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Unit 23: The Nineteenth Century (Feminist Movement)

“The key event that marked the reemergence of this movement in the postwar era was the surprise Notes
popularity of Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminine Mystique. Writing as a housewife and
mother (though she had had a long story of political activism, as well), Friedan described the
problem with no name the dissatisfaction of educated, middle class wives and mothers like herself
who, looking at their nice homes and families, wondered guiltily if that was all there was to life
was not new; the vague sense of dissatifaction plaguing housewives was a staple topic for women’s
magazines in the 1950s. But Friedan, instead of blaming individual women for failing to adapt to
women’s proper role, blamed the role itself and the society that created it”.
During this time feminists campaigned against cultural and political inequalities, which they saw
as inextricably linked. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own
personal lives as deeply politicized, and reflective of a sexist structure of power. If first-wave
feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage, second-wave feminism was largely
concerned with other issues of equality, such as the end to discrimination.

Did u know? The feminist activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan “The Personal
is Political” which became synonymous with the second wave.

23.3 Third Wave

In the early 1990s, a movement, now termed the third wave of feminism, arose in response to the
perceived failures of the second wave feminism. In addition to being a response to the backlash
against initiatives and movements created by second-wave feminism, the third wave was less
reactive, and had a greater focus on developing the different achievements of women in America.
The feminist movement as such grew during the third wave, to incorporate a greater number of
women who may not have previously identified with the dynamics and goals that were established
at the start of the movement. Though criticized as merely a continuation of the second wave, the
third wave made its own unique contributions.
Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval,
Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, called
for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They sought to negotiate prominent space within feminist
thought for consideration of race related subjectivities. This focus on the intersection between race
and gender remained prominent through the Hill-Thomas hearings, but began to shift with the
Freedom Ride 1992. This drive to register voters in poor minority communities was surrounded
with rhetoric that focused on rallying young feminists. For many, the rallying of the young is the
emphasis that has stuck within third wave feminism.

23.4 Scope

As a movement, these women produced the deepest transformation in American society and
enlisted the largest number of participants. Underlying the specific conflicts in political economy
and culture made gender issues matter like never before to activists on all sides of the issue and to
millions of other ordinary citizens. Historian Nancy Cott wrote “feminism was an impulse that
was impossible to translate into a program without centrifugal results” about the first wave of the
movement. What made a change in gender order feel necessary to so much of society was the fate
of the family wage system: the male breadwinner/female homemaker idea that shaped government
policies and employment in businesses. In the years of the movement women accomplished many
of the goals they set out to do. They won protection from employment discrimination, inclusion
in affirmative action, abortion law reform, greater representation in media, and equal access to
school athletics, congressional passage of an equal rights movement, and more.
Demographic changes started sweeping industrial society; birth rates declined, life expectancy
increased, and women were entering the paid labor force in large numbers. New public policies
emerged fitted to changing family forms and individual lifecycles.
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