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Feminism: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Feminism
In 1837, the French philosopher Charles Fourier coined the term "féminisme," yet no trace of the word exists in his actual works. The label first appeared in France in 1871 within a medical thesis describing men suffering from tuberculosis who had developed feminine traits, a usage that was deeply negative and intended to criticize a perceived confusion of the sexes. By 1872, Alexandre Dumas fils used the word "féministe" to refer to men who supported women's rights, further cementing a derogatory tone that framed the movement as a threat to the natural order. The concept did not reach the Netherlands until 1872, nor Great Britain until the 1890s, and the United States not until 1910. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first appearance of the word in English to 1895, marking the beginning of a linguistic struggle that would eventually redefine the very nature of society. This etymological history reveals that the term was born not as a declaration of power, but as a medical diagnosis and a social insult, a label applied to those who refused to abide by the sexual division of society.
The First Wave And The Vote
The first wave of feminism, spanning the 19th and early 20th centuries, was fundamentally a campaign for political power and legal equality, yet it began with a quiet revolution in child custody laws. In 1839, the United Kingdom passed the Custody of Infants Act, introducing the tender years doctrine which gave women the right to custody of their children for the first time, shattering the legal presumption that children belonged to their fathers. This was followed by the Married Women's Property Act of 1870 and its 1882 extension, which became models for similar legislation across British territories, with Victoria passing laws in 1884 and New South Wales in 1889. The movement's primary focus shifted toward the right to vote, a goal first achieved in the self-governing colony of New Zealand in 1893, followed by South Australia in 1894 and Australia in 1902. In Britain, the struggle was led by figures like Emmeline Pankhurst, who Time magazine later named one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century for shaking society into a new pattern. In the United States, leaders such as Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, influenced by Quaker theology, campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment, which was passed in 1919 and granted women the right to vote in all states. The movement also saw international expansion, with German socialist Clara Zetkin editing the newspaper Die Gleichheit from 1891 to 1917 and helping to develop International Women's Day, while in Egypt, Hoda Shaarawi founded the Egyptian Feminist Union in 1923.
The Second Wave And The Personal
Common questions
When did the term feminism first appear in France?
The label first appeared in France in 1871 within a medical thesis describing men suffering from tuberculosis who had developed feminine traits. This usage was deeply negative and intended to criticize a perceived confusion of the sexes. By 1872, Alexandre Dumas fils used the word to refer to men who supported women's rights, further cementing a derogatory tone.
Which country gave women the right to vote first in the first wave of feminism?
The self-governing colony of New Zealand achieved the right to vote for women in 1893. This goal was followed by South Australia in 1894 and Australia in 1902. The movement's primary focus shifted toward the right to vote, a goal first achieved in the self-governing colony of New Zealand in 1893.
What event sparked the second wave of feminism in the 1960s?
The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in 1963 helped voice the discontent that American women felt, sparking the second wave of feminism which began in the early 1960s. This movement was largely concerned with issues of equality beyond suffrage, such as ending gender discrimination and understanding aspects of personal lives as deeply politicized. The activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan The Personal is Political, which became synonymous with the second wave.
Who coined the term third wave feminism and when?
The term third wave was credited to Rebecca Walker, who responded to Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court with an article in Ms. magazine titled Becoming the Third Wave in 1992. Third-wave feminism emerged in the early 1990s, traced to the riot grrrl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington, and to Anita Hill's televised testimony in 1991 to an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Clarence Thomas's sexual harassment of her.
What defines the fourth wave of feminism and when did it begin?
Fourth-wave feminism corresponds to a resurgence in interest in feminism beginning around 2012 and is defined by the use of social media to combat sexual harassment, violence against women, and rape culture. The movement is characterized particularly by the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, and blogs such as Feministing to challenge misogyny and further gender equality. Examples of fourth-wave feminist campaigns include the Everyday Sexism Project, No More Page 3, Stop Bild Sexism, the 2017 Women's March, and the #MeToo movement.
What are the three main traditions of feminist thought?
Feminism is often divided into three main traditions called liberal, radical, and socialist or Marxist feminism, sometimes known as the Big Three schools of feminist thought. Liberal feminism seeks equality of men and women through political and legal reform within a liberal democratic framework, without radically altering the structure of society. Radical feminism arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism and calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate male supremacy, considering the male-controlled capitalist hierarchy as the defining feature of women's oppression. Socialist feminism distinguishes itself from Marxist feminism by arguing that women's liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of oppression.
By the mid-20th century, women still lacked significant rights, with many continental European countries maintaining laws that gave husbands control over their wives' lives. In France, married women did not receive the right to work without their husband's permission until 1965, and the marital exemption in rape laws, which precluded the prosecution of husbands for raping their wives, remained in place in most Western countries until a century after early attempts to criminalize it. The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in 1963 helped voice the discontent that American women felt, sparking the second wave of feminism which began in the early 1960s. This movement was largely concerned with issues of equality beyond suffrage, such as ending gender discrimination and understanding aspects of personal lives as deeply politicized. The activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political," which became synonymous with the second wave. In 1965, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex provided a Marxist solution and an existentialist view on many of the questions of feminism, expressing the movement's sense of injustice. The wave also saw the publication of Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch in 1970, which became a worldwide bestseller and reportedly drove up divorce rates. In China, second- and third-wave feminism characterized a reexamination of women's roles during the communist revolution, while in Latin America, feminist ideology during the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua aided women's quality of life, though it fell short of achieving a full social and ideological change.
