The History of the Womens' Movement
from Wikipedia.org - February 13, 2008
The First Wave...
Susan B. Anthony
First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. It focused on de jure (officially mandated) inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage (the right to vote). The term "first-wave" was coined retroactively in the 1970s. The women's movement then, focussing as much on fighting de facto (unofficial) inequalities as de jure ones, acknowledged its foremothers by calling itself "second-wave feminism".
United Kingdom
Mary Wollstonecraft published the first feminist treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she advocated the social and moral equality of the sexes, extending the work of her 1790 pamphlet, A Vindication of the Rights of Man. Her later unfinished work "Maria, or the Wrongs of Women" earned her considerable criticism as she dared to acknowledge the existence of women's sexual desires, which was taboo in Georgian England.
Wollstonecraft is regarded as the grandmother of British feminism and her ideas shaped the thinking of the suffragettes, who campaigned for the women's vote. After generations of work, this was eventually granted − to some women in 1918, and equally with men in 1928.
United States
Prominent leaders of this movement include Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who campaigned for the abolition of slavery prior to championing women's right to vote. Anthony and other activists (such as Victoria Woodhull and Matilda Joslyn Gage) made attempts to cast votes prior to their legal entitlement to do so, for which many of them faced charges. Other important leaders include Lucy Stone, Olympia Brown, and Helen Pitts.
First-wave feminism involved a wide range of women, some belonging to conservative Christian groups (such as Frances Willard and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union), others resembling the diversity and radicalism of much of second-wave feminism (such as Matilda Joslyn Gage and the National Woman Suffrage Association).
The end of this wave is often linked with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1920), granting women the right to vote. This was a major victory of the movement, which also included reforms in higher education, in the workplace and professions, and in healthcare.
The Second Wave...
Gloria Steinem
Second Wave Feminism is generally identified with a period beginning in the early nineteen sixties. It is referred to as second wave feminism as social changes tend to occur in waves. Its proponents ascribe its arrival to what they see as the failure of first wave feminism to achieve its aims.
The movement encouraged women to understand the psychological implications of sexist stereotypes, and to make them realize that they could achieve more in life than being a housewife and a mother. It is credited by some as having opened up the eyes of American women to a world of careers and achievement. During the Second World War, many women experienced working life for the very first time. Women and men were working side by side, and achievements were being recognized. In the wake of the war, it is often argued that the short-lived affirmation of women's independence gave way to a pervasive endorsement of female subordination and domesticity, and it was not until the 1960s that the women's movement became successful.
Significant Events
There were many significant moments during the 1960s which defined the second wave of feminism.
- The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women was created in the USA by the Kennedy administration, with Eleanor Roosevelt as its chair. The report issued by that commission in 1963 documented discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life.
- That same year, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique appeared on bookshelves. This book became extremely popular among American housewives. Friedan conducted a survey of the 1942 graduating class at Smith College, her alma matter, which showed that 89% of women regretted rushing into marriage and not putting their education to good use. It was through this type of research that she was able to reach out to American women, and make them think about the importance of being women and achieving their goals. It is argued by some that Friedan allowed women to talk for the first time about a problem that for so many years had oppressed women: what she called the feminine mystique.
- Due to a combined effort from many different sorts of activists, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 of the USA was passed, including Title VII which made illegal employment discrimination on the basis of sex, along with race, religion, and national origin. Historians commonly note that the category "sex" was actually included in an eleventh-hour attempt to kill the bill.
- The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established in 1964 to enforce laws concerning equal opportunities within the work place. Alice Hernandez resigned from the EEOC as the organisation was reluctant to act on women's issues. In 1966, NOW (National Organization for Women) was established and Betty Friedan was elected president. There were many other groups which were of great significance during this period such as the PCSW (President's Commission on the Status of Women), which documented the discrimination that many women encountered. It strove to fit new opportunities into women's lives as they were. The CACSW (Citizen Advisory Council on the status of Women) organized groups to urge state legislation to be passed. WEAL (Women's Equity Action League) was headed by Dr. Elizabeth Boyer who also recruited members for NOW. WEAL's main objectives were attain equality through the full enforcement of existing laws and through encouraging girls to prepare for more rewarding jobs. All of these groups were started by a small group of people, but as the years went by more groups were organized to meet more specified objectives.
