15,697
edits
Changes
no edit summary
__NOTOC__
[[File:Leffler_-_WomensLib1970_WashingtonDC.jpg|left|400px|thumbnail|Women's Liberation March in Washington, D.C. in 1970]]
Today, feminism is an ideology/theory that most people fail to understand fully. Feminism has been described as having three separate waves. [[What was the First Wave Feminist Movement?|The First Wave Feminist Movement]] started in the mid-19th Century and culminated with the women's suffrage movement. Second The 2nd wave feminism started in the late 1950s moved into the 1980s.
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 the end of World War Two and essentially ended with the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Second-wave feminism splintered after criticism grew that the movement had focused on white women to the exclusion of everyone else.
Nevertheless, in the United States, women's participation in the labor force in World War II created a feeling among many women, after the war ended, that they also deserved the same types of rights as men in jobs they filled. This was highlighted by the fact that many men who came back and retook their old jobs from women who were doing them during the war also were given higher salaries, further highlighting this inequality.<ref>Milkman, Ruth, <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0252081773/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0252081773&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=69155be1a38d6dea3b598cf2d3940b8f On Gender, Labor, and Inequality, Working Class in American History]</i>. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2016. Pg. 83.</ref>
In the 1950s, the economy began to expand, and the height of the red scare or anti-communist sentiment began to diminish feminist organization. <ref> Laughlin, Kathleen A., and Jacqueline L. Castledine. <i> [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415874009/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0415874009&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=6b8857f4b500c32da5bf87aac9369b9c Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985]</i>. New York: Routledge, 2011, 90. </ref> However, by the early late 1950s and 1960s, as a prolonged prosperity took hold, there was greater interest to explore new ideas and movements emerged, including the civil rights movement, that began to question establish social constructs such as segregation and inequality in the workplace. By the early 1960s, the social atmosphere began to be conducive for a major feminist movement.<ref>Gilmore, Stephanie, ed., <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0252075390/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0252075390&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=53a802ecde3a40d4fda23475f8d008a1 Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States, Women in American History].</i> Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.</ref>
==== Ideology that Shaped the 2nd Wave of Feminism Movement ====
[[File:The_Second_Sex.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|<i>The Second Sex</i> by Simone de Beauvoir]]
After World War II, some writers began to question how women in society were perceived and the role they played, particularly as the war had shown women made valuable contributions and in many cases performed tasks equally to me. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307265560/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307265560&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=f9a9c302f5b6ddd567059a2383502e0d The Second Sex]</i>, a groundbreaking book that questioned how society viewed women and the role in which they played. In her work, Beauvoir writes, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This quote represents how society fosters the idea of what a woman should do and act, where gender roles are learned and forced upon women. <ref> Vasilopoulou, Angeliki. "Woman by Choice:’ A Comment on Simone De Beauvoir’s Famous Phrase ‘One Is Not Born a Woman, but Becomes One'" <i>Journal of Research in Gender Studies</i> 4, no. 2 (2014), 489-490. </ref> Where World War II showed that women could break out of their gender roles as was required; the book questioned then why should women's roles that saw them as secondary to men in the workplace and home be perpetuated when this was not the case during the war.
<dh-ad/>
In the 1970s, the second wave feminist movement expanded and continued to gain momentum. Carol Hanisch published an essay in 1970 titled "The Personal is Political.” Hanisch argued that everything was political, including the division of household labor, gender roles, and other day-to-day activities. If a women woman decided to have an abortion and get a job as a woman in a male-dominated industry, then that decision has political consequences and became politicized in society. Women had to bring their private, household problems into the public sphere because issues were politicized and had consequence far outside of an individual. <ref>Lee, Theresa Man Ling. "Rethinking the Personal and the Political: Feminist Activism and Civic Engagement." <i>Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy</i> 22, no. 4 (2007): 163-79. doi:10.2979/hyp.2007.22.4.163. </ref>
==== One Movement or Two? ====
<references/>
[[Category:Wikis]]
[[Category:United States History]] [[Category:Women's History]][[Category:Feminist History]] [[Category:Civil Rights History]][[Category:European History]][[Category:20th Century History]] [[Category:2nd Wave Feminism]]Updated January 428, 20182019
{{Contributors}}
