The History of Feminism

The history of feminism should be grooved from the history of western feminism because feminism as the reaction of women discrimination comes from there.

Nowadays, they define several core writings for the women rights movement but its philosophical views and milestones are not limited by them. Each feminist has the right to express their perspective on any issue at question. If you read any Feminism essay online, you’ll see that there exist different points of view even on what feminism is. Having that said, most feminists fight for the same values and the movement in general has a clearly defined vision on the place of a woman in the world.

Women equality and emancipation has been one of the most critical issues for a long period of time. Over the years, feminists fought for not only equality with men but also freedom and basic human rights. Suffrage and #MeToo movements are just a few examples of how powerful and wide-spread feminism is.

According to Krolokke and Sorensen (2005 : 24), the history of feminism divided into three wave. Each wave deal withdeifferent aspects of the same feminist issues.

The first wave (19th-early 20th century)

The first wave comprised women’s suffrage movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth century's, promoting women’s right to vote. Firstwave feminism was a period of activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In The United Kingdom and United States, it focused on the promotion of equal contract, marriage,parenting, and property right for women.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the activists focused primarily on gaining political power, particularly the right of women’s suffrage, though somefeminists were active in campaigning for women’ssexual, reproductive, and economic right as well.
Rosenstand (2006:575) states that “the firstwave generally refers to the feminist movement inEurope and the United States from its earlybeginning the seventeenth century to theaccomplishment of its most urgent goal, the rightfor women to right”.

Philcer and Whelehan(2004:53) say that “In Britain, the origins of first wave feminism lay in the widespread social and economic changes of industrialisation, one aspectof which was the extension of constitutional rights to wider sections of the (male) population. He also states that “This early feminism was concerned with the education and employment rights of women and with improving the legal rights of married women (Philcer and Whelehan, 2004:53).

There are four genres in this period. They areLiberal feminism, Radical feminism, Socialistfeminism, and Marxist feminism.

The second wave (1960s-1980s)

The second wave was associated with the ideas and actions of the women’s liberation movement beginning in 1960s. The second wave campaigned for legal and social equality for women.

The term second-wave feminism refers mostly to the radical feminism of the women's liberation movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Inspired by the tactics of the more activist parts of liberal feminism, radical second-wave feminists also used performance (e.g.,underground or guerilla theater) to shed light on what was now termed “women’s oppression.”While the third wave in the early 1990. Thiswave brings four genre, they are postmodern feminism, multicultural feminism, postcolonial feminism, and ecofeminism.

The third wave (early 1990s)

The third wave is a 155 continuation of and a reaction to, the perceived failures of second-wave feminism, beginning in the 1990s. Lipstick feminism, girlie feminism, riot grrrl feminism, cybergrrl feminism, transfeminism,or just girl feminism. Born with the privileges that first- and second-wave feminists fought for,third wave feminists generally see themselves as capable, strong, and assertive social agents: “TheThird Wave is buoyed by the confidence of having more opportunities and less sexism”(Baumgardner & Richards, 2000, p. 83).

Third-wave feminists are motivated by theneed to develop a feminist theory and politics thathonor contradictory experiences and deconstructcategorical thinking. Third wave feminism is also inspired by and bound to a generation of the new global world order characterized by the fall of communism, new threats of religious and ethnicfundamentalism, and the dual risks and promises of new info- and biotechnologies. A commonAmerican term for third-wave feminism is “grrlfeminism,” and in Europe it is known as “newfeminism.”This “new” feminism is characterized bylocal, national, and transnational activism, in areassuch as violence against women, trafficking, bodysurgery, self-mutilation, and the overall“pornofication” of the media.