“Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” This quote, so brilliantly stated by Cheris Kramerae, describes exactly what feminism is in its entirety. Throughout the first, second and third wave, the definition and idea of feminism has transformed, but the basis has always remained the same. The basis of feminism is simply that women have the right to be equal to men. This basis has led to many different opinions of what it means to be a feminist. Some opinions hold that feminists are strong, powerful women, while other opinions are that feminists are ugly, lesbian man haters who don’t shave their legs or wear bras. Whatever the opinion, it is undeniable that women as a whole have come a long way in the past century and the women who helped influence this deserve credit for it whether they fit the profile of strong and powerful or ugly man haters.
The first wave marked the beginning of feminism. While there were women who felt unequal and inadequate before this, the first wave is when women began to take a public stance and fight for their equality. In the mid 1800s the main issue for women was the right to vote. This issue was formed at the creation of the Declaration of Independence, but women did not yet stand up for their rights because they felt that it was not their place in society. After being kicked out of a London antislavery meeting because they were female, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott held the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. During the meeting the women created a Declaration of Sentiments that asked for women to have equal rights as men, such as the right to vote. These women then took on the name of suffragists, based on the Latin term meaning “to vote”. Women felt that they could not accomplish anything if they had no say in deciding who would make the decisions, such as the President. This led to the movement for the women’s right to vote as well as for voting rights for African Americans. When the fifteenth amendment passed in 1869 allowing people of all races the right to vote, but not females, the suffragists were forced to keep fighting for their rights, and the rallying cry soon became, “Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less.” This rallying cry was coined by Susan B. Anthony who soon became a leader, next to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in the woman’s suffrage movement.
Women’s desire to vote led them to do crazy things. In the movie Iron Jawed Angels, one of the dominant figures of the women’s suffrage movement, Alice Paul, starves herself and serves time in jail for protesting just for the right to vote. Alice Paul was the founder of the National Women’s Party, and often protested with teammate Lucy Burns, and the rest of the movement, outside of the White House against former President, Woodrow Wilson for women’s voting rights. Alice Paul earned the women of the movement the name Iron Jawed Angels because during their hunger strike in jail they had to be force fed in order to eat. Even after Alice Paul was released from jail she continued to protest, and this determination is what would eventually gain women the right to vote. Finally, in 1920 the nineteenth amendment was passed and women would be allowed to vote. This would also end the First Wave of feminism.
According to the Manifesta article by Baumgardner and Richards, during the first wave, feminism was viewed as, “the political belief that the sexes are culturally, not just biologically, created; the process of opposing male supremacy; and women’s rights and responsibility to realize her own potential.” During the first wave, some people viewed feminists as crazy just because of the extremes that Alice Paul went through to earn the right to vote, but most feminists were seen as classy and strong.
One of my favorite lines in the book The F Word, by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, is a quote by Irina Dunn that says, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” I love this quote because I love the irony of it and how instead of women being degraded, it is men being put down for once. This quote is funny because it is so true, women do NOT need men. Once women began to understand this concept they started standing up for themselves more and fighting for their rights.
This understanding of equality led to the Second Wave. During the second wave, women now had the right to vote, and thus began rallying for more rights towards equality, such as “increased gender equality in the workplace, access to reproductive health care and sexuality information, and civil rights legislation that made discrimination on the basis of sex or race illegal…secure equal pay for equal work, constitutional rights for women, the election of more women to public office, legal abortions, and a ban on discrimination in schools and lending” (The F-Word pg. 26). The first wave was all about getting our basic rights, but the second wave is about taking that basic right and using it to improve women’s lives. The primary activists of the second wave were Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. During the time of the second wave, the 1960s through early 1980s, the tone was that women were free to follow their dreams, work alongside men, and attend school. Women were all the sudden very liberated during the second wave, and they went against every stereotype of women.
Since women were trying to break the common stereotypes, this is where feminism got a bad reputation. Women were constantly trying to break stereotypes, such as women should shave their legs, or women need a man. Since feminists were taking a stand against these stereotypes, the word “feminism” became associated with hairy, lesbian, man-haters, etc. Despite the bad reputation of the term feminism, the feminists of the second wave achieved many of the rights that we now have today, and without their hard work we probably would not have such luxuries as birth control, or equal health care, even the ability to work beside a man. These are things that we often taken for granted, but we must consider how hard the women of the second wave had to work for these rights, and remember that we are one of the few countries that allow women access to something as simple as birth control.
While the first two waves accomplished a great deal, the third wave is a little bit of a let down. After all the rebellion caused by the second wave, the women of today do not want to be associated with that image, and are not fighting as hard for their rights. Even though women have come a long way since the first wave, we still have much further to go. For example, we are still not getting paid the same amount as men. The main difference between the third wave, and the first and second waves, is that there is no defined women’s movement. There are no real protestors, or women joining together to fight for our rights. Instead, as Rowe-Finkbeiner states, “many modern women face the challenges of gender inequality alone, as individuals. The feeling that individual concerns add up to the societal issue in need of electoral action has been lost, along with flower power and rainbow suspenders, as the second wave fades.” Unfortunately, the third wave has not gotten much done as far as women’s rights goes. However, they have done a great job in showing that just because a woman is a feminist, does not mean that she cannot stay home as a housewife or shave her legs. Much of the second wave was so extreme and rebellious, that the third wave is pulling it back to reality and saying that it is okay to abide by some of the stereotypes. What women are learning is that we do not have to be rebellious to gain equality; we just have to be determined.
Women in the third wave may be seen as lazy because we have not gained any new rights, but I do not think it is so much that we are lazy, but we are just bringing everything back to reality. We are taking the results from the first wave, and the results from the second wave, and combining them to achieve a lifestyle that women can be content with in our society today. The one thing about the third wave that I am disappointed with however, is that women tend to take for granted a lot of the rights that feminists worked for in the past. For example, many women still do not vote in the Presidential election. The right to vote is something that the first wave worked very hard to achieve, and is not something that should be taken for granted. I think that women today need to continue fighting for our rights until we can achieve equal status to men, but we should continue to incorporate the past achievements into our society. We should not give up on the fight just because we want to rebel against the ways of our mothers during the second wave. We just need to find our own way to accomplish our remaining rights.
After taking this course and reading the material associated with it, I would definitely consider myself a feminist. Coming into the course I stereotyped a feminist with a woman from the second wave; a woman who rebels against all the rules of society. I have to admit, I did not want the label of a feminist. However, after finishing the class I have learned that a feminist can be anyone; it doesn’t even have to be a woman. After becoming more informed about what a feminist is, I think it is safe to say that I am a feminist. Just because I don’t run around burning my bra and protesting about how great women are doesn’t mean that I don’t want equal rights for myself and for future generations. In the book Feminism is for Everybody, by Bell Hooks, it discusses how a feminist can be anyone, even someone who just wants reproductive rights or to be seen as a human. To me, in order to be a feminist, a person must first understand that women are humans, just like men, and once they understand this, they will then begin to understand that women and men are equals.
Works Cited:
Movie: Iron Jawed Angels
Feminism is for Everybody by Bell Hooks
The F Word: Feminism in Jeopardy by Kristin Rowe Fink-Beiner
“Manifesta” by Baugardner, and Jennifer and Amy Richards
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