HISTORY PROJECT

HISTORY OF FEMINISM

SUBMITTED BY:
Vaishnavi Gaur
78/19
Section: B
Semester: II
 CONTENTS

• Feminism: Its meaning

• First wave feminism
• Second wave feminism
• Third wave feminism
• Fourth wave feminism
 FEMINISM: ITS’S MEANING

Feminism, the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.
Feminism is certainly not about bashing men, erasing their sovereignty,
discrediting their ideas or ignoring their needs. It is about ending all of the
aforesaid things for women. It means provision of equality to both the sexes. It
definitely doesn’t form sameness as a basis. As, there are argument restricting
provisions of equal opportunity to men and women on the grounds of them being
naturally different from men hence, they cannot be equal. Men and women do not
have to be same in their physicality or physical strength in order to be equal.
Feminism owes its origination to the west. Feminism has altered prominent
perspectives in wide ranging areas from culture to law. It started with women’s
demand of legal rights (right to vote, right to property, and right to contract) and
has come up with the protests of the women demanding equal pay as their male
counterparts. Feminists have not only protested for the equality and rights of
women but they have also strengthen the movements demanding rights for LGBT
community and other communities whose voices were suppressed in the society.
Feminism is not a novel concept and has always existed. Its existence was seen
in the ancient Greek as well. In his classic Republic, Plato advocated the provision
of equal rights of women. He faced a lot of opposition. However, the women in
ancient Rome in 3rd century BCE filled Capitoline Hill and blocked all the
entrances to the Forum and opposed the Oppian law which restricted women’s
access to gold and other goods. “If they are victorious now, what will they not
attempt?” Cato, the Roman counsel cried. “As soon as they begin to be your
equals, they will have become your superiors.” Despite, his fears the law was
abolished.
One of the first women to take up pen in order to defend her sex was Christine
de Pisan. She protested misogyny and role of women in middle ages
through her book The Book of the City of Ladies. Years later, writers like
Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft, through their writings
raised a voice for gender equality.
Abigail Adams, first lady to President Johan Adams, expressed that
education, ballot and property were equal to women’s equality. She wrote
a letter to John Adams concerning the provision of equal rights to women.
She even warned him of the rebellion that would be made by women in
case their demands are not being fulfilled. The “rebellion” that Adam
warned about began in 19 th century and coalesced into a movement
demanding abolition of slavery. Many of the women who supported the
abolitionist movement found an unsettling irony in protesting for
American African rights that they could not enjoy themselves.
Feminism is divided majorly into four waves. The first wave feminism
concerned itself with demand of property rights, contract rights and right
to vote. The second wave dealt with equality and anti-discrimination.
While, the third wave was actually a backlash to the second wave, which
restricted itself to the white and straight women. It was an expansion to
the second wave and spread to other parts as well. The fourth concerned
itself with the issues of sexual harassment, rape culture and body
shaming.
 FIRST WAVE FEMINISM

