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. 2nd wave feminism started in the late 1950s moved into the 1980s. Finally, Third Wave feminism is bit more nebulous and less defined. It essentially started with the Anita Hill hearings before the Senate Judiciary Hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and "the riot grrl groups in the music scene of the early 1990s." Kimberle Crenshaw and Judith Butler were the intellectual theorists who helped ground the movement and incorporate intersectionality and embrace transgender rights.<ref>https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth</ref>
Historians and feminist/gender scholars describe today’s feminist theory, ideology, and social/political movement as the [[What was the Third Wave Feminist Movement?|''third waveThird 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. {{Mediawiki:TabletAd1}}
==== 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>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826309887/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0826309887&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=7979bf4a8ff003689e7f9d58a2862cd2 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 major focus areas.
</div>
The ‘’second wave’’ feminist movement proved to be a major social transition for Western countries and the United States from the 1960s and later. Major social change, such as women's participation in the labor force, and increased prosperity forced a major social awareness movement that questioned the roles of gender in society. Major works of literature began to question perceived traditional gender roles and exposed social problems created by such roles on women. Two movements emerged within the broader second wave feminist movement, which were the more mainstream and radical elements of feminism. While one worked to change society from within, using legislation and social pressure, the other, radical movement questions fundamentally if society's hierarchical and patriarchal nature were the main problem. Both these movements made major contributions, however, through their influence on society in general, where today many things we take for granted, such as women in the workforce, only became increasingly acceptable after the 1960s.
====Conclusion====Today, a woman delaying raising a family is not often questioned by society for such a choice, but this was not the norm in the pre-1960s US and parts of Europe. Later, the merger of racial and other social inequality was seen as part of broader social struggles in society. Ultimately, the second wave feminist movement gave women the opportunity to start conversations about how their social inequality and begin to think about gender, identity, sexuality, race, and class as all equally important factors. The so-called third wave, focused more greatly focused on gay/lesbian and racial issues, but it can be argued to be that it was informed by the second wave rhetoric that had emerged late in the 1970s as race and broader social inequality issues emerged.
====Suggested Readings====
* 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
* 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
{{MediaWiki:AmNative}}
====References====
[[Category:United States History]] [[Category:Women's History]][[Category:Feminist History]] [[Category:Civil Rights History]][[Category:European History]][[Category:20th Century History]]
Updated January 28, 2019
