When was feminism first coined

Although individual groups continued to work — for reproductive freedom, for equality in education and employment, for voting rights for black women — the movement as a whole began to splinter. It no longer had a unified goal with strong cultural momentum behind it, and it would not find another until the second wave began to take off in the s.

Sojourner Truth Remarks by Susan B. Anthony at her trial for illegal voting There were prominent feminist thinkers before Friedan who would come to be associated with the second wave — most importantly Simone de Beauvoir, whose Second Sex came out in France in and in the US in — but The Feminine Mystique was a phenomenon. It sold 3 million copies in three years. Women were right to be unhappy; they were being ripped off. Instead, it was revolutionary in its reach.

It made its way into the hands of housewives, who gave it to their friends, who passed it along through a whole chain of well-educated middle-class white women with beautiful homes and families.

And it gave them permission to be angry. And once those 3 million readers realized that they were angry, feminism once again had cultural momentum behind it. It had a unifying goal, too: not just political equality, which the first-wavers had fought for, but social equality.

The phrase cannot be traced back to any individual woman but was popularized by Carol Hanisch. Wade guaranteed women reproductive freedom. The second wave worked on getting women the right to hold credit cards under their own names and to apply for mortgages. It worked to outlaw marital rape, to raise awareness about domestic violence and build shelters for women fleeing rape and domestic violence. It worked to name and legislate against sexual harassment in the workplace.

The second wave cared about racism too, but it could be clumsy in working with people of color. Earning the right to work outside the home was not a major concern for black women, many of whom had to work outside the home anyway. In response, some black feminists decamped from feminism to create womanism.

Even with its limited scope, second-wave feminism at its height was plenty radical enough to scare people — hence the myth of the bra burners.

Despite the popular story, there was no mass burning of bras among second-wave feminists. But women did gather together in to protest the Miss America pageant and its demeaning, patriarchal treatment of women. That the Miss America protest has long lingered in the popular imagination as a bra-burning, and that bra-burning has become a metonym for postwar American feminism, says a lot about the backlash to the second wave that would soon ensue.

In the s, the comfortable conservatism of the Reagan era managed to successfully position second-wave feminists as humorless, hairy-legged shrews who cared only about petty bullshit like bras instead of real problems, probably to distract themselves from the loneliness of their lives, since no man would ever want a shudder feminist.

Another young woman chimed in, agreeing. That image of feminists as angry and man-hating and lonely would become canonical as the second wave began to lose its momentum, and it continues to haunt the way we talk about feminism today.

It would also become foundational to the way the third wave would position itself as it emerged. The Second Sex , Simone de Beauvoir The Feminine Mystique , B e tty Fried a n MacKinnon Gilbert and Susan Gubar Black Women and Feminism , bell hooks Sister Outsider , Audre Lorde But generally, the beginning of the third wave is pegged to two things: the Anita Hill case in , and the emergence of the riot grrrl groups in the music scene of the early s.

And for the young women watching the Anita Hill case in real time, it would become an awakening. Early third-wave activism tended to involve fighting against workplace sexual harassment and working to increase the number of women in positions of power. Aesthetically, the third wave is deeply influenced by the rise of the riot grrrls, the girl groups who stomped their Doc Martens onto the music scene in the s. The word girl here points to one of the major differences between second- and third-wave feminism.

There should be no more college girls or coeds: only college women, learning alongside college men. However, the second wave only quieted down in the public forum; it did not disappear but retreated into the academic world where it is alive and well—incubating in the academy.

However, generally those programs have generated theorists rather than activists. Returning to the question the Elle Magazine columnist asked about the third wave and the success or failure of its goals. It is hard to talk about the aims of the third wave because a characteristic of that wave is the rejection of communal, standardized objectives.

Third wave women and men are concerned about equal rights, but tend to think the genders have achieved parity or that society is well on its way to delivering it to them. This wave supports equal rights, but does not have a term like feminism to articulate that notion.

But the times are changing, and a fourth wave is in the air. Well, perhaps that is the way to view the fourth wave of feminism. The aims of the second feminist movement were never cemented to the extent that they could survive the complacency of third wavers.

The fourth wave of feminism is emerging because mostly young women and men realize that the third wave is either overly optimistic or hampered by blinders. Feminism is now moving from the academy and back into the realm of public discourse. Yet the word is winning the day. Feminism no longer just refers to the struggles of women; it is a clarion call for gender equity.

The emerging fourth wavers are not just reincarnations of their second wave grandmothers; they bring to the discussion important perspectives taught by third wave feminism.

The beauty of the fourth wave is that there is a place in it for all —together. The academic and theoretical apparatus is extensive and well-honed in the academy, ready to support a new broad-based activism in the home, in the workplace, in the sphere of social media, and in the streets. At this point we are still not sure how feminism will mutate.

Will the fourth wave fully materialize and in what direction? There have always been many feminisms in the movement, not just one ideology, and there have always been tensions, points and counter-points. The political, social and intellectual feminist movements have always been chaotic, multivalenced, and disconcerting; and let's hope they continue to be so; it's a sign that they are thriving.

This story first appeared in the Fall issue of Pacific magazine. For more stories, visit pacificu. Education Health Professions Optometry. Wind Advisory A wind advisory is in effect until 6 p. Four Waves of Feminism. Around women and men came together from across the country to discuss the status of women in the United States. Together, they wrote the Declaration of Sentiments , which opened with these words:.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Sound familiar? The document protested laws that denied women access to property rights, labor rights, or education, and it famously called for women to be given the right to vote i. Many leaders of the movement were also abolitionists , including Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. The Woman Suffrage Parade of was the first and most significant march for the cause. This early spirit of protest continued in the form of the Silent Sentinels, who picketed silently in front of the White House six days a week between — In , Susan B.

Anthony was arrested for trying to vote. During her trial, she argued that as a citizen of the United States, she had a constitutionally protected right to vote. They were paid less for the same jobs, experienced more unpunished harassment, and they could be fired or denied a job for becoming pregnant. Domestic violence was an unaddressed issue at home, and it was very hard to divorce, especially if there were children in the picture.

All of that is just scratching the surface.