Throughout most of the western history, women were restricted to

household chores and other domestic work while public life was reserved
for men. In medieval Europe, women were denied the right to vote, right
to property, right to contract, right to study and right to participate in
public life. In France, women were supposed to cover their heads in public
and in most of the parts of Europe, women were at the mercy of men and
could be sold by him according to his convenience. For a very long time,
the women in USA were not given the right of suffrage. Married women
had no right over their children and were required t o seek the permission
from their husbands. They could not run a business without their
husbands, brother or some other male representative.
As already mentioned the feminist movement started from 3 rd century
BCE in ancient Rome. For most of the part of the recorded history, only
isolated voices protesting against the inferior status of women could be
heard. By the 16 th century defence of women became a literary subgenre.
People defending the status quo of women painted their image as immoral
and superficial while the emerging feminist produced a long list of women
with courage and achievements. They also proclaimed that the women
could be intellectually equal to men if they were given access to
education.
The voices of women never coalesced into one till renaissance. It was the
enlightenment movement that helped them in demanding the new
reformist rhetoric about liberty, equality, and natural rights be applied to both
sexes. At the onset the enlightenment movement philosophers pointed out the
inequities in social class and caste and excluded the gender. In fact, Rousseau
thought women to be frivolous creatures subordinate to men. In addition to this,
Declaration of rights of the men and the citizens, excluded the legal status of
women.
Female intellectuals of that era pointed out at these injustices through their plays,
books and other writings. Olympe de Gouges, a noted playwright,
published “Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne” (1791;
“Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the [Female] Citizen”) and thereby
declared that women to be not only man’s equal but his partner. The following
year Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), was
published in England. She not only challenged the notion that women exist only
to please men but also proposed that women and men be given equal opportunities
in education, work, and politics. She wrote that women are equally rational as
men. In case they act silly, it is only because society trains them to be irrelevant.
The Age of Enlightenment turned into an era of political turmoil marked by
revolutions in France, Germany, and Italy and the rise of abolitionism. In the
United States, feminist activism took a strong foundation when female
abolitionists sought to apply the concepts of freedom and equality to their own
social and political situations. Their work brought them in contact with female
abolitionists in England who were too reaching the same conclusions. By the mid-
19th century, issues surrounding feminism had added to the disarray of social
change, with ideas being exchanged across Europe and North America.
These debates and discussions came to a climax in the first women’s rights
convention, held in July 1848 in the small town of Seneca Falls, New York. It
was an impulsive idea that sprang up during a social gathering of Lucretia Mott,
a Quaker preacher and veteran social activist, Martha Wright (Mott’s sister),
Mary Ann McClintock, Jane Hunt, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the wife of an
abolitionist and the only non-Quaker in the group. The convention was planned
with five days’ notice. Stanton drafted the “Declaration of Sentiments” that
guided the Seneca Falls Convention. Using the Declaration of Independence as
her guide to declare that “all men and women [had been] created equal,” she
drafted 11 resolutions, including the most radical demand—the right to the vote.
With Frederick Douglass, a former slave, arguing fluently on their behalf, all 11
resolutions passed, and Mott even won approval of a final declaration “for the
overthrowing of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman equal
participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.” Yet,
only the elitist women can identify themselves with these demands and the
women belonging to lower classes felt alienated.
After the Seneca convention, many conventions were passed in different parts of
the world and the country. The United States turned back to the pending Civil
War, while in Europe the reformism of the 1840s lead to the repression of the late
1850s. When the feminist movement was re-launched, it became focused on a
single issue, women’s suffrage, a goal that dominated international feminism for
almost 70 years.
After American Civil War, the woman thought that they would be given right to
vote by the fifteenth amendment. The support by leading abolitionist was taken
back which forced Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to form the National Woman
Suffrage Association in 1869. As there was flood of foreigners in USA, many
feminists demanded to take away the voting rights of people living in slums and
foreigners and give it to the women. This created a divide between elitist women
and those living in slums. As a result, women living in slums joined trade unions’
in order to raise their voices against the wages, property rights and working hours.
However, in 1890 Susan Anthony asked for the support of these trade unions’ on
a condition that the demand of her group will be accomplished first. Many
feminists were also of the view that securing voting rights for women would do
no good for them as was the case for a number of American men.
Starting with peaceful ladylike lobbying these protest turned violent in U.S.A as
well as in Europe as the dissident groups started bombing, series of boycotts,
parades and confrontation with police. Finally, in 1920 the American feminist
claimed the victory as all women above the age of 30 were given the voting rights
by the nineteenth amendment.
With provision of voting rights, the feminist movement apparently disappeared
from U.S.A and Europe. Many groups carried out civic works pertaining to
upliftment of women but none of them was specifically feminist in nature.
Everywhere in USA and Europe it was believed that women have achieved their
liberation as they were voting although small in numbers yet they doing it exactly
like their male counterparts.
Once the world entered into the Great Depression of 1929 and World War II, the
women were flooded with the opportunities to work, play sports professionally
and act as bread earners. However, when the war ended the women were regularly
fired from their jobs and were replaced by men, who were discharged from the
military services. This did bring anguish in many women were very few were
ready to organise a protest against it.
The women were faced with new difficulties as a new culture of domesticity
started in America. The women were married young and had more number of
children than before. By 1960, the women employed in professional works were
extremely less as compared to that in 1930.
 SECOND WAVE FEMINISM
The feminist movement starting from 1960s till 1970s classifies to be the second
wave feminism. The movement represented a break women seemingly took
against the peaceful suburban American life. The protests began with the
frustration of college-educated mothers who faced discontentment due to which
their daughters have to take up the new direction. For feminists in the first wave,
the abolitionist movement formed the base while for those in second wave it was
the civil rights movement. There were discussion over principles such and
equality and justice.
The women’s issues were already on the list of President John F. Kennedy. He
setup a commission named the President’s Commission on the Status of
Women and appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as its head. In 1963, the commission
published its reports pointing out at national pattern of
employment discrimination, unequal pay, legal inequality, and negligible support
services for working women that needed to amended through legislative
guarantees of equal pay for equal work, equal job opportunities, and expanded
child-care services. The commission also supports the nuclear families and
preparing women for motherhood. To resort the first issue The Equal Pay Act,
1963 was passed and for the provision of equality at workplace The Civil Rights
Act, 1963 was passed.
However, these measures were seen insufficient as a large number of issues still
remained unaddressed. The classified advertisements still segregated job
openings by sex, state laws constricted women’s access to contraception, and
incidences of rape and domestic violence largely remained undisclosed. In late
1960s, this called out for widespread debates and women of all ages participated
and voiced their opinions against the discrimination. This all started along with
the civil rights movement.
Mainstreams groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW)
launched campaigns for legal equality and the ad hoc groups launched marches
and debates over number of reasons ranging from lack of availability of female
authors in college curricula and usage of neutral words like Ms i.e. the one that
does not refer to the marital status. Health centres along with rape crisis centre
were established. The children literature was done away with sexist elements. The
protective labour laws were overturned. Women were also seen searching for jobs
such as bus drivers, pilots, bankers, soldiers, construction workers and every other
field which was previously dominated by men.
Unlike the feminists in the first wave, the feminists of the second wave indulged
themselves in many discussions pertaining to the origin of subordination of
women to men. Feminism became an ocean of eddies and currents as there were
various kind of feminists who were emerging. The “Anarcho-feminists” were
mainly rooted in Europe and believed that equal rights and opportunities for
women cannot be achieved without destroying the institution of marriage, family,
property and government. The Individualists feminists did not believe in turning
to the government for the solution of women’s issues. The amazon feminists
preached the mystical creatures and believed that women can be liberated only
with physical strength. While, the separatist feminists believed that liberation
cannot be achieved without separating women from men for at least a period.
Lastly, three major ideologies emerged. The first one being liberal feminism who
believed in bring about the concrete and practical change at an institutional and
governmental level. Its goal was to integrate women more thoroughly into the
power structure and to give them equal access to positions, traditionally
dominated by men. These liberal feminist groups nonetheless supported the
modern equivalent of protective legislation such as special workplace benefits for
mothers as they supports the provisions of strict equality.
In contrast to the practical approach taken by liberal feminism, radical
feminism aimed to reshape society and restructure its institutions, which were
seemingly patriarchal. Radicals argued that women’s subservient role in society
was too closely woven into the social fabric to be unsnarl without a revolutionary
reconstruction of society itself. They aimed to supersede hierarchical and
traditional power relationships which reflected patriarchy, and they sought to
develop non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian approaches to redefine politics
and organisations.
Lastly, cultural feminism evolved. They advocated celebrating the qualities that
were only associated to women and firmly rejected the notion of men and women
being intrinsically equivalent to each other. They were critical about women
entering the spheres that traditionally belonged to men as they saw it as a
denigration to women’s natural inclination by making them more men like.
Alike the first wave second wave too was led by white educated women who
build the movement primarily around their concerns. This led to the foundation
of equivocal relationships with women of other class and race. This also helped
in bridging the gap between the feminists group and the white women trade
unions. Although, the relationship between white and black women was always
strained in these movements. While the white women solely fought against the
gender related issues, the black women were stuck in an interplay between racism
and sexism. Black women had to figure out a way to make black men think about
the gender issues and at the same time make white women think about racism.
These concerns were very well addressed by black feminists including Michele
Wallace, Mary Ann Weathers, Bell Hooks, Alice Walker, and Bettina Aptheker.
Many black women had a difficulty in seeing white women as their feminist
friends as African-American held them to be equally responsible for their
oppression as white men. Also, black women saw white women incapable of
understanding their problems.
After the first conference of the National Black Feminist Organization, held
in New York City in 1973, the relationship between the white women and black
women improved. In this conference, black women recognised many issues like
day care, abortion, maternity leave, violence which were critical to mainstream
feminism as well as the American African women’s movement. After this
conference, both the groups started working effectively.
By the end of 20th century, the feminists in the west started to interact with the
neutral feminist movements in the third world countries. They were shocked
beyond their belief that women in those countries were required to wear veils in
public or to endure forced marriage, female infanticide, widow burning,
or female genital cutting. The feminists of west saw themselves as saviour of
women in those countries. They, however, did not realise that their perceptions
and solutions to the social problems were often in contrast to the actual and real
problems of women in those countries. In many African countries the status of
women began to disintegrate as in those countries the problem of European
colonialism was greater than the problem of patriarchy.
The dissent between the women from first world countries and those from the
third world countries was widely seen in many international conventions. For
instance, after the World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women:
Equality, Development and Peace, in Copenhagen in 1980, many women from
the third world claimed that the topic of the conference i.e. the veil and FGC were
discussed without actually consulting the ones most affected by it. Those women
felt neglected by the western feminists.
By the close of 20th century, women across the globe became more sensitive
towards their own issues, although that seemed extremely sporadic.
Unfortunately, in many countries like Afghanistan the feminist movement
collapsed due to the arrival of Taliban. However, feminism managed to achieve
a lot in many African countries and India as well by eradicating the ill practices
of FGC and sati.
 THIRD WAVE FEMINISM