- Eight years after Title VII, Education Amendments of 1972 (United States) was passed, which forbade discrimination in the field of education. Many people see Title IX as extremely important to young women today, contributing to equal provisions for women's sports in school and feminist campus activism, among other things. However, it soon became clear that many existing anti-discrimination laws were not enforced. For instance, within the commission's first five years, it received 50,000 sex discrimination complaints, but did little to investigate them.
- Inspired in part by the legal victories of the 1960s and 1970s, but still worried about de facto discrimination, many feminists supported and worked to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment into the United States Constitution. The Amendment, proposed in 1972, said:
- Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Opponents, such as
Education
One debate which developed in the United States during this time period revolved around the question of coeducation. Most men's colleges in the United States adopted coeducation, often by merging with women's colleges. In addition, some women's colleges adopted coeducation, while others maintained a single-sex student body.
Seven Sisters Colleges
Two of the Seven Sister colleges made transitions during and after the 1960s. The first, Radcliffe College, merged with Harvard University. Beginning in 1963, students at Radcliffe received Harvard diplomas signed by the presidents of Radcliffe and Harvard and joint commencement exercises began in 1970. The same year, several Harvard and Radcliffe dormitories began swapping students experimentally and in 1972 full co-residence was instituted. The departments of athletics of both schools merged shortly thereafter. In 1977, Harvard and Radcliffe signed an agreement which put undergraduate women entirely in Harvard College. In 1999 Radcliffe College was dissolved and Harvard University assumed full responsibility over the affairs of female undergraduates. Radcliffe is now the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Women's Studies at Harvard University. The second, Vassar College, declined an offer to merge with Yale University and instead became coeducational in 1969.
The remaining Seven Sisters decided against coeducation. Mount Holyoke College engaged in a lengthy debate under the presidency of David Truman over the issue of coeducation. On 06 November 1971, "after reviewing an exhaustive study on coeducation, the board of trustees decided unanimously that Mount Holyoke should remain a women's college, and a group of faculty was charged with recommending curricular changes that would support the decision." Smith College also made a similar decision in 1971. In 1969, Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College (then all-male) developed a system of sharing residential colleges. When Haverford became coeducational in 1980, Bryn Mawr discussed the possibly of coeducation as well, but decided against it. In 1983, Columbia University began admitting women after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard College for a merger along the lines of Harvard and Radcliffe (Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia since 1900, but it continues to be independently governed). Wellesley College also decided against coeducation during this time.
Mills College
On May 3, 1990, the Trustees of Mills College announced that they had voted to admit male students. This decision led to a two-week student and staff strike, accompanied by numerous displays of non-violent protests by the students. At one point, nearly 300 students blockaded the administrative offices and boycotted classes. On May 18, the Trustees met again to reconsider the decision, leading finally to a reversal of the vote.
Other Colleges
Pembroke College merged with Brown University. Sarah Lawrence College declined an offer to merge with Princeton University, becoming coeducational in 1969.[citation needed] Connecticut College also adopted coeducation during the late 1960s. In addition, due to its status as a public or government institution, the Mississippi University for Women become coeducational after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan (1982). The ruling found that as a publicly funded institution, the university would be in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause if it denied admission on the basis of gender (in this case, men).
Careers
While women's education was improving, career prospects for women were also widening thanks to such organisations as ALSSA (Air Line Stewards and Stewardesses Association) who fought a long battle to get equal rights in employment. Airline stewardesses were fired once they were married; since the average age of a woman getting married was 20, this did not provide a very long career for air stewardesses. Dusty Roads and Nancy Collins campaigned for age restrictions on air stewardesses to be removed, and this coincidentally brought about the battle for equal rights in the work place.
Media
Media representations of women have been much discussed by advocates of Second-wave feminism. Some have argued that popular magazines during the 1960's represented a repressive force, imposing damaging images on vulnerable, impressionable American women[citation needed]. Many magazines defined the role of a housewife as exciting and creative and often featured articles on baking. Magazines also had positive influences on the movement, and published articles that encouraged women to live a fulfilled life. Reader's Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, Woman's Home Companion, and Life Magazine, are just some of the magazines that influenced women during the 1960’s. There were also a few African American magazines, such as Coronet, which featured articles on strong black women who balanced a career and a family.
