Three waves of feminism

The First Wave of Feminism in the US

The first wave of feminism in the US between the 1830s and the early 1900s was defined by tremendous points of disagreement, including the fight for equal pay and the rights to poverty (Krolokke & Sorensen, 2005).

The female gender, which was frequently seen as powerless, knew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that obtaining the right to vote was the foundation for building a powerful force against the then-compromise gender roles. However, over decades, the political difficulties became entrenched and even spread to the economic, cultural, reproductive, and sexual spheres of life (Krolokke & Sorensen, 2005). Consequently, the fight for equal voting rights was the background of feminism in America and was commonly called the suffragette movement.

The Second Wave of Feminism

The second wave of feminism would later be incepted in the 1960s and peak in the 1980s (Fotaki, 2014). Following the aftermath of the Second World War, the American women had the urge to call for their rights in the aspects of reproductive and sexual rights as well as their workplace code of conduct and pertinent phenomena. While the country was undergoing a common objective of rebuilding the war torn economy and restructuring political and economic might, the American women had settled on their gender based elements which they needed to be settled. The Equal Rights Amendment was the primary focus of the second wave, however, to date, it has never been ratified. By orchestrating for gender equality, women wanted to create a platform upon which they would be heard the world over. Women distinguished their autonomy and their dependency on men, as was expressed in the saying, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle (Fotaki, 2014, p. 323).

The Third Wave of Feminism

Termed as the gender equality micro-politics of the US, the third wave of feminism began in the 1990s and has been steadily ongoing to date. The feminist outlooks are very diverse apparently, hence the different perceptions of the in the American society. Considering the effects of globalization, feminism has been conceived in categories including the radicles, the ego cultural feminists, the academic, electoral, and liberal feminists as well as the economic ones (Fraser, 2009). The third wave in summarily the refining end of the preceding two waves, considering that the disparities of reproductive health and equality of the female gender ought to be vanquished. Violence against women in general terms is facing critical campaigns to be uprooted in entirety.

References

Fotaki, M. (2014). Book Review: Transnational feminism in the United States: knowledge, ethics, power. Journal of Gender Studies, 23(3), 322–323. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2014.928438

Fraser, N. (2009). Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history. New Left Review, 56(56), 97–117. https://doi.org/Article

Krolokke, C., & Sorensen, A. (2005). Three waves of feminism: From suffragettes to grrls. Gender Communication Theories & Analyses: From …, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452233086