The third wave of feminism started around 1990s and was led by generation Xers,
who were typically born in 1960s. Although, they gained a huge advantage from
the works already done by the first and second wave. However, they were still
critical of the position of women and aimed at the completion of the work left
undone by the second wave. The foundation of this wave was made possible
because of the economic and professional status achieved by the women during
second wave, the expansion of information due to better dissemination of
information and ideas as a result of technology revolution of late 20 th century
along with the coming of generation X intellectuals and activists.
Many activists were the daughter of second wavers who were raised as strong,
empowered, educated, self-aware and high achieving women. These women with
many others grew up with the aspiration of achieving while being aware of the
barriers presented by sexism, racism and classism. They chose to destroy the
symbols of sexism, classism and racism, fight patriarchy with incongruity,
answering violence with stories of endurance, and fighting continued ostracising
with grassroots activism and radical democracy. Instead of being a part of the
“machine,” third wavers began both vandalising and revamping the machine
itself.
Being influenced by post-modernist movement, the third wavers began
questioning and further reforming the ideas, words and media which formed a
definite and a long registered view about femininity, woman, beauty and
masculinity. The feminists tried to do away with the notions of gender, perception
of some qualities being strictly feminine and others being masculine in nature and
the end result was gender continuum. For the feminists of this wave, sexual
liberation was the main goal which was expanded to mean a process of first
becoming aware of the perception of society on one’s gender and sexuality and
then intentionally constructing (and becoming free to express) one’s genuine
gender identity.
Third wavers inherited the concrete structure of various institutions formed due
to the efforts of the second wave feminists including women’s studies programs
at universities, long-standing feminist organizations, and well-established
publishing outlets such as Ms Magazine and several academic journals. However,
these institutions lost their importance in the third wave since these feminist
focused more on destabilizing the symbols of sexism. This was evident in the
innuendo and irony used then to present self. Further, the slangs which were
earlier disregarded were now used as labels. The literary works portrayed the an
exploration of women’s feelings about sexuality that included vagina-centred
topics as diverse as orgasm, birth, and rape and the playfulness, seriousness, and
subversion of the Guerrilla Girls, a group of women artists who donned gorilla
masks in an effort to expose female stereotypes and fight discrimination against
female artists.
The third wave was also more inclusive of rights of women belonging to other
races other than the whites. The third wave transformed the image of women from
creatures who were passive, weak, virginal and faithful to creatures who are
strong, assertive and in control of their own body and sexuality. With the
introduction of internet it became easy for the feminist of this era to spread their
ideas through blogs and e-magazines. The internet helped in democratizing the
people, aesthetic and issues related to feminism.
However, the third wave feminist faced a lot of criticism. Many authors from the
movement and even outside claimed that the movement has lived beyond its
usefulness. Further, the feminist from second wave were critical of the fact that
the girls from this movement did actually add up to anything in order to improve
the condition of women. They also faced criticism on wearing high heel stilettos,
revealing clothes and pole dance. People were speculative of the fact if these
things really represented the “gender liberation” or were just a form of oppression
in disguise. The other waves of feminism had many disagreements and fissures
like any other social or political movement. The third wave feminism was actually
a multifaceted movement with people from a large number of race joining the
movement. The third wave feminists countered their most of the criticism by
citing the fact that it was next to imagination to organise a movement on such a
large scale with such a great diversity of people.
 FOURTH WAVE FEMINISM

