Feminism, why the long face? Today, there are many rights women tend to take for granted. For example, women are allowed to vote, pursue a higher education, are not pressured to get married or have children, and play sports. These are some of the rights that women have earned within the past century. To put it into perspective, women could not vote a century ago, there was not term for sexual harassment, and a woman’s highest goal in life was to be the perfect housewife. Feminism has been at work for decades fighting for equality.
Categorizing this movement into waves ight make sense for topical reasons, but doing so would create a mainstream narrative. It would suggest women went through phases where they suddenly realized that they were oppressed, and only in those waves were working towards equality. There are also common themes and ideas throughout all three waves. While the waves organize the stages of the feminism, it excludes the narratives of minority groups and suggests that women were inactive in between the time periods.
Marking the first wave from 1848-1920 would discount the work of feminists of different classes and races rather than the average upper/ iddle-class, white housewife. The main goals of the first wave were basic rights for women. Nancy MacLean argues that feminism is one long movement, rather that three sub- movements. She marks the beginning of feminism in the 183Os, a decade prior to the Seneca Falls Convention, which discussed many of the pressing issues white women faced, such as lack of political representation, property rights, and rights in marriage.
Characterizing Seneca Falls as the beginning of the first wave would exclude the narratives like Sarah Grimke, the Lowell Mill Girls, and abolitionists. Grimke wrote and published a treatise n 1837 discussing ideas that are prevalent in the “second wave”. She wrote that men should “take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy,” (4). Her treatise shed light onto the idea of female oppression, and helped to inspire the Seneca Falls Convention. In the 1834, the Lowell Mill Girls went on strike to protest their low wages.
They were able to organize because they were a community due to the long working hours and business provided housing. While the strike ultimately failed, it demonstrated women’s ability to organize a movement to try to ersuade the higher power. Two years later, the Mill Girls organized the Ten Hour Movement, protesting the long days work days. The second time they successfully staged an effective strike that “was an assertion of the dignity of operatives and an attempt to maintain that dignity under the changing conditions of industrial capitalism” (Dublin 11).
The workers unionized, and led to the Lowell Female Labor Reform, the leading feminist-industrial group. The abolitionist movement was also a key factor in feminism. People like Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass advocated for women’s rights alongside abolition. For example, free black women advocated both causes. They would speak in public and write in order to spread awareness about their common oppression. However, the women’s race played a role with their contributions. Black women faced prejudice “from getting their works published …
During the antebellum period, black women poets and essayists were able to publish their works only with the aid of prominent abolitionists,” (Yee 190). They faced more obstacles in fighting for their rights, but kept pushing for abolition and feminism. Frederick Douglass was also a strong advocate for women’s rights. At Seneca Falls, he stood by women’s suffrage when it was the only point of the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions to not be voted on unanimously. Abolitionists helped to raise consciousness about the intersectionality of free black women, and brought attention to their cause.
All of these people and groups contributed to feminism before the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Marking the first Wave in 1848 would discount the previous work that led up to the convention. The second wave of feminism was built off the work done in the 20s-50s. Feminism did not sleep once women got the vote in 1920. MacLean’s long movement argument continues into the 20th century when women remained fairly active in working towards the feminist cause. Alice Paul continually the Equal Rights Amendment (MacLean 5).
During the Great Depression, “women devoted themselves instead to a wider social reform, working through the labor movement, the League of Women Voters, and other liberal and radical ght for gender equality by supporting organizations,” (MacLean 5). Ending the first wave in 1920 suggests feminism halted for decades, and reawoke in the 1960s. Feminist efforts in the labor movement increased when he United States entered World War II, when male citizens fought in Europe. Women assumed the role of the breadwinner and entered the factories.
The number of women working “had increased to 17 million, women constituting 32. 5% of the entire labor force,” (Congress of America 47). They were often paid lower wages for performing the same jobs as men. Their progress in the workforce contributed to the employment equality goal decades later. In the 1950s, feminism was under attack from the Red Scare. The Red Scare decreased feminist efforts by creating “a forbidding climate for organizing for gender equality” (MacLean 7). Women were afraid of being labeled as Communist, and radical groups were targets of this scrutiny.
Like abolition, the Civil Rights Movement was an important ally to feminism because many black women support the gender equality movement. The Civil Rights Movement began in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up on a bus to a white man. The second wave’s goals often neglected black women’s priorities for gender equality. Margaret Sloan explains that “Many [black women] come out of the Women’s Movement, and are still active in a variety of its organization” (121). The Nation Black Feminist Organization was reated for black women’s voices to be heard among the white feminism.
Feminism expanded to all different races, which makes feminism a stronger force. While feminists were not as active in the 20s through the 50s, they still worked towards gender equality. The creation of a new wave also indicates that the second wave came to an end. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan took office. There were no major victories in that time, but they did not stop fighting. Groups like the National Organization of Women (NOW) was “the only remaining all-purpose national feminist organization, which focused on developments in Washington DC” (MacLean 36). Feminist activity decreased, but it did not cease.
Some of the methods and ideas differed from the second to third wave, but the two waves had similar agendas. The third wave is known as the younger generation, the children of feminists. Third wavers tend “to be much more pluralistic about sexuality and personal expression … tends to be more alert than some second wave feminists were to issues of class and race” (Naomi Wolf). They understood and recognized that different problems existed for women based on race, class, and sexuality. There are very common themes etween the second and third wave, like abortion rights and sexual harassment and assault.
They take these issues and bring it into a new light. The third wave is prosex, which “is devoted to reducing the stigma surrounding sexual pleasure in feminism and US culture” (Snyder 188). They want women to reclaim their bodies and pleasures. With all of the differences and similarities between the second and third wave, it is not enough to categorize it as a new wave. Even in the third wave “second-wave feminism still exists and, as a recent study shows, a woman’s understanding of what feminism means has more o with where and when she entered discourse than it does with the year of her birth,” (Snyder 178).
The third wave grew from the second wave. Not all feminists during the third wave were young. It is not enough to characterize a wave by age/ generation or by means of protesting because in the end there is one goal. Although the waves generally distinguish feminism by periods of development, the overriding goal is gender equality and rights for women. The waves sum up the submovements in the time periods, but neglect much of the work done by feminists outside of those time periods. The aves are also based around the agenda of white women.
There were other groups of women who fought for equality that are left out because of the mainstream narrative. Even today there are still some of the same issues as the second wave. Women only make about 80 cents to the men’s dollar. There is a strong rape culture, where society frequently excuses the culprit and blames the victim or men can say “grab ’em by the pussy” and still be one of the most powerful people in the world. Feminism never died, and since the Lowell Mill Girls women have been continually organizing and protesting in order to achieve rights.