Success
It is argued by many that Second wave feminism saw a transformation of consciousness and changed how most American women saw themselves and the world around them. Through organisations such as NOW, WEAL and PCSW, discrimination in the work place on the basis of sex was made illegal. The impact of media allowed the spread of feminist ideals through articles, newspapers, television and books, and this made it acceptable to talk about women's issues.
The Third Wave
History
In response to the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill scandal, Rebecca Walker published an article in a 1992 issue of Ms. titled "Becoming the Third Wave" in which she stated, "I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the third wave." Hill and Thomas’ case brought attention to the ongoing presence of sexual harassment in the workplace, reinstating concern and awareness in many who assumed sexual harassment and other second wave issues were resolved. Walker's article generated several hundred letters of response, most from women under 30, inspiring Walker and activist Shannon Liss to found the Third Wave Direct Action Corporation (now known as Third Wave Foundation). This activist organization was founded to support and mobilize the power of young women to resist various manifestations of injustice.
The roots of the third-wave began, however, in the mid 1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second-wave like Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, and Maxine Hong Kingston called for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They sought to negotiate prominent space within feminist thought for consideration of race related subjectivities. This focus on the intersection between race and gender remained prominent through the Hill-Thomas hearings, but was perceived to shift with the Freedom Ride 1992, the first project of the Walker-led Third Wave Direct Action Corporation. This drive to register voters in poor minority communities was surrounded with rhetoric that focused on rallying young women.
The fundamental rights and programs gained by feminist activists of the second-wave: the creation of domestic abuse shelters and the acknowledgment of abuse and rape on a public level, access to contraception and other reproductive services including the legalization of abortion, the creation and enforcement of sexual harassment policies for women in the workplace, child care services, equal educational and extracurricular funding for young women, women’s studies programs, and much more—have served as a foundation, and a tool for third-wave feminists.
Some third-wave feminists prefer not to call themselves feminists, as the word feminist can be misinterpreted as an exclusive term or deemed man-hating or elitist by critics. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge any universal definition of femininity. This view is most clearly articulated in the first collection of essays edited by Rebecca Walker, "To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism" (Anchor/Doubleday, 1995). In the introduction of "To Be Real", the Third Wave founder and leader writes,
"Whether the young women who refuse the feminist label realize it or not, on some level they recognize that an ideal woman born of prevalent notions of how empowered women look, act, or think is simply another impossible contrivance of perfect womanhood, another scripted role to preform in the name of biology and virtue."
Third-wave feminism deals with issues that seem to limit or oppress women. Consciousness raising activism and widespread education is often the first step that feminists take toward social change. In their book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards write,
"Consciousness among women is what caused this [change], and consciousness, one’s ability to open their mind to the fact that male domination does affect the women of our generation, is what we need... The presence of feminism in our lives is taken for granted. For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice we have it—it’s simply in the water."
Activism and the Third Wave Agenda
Transformation is a product of collaboration and consciousness. Once consciousness is raised, activism is necessary to feminism. There are an abundance of grassroots organizations and coalitions that work to transform the world that women live in; for instance, Dress for Success, an organization that collects suits through donations and fund-raisers, giving them to women on welfare in order to instill confidence when interviewing for a job. Other organizations include: National Organization for Women, La Red, The Third Wave Foundation, Women’s Action Alliance, Voters for Choice, Students Organizing Students, Take Back the Night, Code Pink, Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood, Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and more. However, third wave feminists urge that one does not have to join a preexisting organization to make important changes in their communities.
Story-telling is a productive way in which third-wave women raise consciousness and exemplify instances of oppression. "Women often see that an experience was a result of sexism only if another woman, or group of women, [speaks] ... Reading women’s real experiences in books and magazines can provide the same click of recognition." As a result, feminist magazines such as Bitch, Bust, Off Our Backs, and Ms. have been successful in relaying women’s concerns and personal stories related to the feminist movement. Books, such as To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism by Rebecca Walker, The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, Listen Up! Voices from the Next Feminist Generation edited by Barbara Findlen, and Bitchfest edited by Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler have done the same, as well as conferences and Speak Outs where women gather and inspire one another.