It is being argued by a lot of people that around 2012 the fourth wave
feminism began. The key issues were sexual harassment, rape culture and
body shaming. The important tool for helping these issues reach a wider
audience was media. In December 2012, Nirbhaya gang rape in India
sparked widespread protest not only in India but also on an international
level. In fact, after the victory of Donald Trump in the presidential
elections of 2016 feminists were not happy due to his lewd commen ts on
women. After this, an old lady took to Facebook and asked women to
march in solidarity with each other in Washington D.C. This became a
call for social change against gender stereotypes. The women’s march
took place on 21 st of January 2017 and was attended by 4.6 million people
making it the largest single day demonstration in the USA. Even more
significant was the MeToo movement, which although was launched in
USA in 2006 to help sexual harassment survivors of different rac es,
became prominent in 2017. It gained more attention after the revelation
made by many actresses in relation to the Hollywood director, Harvey
Weinstein. He was accused of abusing them sexually for years using his
immunity against them. There was stir caused in the world as women
came up with their stories through social media posts and videos. The
movement also came to India and many prominent people were called out
for harassing women, few of them even held political office.
 REFERENCES

• HISTORY.COM, Feminism, [online], A&E Television Networks ,

November 28 2019, April 05 2020,
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/feminism-
womens-history
• ELINORR BLUNKETT & LAURA BRUNELL, Feminism,
[online], Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., April 04 2020,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism