How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
Foreword: it is important to note, that until recently there were only two recognised genders, male and female, and so for the majority of the article they will be the only genders referred to. Please don’t let this put you off, this will be rectified towards the end. Thank you.
When some people think of feminism, they may think it means that women want to be superior over men. That’s not the case, in fact, women simply want equality. Feminism is simply a term used to mean the campaign or the activism for gender equality. Feminism is a highly significant construct, since it is concerned with social structures and the various inequalities between males and females. Europe and America have been seen as being the birthplace of feminism, so much so that feminism has been critiqued many times for being centred around those two places. In fact, rather than refer to feminism as a singular movement, it would be wise if we referred to it as movements, since it has never been a consistent singular movement across the globe, and has changed over time. (Margolis, D.R. 1993. Women’s Movements Around the World: Cross Cultural Comparisons. Gender and Society, 7(3), pp.379–399).
In 1792 a woman named Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a book titled The Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She was British, and was thought of as the grandmother of feminism. The movements in Britain came in a wave like way, with the first wave concerning civil rights. You may know this as a campaign for women to get the right to vote. It was led by the suffragettes and the suffragists, following the leadership of Millicent Fawcett.
Come the year of 1928, women aged 21 and over were able to vote, just the same as men. This, in my opinion, was what really kicked off British feminism. Then, some time passed, we fought hard in a second world war, and made our way to the 60’s. Flower power was a term used to describe the 60’s and 70’s. This is when the second wave of feminism would hit Britain, it would be known as the “Women’s Liberation Movement” or “Women’s Lib” and it pushed to challenge norms even further, to allow for equality in marriages and the workplace, for example. It also started the conversations on violence against women. One development during this time, which happened very early on, was the manufacturing of something many women use today, the contraceptive pill, that was in 1961. Then in 1968, the Ford factory in Dagenham saw their sewing machinists go on strike. What for you ask? Equal pay, I tell you. A few more years passed and the Sex Discrimination Act was introduced in 1975, “The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made it unlawful for an individual to be discriminated against in the workplace in relation to selection for a job, training, promotion, work practices, dismissal or any other disadvantage such as sexual harassment because of their sex or marital status. These provisions are now part of the Equality Act 2010”.
Fast forward over a decade, 15 years in fact, to the start of the grunge era, that’s right, the 90’s. The debate grew bigger still and the third wave of feminism was upon Great Britain. It criticised what had happened in the movement so far, for focusing on the white, middle class women, and ignoring women from other more diverse backgrounds, such as lower classes or other ethnicities. Instead, they argued the movement should pay close attention to how different kinds of discrimination could overlap, so they could understand the complexity and diversity of the experiences women had been through. (Crenshaw, K. 1989. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race And Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-Discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Anti-Racist Politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140, pp.139–167.)
So here you can see that early feminism movements focused on women’s issues, whereas presently feminism tends to focus on gender equality between all the different genders, including those who are perhaps transgender, or those who do not identify with a binary gender. Some people believe we are presently within the fourth wave of feminism in the 21st century, I agree. Other’s believe we are in a post-feminist state. I think we are on our way to that, but that there is still work to be done. We have had a female Prime Minister here in the UK, if actions speak louder than words, that action is shouting how far we have come since the days of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Furthermore, feminism seems to be on the rise, with the newly elected Kamala Harris as the United States’ Vice President.. I think, personally, this is fantastic news and could potentially lead one day to the country’s first female president.
Is there much left to do regarding feminism? Are there any key issues that present day feminists should be focusing on? Let me know your thoughts.
