LibGuides: Gender & Sexuality: Feminism

Feminism: An Overview

Feminism: An Overview From Encyclopedia of American Studies

Feminism is an established movement that seeks the liberation of women from sexist oppression. It opposes, therefore, any ideology, institution, philosophy, movement, or people seeking to discriminate against women.

About the First Wave

First Wave Feminism From Feminist Philosophies A-Z

A term that came into use in the late 1960s feminist movement (the second wave) to refer to activist women in the UK and US during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were seeking the right for women to vote, to higher education, to birth control, to employment rights, to married women’s property rights and to equitable marriage laws.

Leaders and Activists of the First Wave

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906): Topic Page
Undoubtedly one of the most forceful pioneers of women’s suffrage in the United States, Anthony never gave up hope of winning.
Olympia Brown (1835-1926): Topic Page
From Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers
Inspired by the ordination of Antoinette Brown Blackwell in 1853, Olympia Brown set out to become a preacher herself, achieving her goal in 1863 when she was ordained in the Universalist Church. She was also a leading suffragist and pacifist as a member of the Congressional Union and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902): Topic Page
Women’s rights leader and feminist pioneer; She was drawn to the abolitionist, temperance, and women’s rights movements through visits to the home of her cousin, the reformer Gerrit Smith.
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Lucy Stone (1818-1893): Topic Page
Abolitionist and women’s rights activist. At age 25 she finally was able to enter Oberlin College (Ohio), and when she graduated (1847) she was the first Massachusetts woman to have earned a college degree. In 1850 she was a leader in calling a women’s rights convention in Worcester, MA, and her speech there both won over Susan B. Anthony to the cause and inspired John Stuart Mill to write ‘The Enfranchisement of Woman’.
Frances Willard (1839-1898): Topic Page
Undoubtedly the dominating presence in the WCTU, Willard devoted her considerable energies to women’s education and suffrage and protective measures for working women.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941): Topic Page

Her essay A Room of One's Own (1929) has become a feminist classic.

Issues of the First Wave

Women's Suffrage: Topic Page
The right of women to vote; Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism.

Achievements of the First Wave

Married Women's Property Acts (United States)
From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
Until the passage of married women’s property acts in the mid–nineteenth century, marriage essentially resulted in a woman’s civil death, which included the denial of her right to own property. The acts, however, fueled the debate on women's rights.
Married Women's Property Acts (Great Britian)
From Dictionary of British History
Two statutes that granted basic property rights to married women and were thus important landmarks in the women's movement.

About the Second Wave

Second Wave Feminism From Feminist Philosophies A-Z

The feminist movement, sometimes called the ‘Women’s Movement’, that began in the late 1960s. In the US it was influenced by the strategies and tactics of the Civil Rights movement and in the UK by the labour rights movement.

Leaders and Activists of the Second Wave

Betty Friedan (1921-2006): Topic Page
Writer and feminist leader; As a result of surveys of female college graduates, she came to identify certain problems that women were experiencing in their lives.
Emma Goldman (1869-1940): Topic Page
“Red Emma,” the archetypal anarchist rebel best known for her defense of individual freedom and the rights of workers, became one of the most reviled women of her time. Much was made of Goldman’s perceived “infamy” as a female political firebrand and her many colorful affairs as an advocate of free love.
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966): Topic Page
Birth control advocate; She moved to New York City (1912) where she became active in the women’s labour movement and the Socialist Party. She concluded that control over childbearing was the key to female emancipation, and was appalled by women’s ignorance of contraception, which she experienced first-hand working as a practical nurse in New York City (1912).
Gloria Steinem (1934- ): Topic Page
Gloria Steinem was famous for her wit and incisive commentaries on women’s rights, her invention of the neutral term Ms. for single women, and her critiques of the family and gender roles.

Issues of the Second Wave

Birth Control: Topic Page
In the late 1960s the women’s movement gave rise to a reproductive rights movement whose goals encompassed legalizing abortion, promoting easier and safer contraception, and fighting racist and classist birth-control programs. The vibrancy and successes of that reproductive rights movement, as well as its broad attack on traditional gender roles, stimulated the backlash politics of the New Right.
Equal Rights Amendment: Topic Page
The National Organization of Women made ratification of the ERA central to its mission, and, together with other interests, it undertook a major effort during the 1960s and early 1970s, culminating in the passage of the ERA by Congress in 1972. However, , it failed to be ratified by sufficient states by the stipulated deadline of July 1982.
Sexual Discrimination: Topic Page
Sexual discrimination involves treating someone differently, usually less favourably, because of his or her gender.
Sexual Harrassment: Topic Page
In law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes.
Women's Sexuality: Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality
From Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
The specific concerns of lesbians came to the fore as part of a broader challenge against sexism. Betty Friedan called lesbians a “lavender menace” that threatened to taint the reputation of the feminist movement, driving women away out of fear of association and diverting attention from more-important campaigns for women’s equality.

Achievements of the Second Wave

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (United States)
From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 makes it illegal for private employers to have different rates of pay for women and men doing the same work. It was the first federal law to address sex discrimination.
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (United States)
From The Reader's Companion to US Women's History
Before passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in October 1974, most women had difficulty obtaining credit without a male cosigner. In the 1960s, as women increasingly entered the work force, they demanded individual access to consumer credit.
Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX
From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits institutions receiving federal funds from practicing gender discrimination in educational programs or activities. It was the first comprehensive federal law to prohibit sex discrimination against students and employees in these institutions.
Roe v. Wade: Topic Page
Case decided in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with Doe v. Bolton, this decision legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. The decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun and based on the residual right of privacy, struck down dozens of state antiabortion statutes.
Corning Glass Works v. Brennan: Topic Page
From From Suffrage to Senate: America's Political Women
In Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, the first equal pay case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court found that Corning Glass Works’ pay policies violated the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by paying a higher base wage to male night shift inspectors than it paid to female inspectors performing the same tasks on the day shift.

About the Third Wave

Third Wave Feminism From Feminist Philosophies A-Z

Heavily influenced by postmodern feminism and Third World feminism as well as strategically and critically employing the methodologies of a number of different types of feminism, third wave feminism embraces the contradictions that are generated by taking a pluralistic approach to the critical analysis of western culture, oppression, masculinity, femininity, class, race and colonialism.

Leaders and Activists of the Third Wave

Judith Butler (1956- )
From The Women's Movement Today
Judith Butler is well known as a theorist of power, gender, sexuality, and identity. In her most influential book, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Butler introduced the notion of “gender performativity.”
Rebecca Walker (1969- )
From The Women's Movement Today
One of the founders of third-wave feminism and the coiner of the term “third wave,” activist, author, mother, and daughter of African American author Alice Walker and Jewish attorney Mel Leventhal, Rebecca Walker (1969–) was born in Jackson, Mississippi, where her parents were active participants in the Civil Rights Movement.
Naomi Wolf (1962- )

From Culture Wars
Feminist author Naomi Wolf is known for her best-selling first book, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (1991), regarded as one of the central texts of third-wave feminism.

Issues of the Third Wave

Reproductive Rights
From From Suffrage to Senate: America's Political Women
Reproductive rights are based upon the premise that human dignity and equality grant each person the right and the responsibility to make reproductive decisions for herself or himself. Information about human sexuality and reproduction is fundamental to making those decisions, as is access to the services necessary to act upon the decisions.
The Intersection of Race and Gender
From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Rather than assuming that all women were similarly oppressed, women of color took issue with unitary theories of gender and addressed the differences among women's experiences.

Gender & Sexuality: Feminism

Women's Movement