shahla Sherkat foundedZanan (Women) magazine, which covered Iranian women's concerns and tested political boundaries with edgy reportage on reform politics, domestic abuse, and sex. It is the most important Iranian women's journal published after the Iranian revolution.[citation needed] It systematically criticized the Islamic legal code and argued that gender equality is Islamic and religious literature had been misread and misappropriated by misogynists. Mehangiz Kar, Shahla Lahiji, and Shahla Sherkat, the editor ofZanan, lead the debate on women's rights and demanded reforms.[255] On August 27, 2006, theOne Million Signatures Iranian women's rights campaign was started. It aims to end legal discrimination against women in Iranian laws by collecting a million signatures.[clarification needed] The campaign supporters include many Iranian women's rights activists, international activists, andNobel laureates. The most important post-revolution feminist figures areMehrangiz Kar,Azam Taleghani,Shahla Sherkat,Parvin Ardalan,Noushin Ahmadi khorasani, andShadi Sadr.[citation needed][clarification needed]
In 1899,Qasim Amin, considered the "father" ofArab feminism, wroteThe Liberation of Women, which argued for legal and social reforms for women.[256]Hoda Shaarawi founded theEgyptian Feminist Union in 1923 and became its president and a symbol of the Arab women's rights movement. Arab feminism was closely connected withArab nationalism.[257][clarification needed] In 1956, PresidentGamal Abdel Nasser's government initiated "state feminism", which outlawed gender-based discrimination and granted women's suffrage. Despite these reforms, "state feminism" blocked feminist political activism and brought an end to thefirst-wave feminist movement in Egypt.[258] DuringAnwar Sadat's presidency, his wife,Jehan Sadat, publicly advocated for expansion of women's rights, though Egyptian policy and society was in retreat from women's equality with the newIslamist movement and growing conservatism. However, writers such asAl Ghazali Harb, for example, argued that women's full equality is an important part of Islam.[259] This position formed a new feminist movement,Islamic feminism, which is still active today.[260]
A new generation of Indian feminists emerged followingglobal feminism. Indian women have greater independence from increased access to higher education and control over their reproductive rights.[261]Medha Patkar,Madhu Kishwar, andBrinda Karat are feminist social workers and politicians who advocate for women's rights in post-independence India.[261] Writers such asAmrita Pritam,Sarojini Sahoo, and Kusum Ansal advocate for feminist ideas in Indian languages.[262] Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan, Leela Kasturi, and Vidyut Bhagat are Indian feminist essayists and critics writing in English.[clarification needed]
Feminism in China began in the lateQing period as Chinese society re-evaluated traditional andConfucian values such asfoot binding and gender segregation, and began to reject traditional gender ideas as hindering progress towardsmodernization.[263] During the 1898Hundred Days' Reform, reformers called for women's education, gender equality, and the end of foot binding. Female reformers formed the first Chinese women's society, the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge among Chinese Women (Nüxuehui).[264] After the Qing dynasty's collapse,women's liberation became a goal of theMay Fourth Movement and theNew Culture Movement.[265] Later, theChinese Communist Revolution adopted women's liberation as one of its aims and promoted women's equality, especially regarding women's participation in the workforce. After the revolution and progress in integrating women into the workforce, theChinese Communist Party claimed to have successfully achieved women's liberation, and women's inequality was no longer seen as a problem.[266][clarification needed]
Second- and third-wave feminism in China was characterized by a re-examination of women's roles during the reform movements of the early 20th century and the ways in which feminism was adopted by those various movements in order to achieve their goals. Later and current feminists have questioned whether gender equality has actually been fully achieved, and discuss current gender problems, such as the largegender disparity in the population.[266]
Japanese feminism as an organized political movement dates back to the early years of the 20th century whenKato Shidzue pushed forbirth control availability as part of a broad spectrum ofprogressive reforms. Shidzue went on to serve in theNational Diet following the defeat of Japan in World War II and the promulgation of thePeace Constitution by US forces.[267] Other figures such asHayashi Fumiko andAriyoshi Sawako illustrate the broad socialist ideologies of Japanese feminism that seeks to accomplish broad goals rather than celebrate the individual achievements of powerful women.[267][268]
Norwegian feminism's political origins are in thewomen's suffrage movement.Camilla Collett (1813–1895) is widely considered the first Norwegian feminist. Originating from a literary family, she wrote a novel and several articles on the difficulties facing women of her time, and, in particular,forced marriages.Amalie Skram (1846–1905), anaturalist writer, also served as the women's voice.[269]
TheNorwegian Association for Women's Rights was founded in 1884 byGina Krog and Hagbart Berner. The organization raised issues related to women's rights to education and economic self-determination, and, above all, universal suffrage. The Norwegian Parliament passed the women's right to vote into law on June 11, 1913. Norway was the second country in Europe (after Finland) to have full suffrage for women.[269]
The development of feminism in Poland (re-recreated in modern times in 1918) and Polish territories has traditionally been divided into seven successive "waves".[270]
Radical feminism emerged in 1920s Poland. Its chief representatives,Irena Krzywicka andMaria Morozowicz-Szczepkowska, advocated for women's personal, social, and legal independence from men. Krzywicka andTadeusz Żeleński both promotedplanned parenthood,sexual education, rights to divorce and abortion, and equality of sexes. Krzywicka published a series of articles inWiadomości Literackie in which she protested against interference by theRoman Catholic Church in the intimate lives of Poles.[270]
After the Second World War, the PolishCommunist state (established in 1948) forcefully promoted women's emancipation at home and at work. However, during Communist rule (until 1989), feminism in general and second-wave feminism in particular were practically absent. Although feminist texts were produced in the 1950s and afterwards, they were usually controlled and generated by the Communist state.[271] After the fall of Communism, the Polish government, dominated by Catholic political parties, introduced ade facto legal ban on abortions. Since then, some feminists have adopted argumentative strategies from the 1980sAmerican pro-choice movement.[270]
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The sexuality and gender historian Nancy Cott distinguishes betweenmodern feminism and its antecedents, particularly the struggle for suffrage.[citation needed] She argues that in the two decades surrounding theNineteenth Amendment's 1920 passage, the priorwoman movement primarily concerned women asuniversal entities, whereas over this 20-year period, the movement prioritized social differentiation, attention toindividuality, and diversity.[clarification needed] New issues dealt more with gender as asocial construct, gender identity, and relationships within and between genders. Politically, this represented a shift from an ideological alignment comfortable with the right, to one more radically associated with the left.[272][non-primary source needed]
In the immediate postwar period,Simone de Beauvoir opposed the "woman in the home" norm. She introduced anexistentialist dimension to feminism with the publication ofLe Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) in 1949. While less an activist than a philosopher and novelist, she signed one of the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes manifestos.
The resurgence of feminist activism in the late 1960s was accompanied by an emerging literature of what might be considered female-associated issues, such as concerns for the earth, spirituality, and environmental activism.[273] The atmosphere this created reignited the study of and debate on matricentricity[jargon] as a rejection ofdeterminism, such as withAdrienne Rich inOf Woman Born andMarilyn French inBeyond Power. Forsocialist feminists likeEvelyn Reed, patriarchy held the properties of capitalism.
Ann Taylor Allen[4] describes the differences between the collective male pessimism of male intellectuals such asFerdinand Tönnies,Max Weber, andGeorg Simmel at the beginning of the 20th century,[274] compared to the optimism of their female counterparts, whose contributions have largely been ignored by social historians of the era.[275]
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