The Third Wave And The Riot
Third-wave feminism emerged in the early 1990s, traced to the riot grrrl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington, and to Anita Hill's televised testimony in 1991 to an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Clarence Thomas's sexual harassment of her. The term third wave was credited to Rebecca Walker, who responded to Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court with an article in Ms. magazine titled "Becoming the Third Wave" in 1992. This wave sought to challenge or avoid what it deemed the second wave's essentialist definitions of femininity, which overemphasized the experiences of upper middle-class white women. Leaders such as Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, and Maxine Hong Kingston sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related subjectivities. The movement also contained internal debates between difference feminists, who believe there are important psychological differences between the sexes, and those who believe that gender roles are due to social conditioning. Standpoint theory, a feminist theoretical point of view, argued that a person's social position influences their knowledge and that research should address global issues such as rape, incest, and prostitution, as well as culturally specific issues like female genital mutilation in parts of Africa and Arab societies.
The Fourth Wave And The Digital
Fourth-wave feminism corresponds to a resurgence in interest in feminism beginning around 2012 and is defined by the use of social media to combat sexual harassment, violence against women, and rape culture. According to feminist scholar Prudence Chamberlain, the focus of the fourth wave is justice for women and opposition to sexual harassment and violence, with its essence being "incredulity that certain attitudes can still exist." The movement is characterized particularly by the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, and blogs such as Feministing to challenge misogyny and further gender equality. Scandals involving the harassment, abuse, and murder of women and girls have galvanized the movement, including the 2012 Delhi gang rape, the 2012 Jimmy Savile allegations, the Bill Cosby allegations, the 2014 Isla Vista killings, the 2016 trial of Jian Ghomeshi, the 2017 Harvey Weinstein allegations, and the 2017 Westminster sexual scandals. Examples of fourth-wave feminist campaigns include the Everyday Sexism Project, No More Page 3, Stop Bild Sexism, the 2017 Women's March, and the #MeToo movement. In December 2017, Time magazine chose several prominent female activists involved in the #MeToo movement, dubbed "the silence breakers," as Person of the Year.
The Big Three And The Margins
Feminism is often divided into three main traditions called liberal, radical, and socialist or Marxist feminism, sometimes known as the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought. Liberal feminism seeks equality of men and women through political and legal reform within a liberal democratic framework, without radically altering the structure of society, and historically focused on women's suffrage and access to education. Radical feminism arose from the radical wing of second-wave feminism and calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate male supremacy, considering the male-controlled capitalist hierarchy as the defining feature of women's oppression. Socialist feminism distinguishes itself from Marxist feminism by arguing that women's liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of oppression. Since the late 20th century, newer forms of feminism have emerged, including black feminism, intersectional feminism, and postcolonial feminism, which challenge the organizing premises of Western feminist thought. These movements argue that colonial oppression and Western feminism marginalized postcolonial women but did not turn them passive or voiceless. The American National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O'Neill stated that the struggle against transphobia is a feminist issue, affirming that "trans women are women, trans girls are girls," while other ideologies like trans-exclusionary radical feminism hold that biological sex characteristics are an immutable determination of gender.
The Culture And The Art
Feminist activity has a long history in design disciplines, including industrial design, graphic design, and fashion design, exploring topics like beauty, DIY, and community-based projects. The feminist art movement, which began in the 1960s and flourished throughout the 1970s, is described by Jeremy Strick, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, as "the most influential international movement of any during the postwar period." Judy Chicago, who created The Dinner Party, a set of vulva-themed ceramic plates in the 1970s, stated in 2009 that women's art is not an exception but a normal part of art history. In literature, the movement produced feminist fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, creating new interest in women's writing and prompting a general reevaluation of women's historical and academic contributions. Key texts include Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929), and works by Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Margaret Atwood. In music, the genre of women's music emerged as a musical expression of the second-wave feminist movement, started by lesbians such as Cris Williamson and African-American women activists such as Bernice Johnson Reagon. Feminist cinema arose largely with the development of feminist film theory in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the first feminist film festivals in the U.S. and U.K. in 1972.
The Politics And The Future
Feminism has complex interactions with major political movements of the 20th century, including socialism, fascism, and the civil rights movement. August Bebel, an early activist of the German Social Democratic Party, published Die Frau und der Sozialismus in 1907, juxtaposing the struggle for equal rights between sexes with social equality. In the United States, Betty Friedan emerged from a radical background to take leadership, and Radical Women remains the oldest socialist feminist organization. Fascism has been prescribed dubious stances on feminism, with Hitler and Mussolini declaring themselves opposed to the movement, leading to the rapid dissolution of political rights and economic opportunities for feminists after the rise of Nazism in 1933. The civil rights movement influenced and informed the feminist movement, with many American feminists adapting the language and theories of black equality activism. Neoliberalism has been criticized by feminist theory for having a negative effect on the female workforce population across the globe, especially in the global south. The movement has effected change in Western society, including women's suffrage, greater access to education, more equal payment to men, the right to initiate divorce proceedings, and the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy. In international law, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) came into force in nations ratifying it, serving as an international bill of rights for women.