What was the First Wave Feminist Movement

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

Mary Wollstonecraft, living in the late 18th century, 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 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. Her books (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792, and Maria, or the Wrongs of Women,published in 1798, were often 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 due to the morals of the day. She had at least two highly publicized affairs that produced at least one child out of wedlock. The focus on her behavior, rather than ideas, unfortunately diminished her influence in the early 19th century as feminists ideas increasingly emerged.

The 19th century also emerged as a period of emancipation, 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, who had 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 soon greater freedom for women comparable to men. 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 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 had God created the sexes differently. This contradiction, therefore, became an obstacle for early feminists.

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 the a newspaper called The Revolution. 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 began to see greater interest in the ideals of a virtuous woman creating a repressive standard for women.

While some women, such as Barbara Leigh Smith, focused on employ and education for women, others saw other goals as necessary. In particular, the late 19th century was increasingly focused on obtaining voting rights for women. To counteract the power of the church's interpretation of sex-based hierarchy, Stanton produced an influential work called The Woman's Bible, written in 1895. Although it was much maligned by Biblical scholars, Stanton tried to argue for equality using the Bible. The National Woman Suffrage Association, already established by 1869, became a prominent organizations advocating for woman suffrage, which took more radical approaches, such as rejecting the 15th Amendment unless it included woman suffrage. The other major movement was American Woman Suffrage Association, which advocated for state by stat campaigning to achieve suffrage. There was a wide split among feminists regarding the approach. However, in the late 19th century it became clear that having rival groups weakened the suffrage movement. In 1890, the two groups merged and formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

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. 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 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.