ReproductiveRights
One of feminism’s primary concerns is a woman's life and respect for her body. South Dakota’s 2006 attempt to ban abortion in all cases, except when necessary to save the mother's life, [1] and the US Supreme Court's recent vote to uphold the partial birth abortion ban are viewed as restrictions on women’s civil and reproductive rights.[citation needed] Restrictions on the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion in the United States, are becoming more and more common in states around the country; such restrictions include mandatory waiting periods, parental-consent laws, and spousal-consent laws. Opponents of birth control and sex education are attempting to pass laws allowing pharmacists to withhold birth control based on moral views, to remove funding from fund public family planning programs, and to teach students in public schools that abstinence from sexual activity until marriage is the only correct behavior.[citation needed] Furthermore, violence and disruption at abortion and family planning clinics continue to be obstacles to women's reproductive health care.[citation needed][2]. "It is not feminism’s goal to control any woman’s fertility, only to free each woman to control her own," Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards wrote.
Reclaiming Derogatory Terms
Words such as spinster, bitch, whore, and cunt continue to be used in derogatory ways to demean women.[citation needed] Inga Muscio writes, "I posit that we’re free to seize a word that was kidnapped and co-opted in a pain-filled, distant, past, with a ransom that cost our grandmothers’ freedom, children, traditions, pride, and land." Third-wave feminists believe it is better to change the meaning of a sexist word than to censor it from speech.
Many of these words did not originally have their modern connotations of power. For example, the English word cunt, which is commonly used as a pejorative, is a derivative of the Germanic word "kunton" meaning "female genitalia". [1]. Over time the word has become both a pejorative and a marker of femininity. The words bitch and whore developed in a similar fashion.
Transnational Politics
Globally, especially in societies where patriarchy is more pronounced, women are more often the victims of violence and oppression. This is especially true in many war-ravaged, developing and otherwise non-westernized countries. In such societies, women are more apt to remain less equal than men. The Taliban were known for their strict rules of conduct and subjugation of women. Societies which do not hold the modern western value of gender equality often tend to consider women, in part, as markers or prestige, wealth, and/or power.
Throughout history, rape and sexual violence have been used in the context of war as displays of supremacy.[citation needed] During the Nanking Massacre in 1939, upwards of 20,000 women, young and old, were raped by Imperial Japanese soldiers. Rape and sexual violence have also been common during the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Sudan.
26 of Africa's 43 countries, along with populations in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, the Persian Gulf, Indonesia and Malaysia, practice female genital cutting. The prevalence is fading, as the rest of the world westernizes.
Third-wave feminists work to educate and work with women across political and societal borders, to give them the tools and awareness to make their own decisions. In the case of female genital cutting, feminists and health workers from western countries have traveled to areas where genital cutting is common in order to educate midwives on making the procedure safer, more sanitary and less painful.
The Riot Grrrl Movement
The riot grrrl movement sprang out of Olympia, Washington and Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s. It sought to give women the power to control their voices and artistic expressions (Rowe-Finkbeiner 2004:85). Riot grrrls took a growling double or triple r, placing it in the word girl as a way to take back the derogatory use of the term (Rowe-Finkbeiner 2004:85). It is a movement led, owned and created by women.
Grounded in the DIY philosophy of punk values, riot grrls took an anti-corporate stance of self-sufficiency and self-reliance (Rowe-Finkbeiner 2004:85); creating their own xeroxed punk zines and writing, playing, producing and recording their music on independent labels such as Kill Rock Stars. The zines were the predecessors to national magazines such as Bitch and Bust. Both in hard copy form and online, riot grrrl zines still exist as of 2008.
The Riot Grrrl’s links to social and political issues are where the beginning rumblings of the third-wave feminism can be seen. The music and zine writings produced are strong examples of "cultural politics in action, with strong women giving voice to important social issues though an empowered, a female oriented community, many people link the emergence of the third-wave feminism to this time" (Rowe-Finkbeiner 2004:85). The movement encouraged and made "adolescent girls’ standpoints central," allowing them to express themselves fully.
Other Areas of Concern
Third-wave feminism's central issues are that of race, social class and sexuality. However, they are also concerns of workplace issues such as the glass ceiling, sexual harassment, unfair maternity leave policies, motherhood—support for single mothers by means of welfare and child care and respect for working mothers and mothers who decide to leave their careers to raise their children full-time.
Third-wave feminists want women to be seen as intelligent, political beings with intelligent, political minds; acknowledging the lack of diverse, positive female representatives in pop culture. They also want to put attention to the media's unhealthy standards of women; the glamorization of eating disorders; the portrayal of women as sexualized objects catering solely to the man’s needs, and anti-intellectualism.