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While there is no clear consensus as to when 'first wave' feminism occurred, most accept that in the 19th century, as industrialization progressed, and new mass movement began, first wave feminism emerged. The term itself was only coined in 1968 by Martha Lear, who also coined the term second wave. First wave feminism focused on what we now consider basic issues of inequality in light of more recent developments.

====Origins of First Wave Feminism====

Although feminism can be argued to have its roots with many ancient periods, modern feminism begins around the late 17th and 18th centuries, during the Enlightenment in Europe. One of the early feminists was Mary Wollstonecraft, who mostly wrote in the late 18th century (Figure 1). She was heavily influenced by Rousseau and French political thinkers who began to advocate that societies, and individuals specifically, should have rights that the state provides. Individual rights, separate from teaching from the church, began to become a key focus for philosophers during this period. Individual liberty, as argued, was to be upheld by the state. Similarly, English philosophers, such as John Locke living earlier, had taken up similar ideas. However, philosophers and writers often ignored women and Wollstonecraft was among the first to call for gender equality. She believed reason and education should be the foundation of social order that included equality for women. Her books (<i>A Vindication of the Rights of Women</i>, published in 1792, and <i>Maria, or the Wrongs of Women</i>,published in 1798, were controversial in their day but also demonstrated her ideas. She saw the lack of focus in educating women as making them appear less informed as men in society. Although we see her views as largely expected and normal today, for over a century her writings and influence were minimized or even avoided by later feminists due to the morals of the day. She had at least two highly publicized affairs that produced at least one child out of wedlock and was explicit about her sexuality. The focus on her behavior, rather than ideas, unfortunately diminished her influence in the early 19th century as feminists ideas increasingly emerged.<ref>For more on Wollstonecraft, see: Taylor, B. (2003). <i>Mary Wollstonecraft and the feminist imagination</i>. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press.</ref>

The 19th century also emerged as a period of emancipation for slaves, not only in the US, which was relatively late in freeing their slaves, but also in the UK, other European countries and in the Americas. This led to the emergence of women rights movements, who had often campaigned for the freeing of slaves, to develop their own political thoughts and ideas about what emancipation really meant. In the United States, mid-19th century women emerged advocating emancipation for slaves and greater freedom for women comparable to men. These two issues began to be seen, at least by some women and advocates, as being interrelated. The Seneca Convention, in 1844, was the first organized convention to discuss social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women. This was led by Quakers, who were also leading abolitionist. Prominent women that began to emerge from this convention and its later offshoots included Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and, among the most well know, Susan Brownell Anthony. Interestingly, many early congresses calling for the emancipation of slaves often shunned women or gave them secondary roles. One key obstacle was many had interpreted their faith to stand against slavery, but at the same time they saw or interpreted that God created the sexes differently. In effect, women were not equals to men in terms of rights. This contradiction, therefore, became an obstacle for early feminists working within the abolitionist movements.<ref>For early 19th century feminists and the Seneca Convention, see: Roediger, D. R., Blatt, M. H., & Lowell Conference on Industrial History (Eds.). (1999). <i>The Meaning of slavery in the North</i>. New York: Garland Pub.</ref>

Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony, after the Civil War and in 1868, began to focus on creating a platform for women to rally around. They created a newspaper called <i>The Revolution</i>. This helped to rally support to what they saw was one of the first great obstacles to greater freedom, which was the right to vote. In effect, this helped to launch the suffrage movement in the United States. Other countries also, at about the same time or even earlier in some cases, began to have women organizations calling for greater female rights and literature advocating voting for women. This included Scottish Marion Reid, who collaborated with American feminists and began to see that greater interest in the ideals of a virtuous woman in Victorian Britain creating a repressive standard for women.<ref>For more on Stanton and Anthony, see: Stanton, E. C., Gordon, A. D., & Anthony, S. B. (1997). <i>The selected papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony</i>. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.</ref>

In 1869, John Allen Campbell, the first Governor of the Wyoming, granted women the right to vote, making Wyoming the first territory or state women had specific laws that expressed their rights to vote. The National Woman's Party emerged in 1916 as another suffrage organization, which broke from the NAWSA, which had focused only on states rather than any federal laws. They held high profile protests in front of the White House during World War I, as they saw targeting the federal government as the most expedient way to gain the right to vote. Although their protests were often ignored, arguably effort by women during the war, mostly in replacing men in factories, helped many to see that women did have equal skills to men. This helped to persuade, along with the feminist organisations, many in congress that women should have the right to vote. Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919 and enough states ratified the amendment by 1920, making the right for women to vote legal in the United States in 1920. While the process itself was contentious, often with hunger strikes and even mob violence, sometime by both sides in the argument, there continued to be problems in the 1920s. Some regions tried to argue the 19th Amendment was unconstitutional and tried to bar women from holding office or voting. Nevertheless, with the gradual acceptance of women as voters, what can be considered the First Wave of feminism had culminated in achieving a major success for women (Figure 2).<ref>For more on the late 19th century and early 20th century path for women in gaining the right to vote, see: Smith, K. M. (1994). <i>New paths to power: American women, 1890-1920</i> New York: Oxford University Press. </ref>

====First Wave Around the World====

While there has been much focus on feminists in the United States, feminists movements had also developed in various periods, most notably after the 18th century, in many countries. Southern Australia was among the first places women could vote, where in 1895 the right to vote was achieved by women there. Catherine Spence was a prominent figure who had campaigned for the vote.<ref>For more on Australia's struggle for the right to vote for women, see: Oldfield, A. (1992). <i>Woman suffrage in Australia: a gift or a struggle</i>? Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. </ref>

====Later Significance====

First wave feminism was instrumental in giving women basic rights such as to vote and even administer their own property. World War II and recovery period that saw men retaking many of their old job, in some ways, slowed down the feminist movement. However, by the 1960s the political climate in the West began to change and accept more liberal ideals. While first wave feminists achieved their key goals, it was evident in countries such as the UK and the US that equality in voting did not translate to equality in the workplace or aspects of social acceptance such as marriage. Communist states emerged as early countries that embraced more equality, but in the West this took time as social norms began to change in the context of major wars and increasingly greater roles women played in society, both in a civil and political sense. Nevertheless, the key foundation for second wave feminism required the rights earned by first wave feminists, mainly in giving women political power through the vote.