A Brief History: The Three Waves of

Feminism
https://www.progressivewomensleadership.com/a-brief-history-the-three-waves-of-
feminism/

While the roots of feminism are buried in ancient Greece, most recognize the movement by
the three waves of feminism. The third being the movement in which we are currently
residing.

The first wave (1830’s – early 1900’s): Women’s fight for equal contract and property
rights

Often taken for granted, women in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, realized that they
must first gain political power (including the right to vote) to bring about change was how to
fuel the fire. Their political agenda expanded to issues concerning sexual, reproductive and
economic matters. The seed was planted that women have the potential to contribute just
as much if not more than men.

The second wave (1960’s-1980’s): Broadening the debate

Coming off the heels of World War II, the second wave of feminism focused on the
workplace, sexuality, family and reproductive rights. During a time when the United States
was already trying to restructure itself, it was perceived that women had met their equality
goals with the exception of the failure of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment
(which has still yet to be passed).

Misconceptions…

This time is often dismissed as offensive, outdated and obsessed with middle class white
women’s problems. Conversely, many women during the second wave were initially part of
the Black Civil Rights Movement, Anti Vietnam Movement, Chicano Rights Movement,
Asian-American Civil Rights Movement, Gay and Lesbian Movement and many other groups
fighting for equality. Many of the women supporters of the aforementioned groups felt
their voices were not being heard and felt that in order to gain respect in co-ed
organizations they first needed to address gender equality concerns.

Women cared so much about these civil issues that they wanted to strengthen their voices
by first fighting for gender equality to ensure they would be heard.

The third wave (1990’s – present): The “micropolitics” of gender equality

Today and unlike the former movements, the term ‘feminist’ is received less critically by the
female population due to the varying feminist outlooks. There are the ego-cultural
feminists, the radicals, the liberal/reforms, the electoral, academic, ecofeminists… the list
goes on.
The main issues we face today were prefaced by the work done by the previous waves of
women. We are still working to vanquish the disparities in male and female pay and the
reproductive rights of women. We are working to end violence against women in our nation
as well as others.

We are still fighting for acceptance and a true understanding of the term ‘feminism,’ it
should be noted that we have made tremendous progress since the first wave. It is a term
that has been unfairly associated first, with ladies in hoop skirts and ringlet curls, then
followed by butch, man-hating women. Due to the range of feminist issues today, it is much
harder to put a label on what a feminist looks like.

Quite frankly, it all comes down to the dictionary’s very simple yet profound definition: “the
theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.” If that’s what a feminist
is – who wouldn’t want to be called that?
The Feminist Art Movement
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-feminist-art.htm

Synopsis

The Feminist art movement emerged in the late 1960s amidst the fervor of anti-war
demonstrations and civil and queer rights movements. Hearkening back to the utopian
ideals of early twentieth-century modernist movements, Feminist artists sought to rewrite a
falsely male-dominated art history as well as change the contemporary world around them
through their art, focusing on intervening in the established art world and the art canon's
legacy, as well as in everyday social interactions. As artist Suzanne Lacy declared, the goal of
Feminist art was to "influence cultural attitudes and transform stereotypes." Feminist art
created opportunities and spaces that previously did not exist for women and minority
artists, as well as paved the path for the Identity art and Activist art of the 1980s.

Key Ideas
 Feminist artists sought to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork through the
inclusion of women's perspective. Art was not merely an object for aesthetic admiration, but
could also incite the viewer to question the social and political landscape, and through this
questioning, possibly affect the world and bring change toward equality.
 Before feminism, the majority of women artists were invisible to the public eye. They were
oftentimes denied exhibitions and gallery representation based on the sole fact of their
gender. The art world was largely known, or promoted as, a boy's club, of which sects like
the hard drinking, womanizing members of Abstract Expressionism were glamorized. To
combat this, Feminist artists created alternative venues as well as worked to change
established institutions' policies to promote women artists' visibility within the market.
 Feminist artists often embraced alternative materials that were connected to the female
gender to create their work, such as textiles, or other media previously littled used by men
such as performance and video, which did not have the same historically male-dominated
precedent that painting and sculpture carried. By expressing themselves through these non-
traditional means, women sought to expand the definition of fine art, and to incorporate a
wider variety of artistic perspectives.
Guerrilla Girls
Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous group of radical feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism
and racism within the art world.[1] The group formed in New York City in 1985 with the mission of
bringing gender and racial inequality into focus within the greater arts community. The group
employs culture jamming in the form of posters, books, billboards, and public appearances to
expose discrimination and corruption. To remain anonymous, members don gorilla masks and use
pseudonyms that refer to deceased female artists. According to GG1, identities are concealed
because issues matter more than individual identities, "[M]ainly, we wanted the focus to be on the
issues, not on our personalities or our own work."