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[[File:Leffler_-_WomensLib1970_WashingtonDC.jpg|left|400px|thumbnail|Women's Liberation March in Washington, D.C., 1970 by Warren K. Leffler]]
Today, feminism is an ideology/theory that most people fail to fully understand. Feminism has been described as having three separate waves. The first wave of feminism started in the mid-19th Century and culminated with the women's suffrage movement. Second wave feminism started in the late 1950s moved into the 1980s. This Historians and feminist/gender scholars describe today’s feminist theory, ideology and social/political movement as the ''third wave'' of feminism. The ‘’second wave’’ of feminism started after the women were forced out of the workplace after end of World War Two and essentially ended with the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Historians and feminist/gender scholars describe today’s feminist theory, ideology and social/political Second-wave feminism splintered after criticism grew that the movement as had focused on white women to the the ''third wave'' exclusion of feminismeveryone else.
== Lead up to the Second Wave ==
The women's movement before the 1920s was characterized by the suffrage movement that led to women gaining the right to vote. From the 1890s and early part of the 20th century, much of the women's movement focused on general societal inequalities and, such as poor working and housing conditions, while also focusing on social ills such as alcoholism and prostitution. Black women in the Southwest of the United States, during the 1930s, for instance, joined labor unions such as the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) to protest poor wages and work environments they had to endure. <ref>Ruíz, Vicki. <i>Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950</i>. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987.</ref> Apart from this general social activism and gaining the right to vote, gender-specific topics, including equality in work and pay, were not a major focus areas
