Currently, at least formally and theoretically, both women and men maintain the same rights. However, if women have managed to acquire their current representation in society, it has been thanks to the struggle of many women during the last centuries, thanks to the feminist movement.
Throughout history, women have been oppressed by men, in unequal conditions, being recognized only for being a mother, wife and housewife, they have been denied the right to vote, the opportunity to study, being able to practice professions that were only “for men”, she has been denied the possibility of deciding if she wants to be a mother, entry to public spaces because she is a woman, among other inequalities. If you want to know how the movement has managed to abolish some inequalities between genders, continue reading this article from , about the four waves of feminism.
What is feminism
What is feminism? Throughout history, women have led the fight to achieve equal representation with men in society. The gender fight It has been involved in different stages, processes and changes, in which the women’s movement has managed to achieve great achievements thanks to its struggle. The trajectory of the changes achieved, thanks to the Feminist movementhas been divided to date into three stages, called the waves of feminism, currently entering the fourth wave of feminism.
The stages of feminism began with the first wave of the movement that took place in the French Revolution, being called Enlightenment feminism. Later, from the mid-19th century until the end of World War II, the movement embarked on the second wave, liberal-suffrage feminism. In the 1960s, the third wave of feminism appeared, sixties feminism or contemporary feminism. Currently, we can see the beginning of the fourth wave of feminism, feminism after the eighties. Thus, we can affirm that today there are four feminist waves.
history of feminism
He birth of the feminist movement It dates back to the 18th century, during the beginning of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment. The feminist movement arose from the need for women’s liberation, seeking a change in social relations, through the hierarchical elimination and inequalities between genders. It was then that the women came together as a collective to fight for freedom, civil rights, justice and equalityrights pledged by and for men at that time, excluding women from them.
As a result of this first awareness of the oppression of women in our society, throughout history there have been great movements or stages of feminism, achieving great advances to this day. These stages, known as the waves of feminism, compress the history of the movement with its achievements and difficulties, which feminism has had to overcome to this day. Let’s look at the historical journey of the feminist movement, starting from its four major stages, the four waves of feminism. In the following article you will find more information about .
First wave of feminism
The first of the four waves of feminism was born in the 18th century, against the beginning of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment. The main objective of the French Revolution was the achievement of the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. However, the freedoms, rights and legal and political equality so pursued by the revolution excluded women.
Thus, the first wave of feminism began due to the lack of representation of women in the principles that supported the revolution, three principles directly related to men and exclusive for women. It was then that the women’s group began to fight for your equality rights and by the need to highlight the role of women in society, which had remained hidden until then.
The demands of the women’s collective that rose up in the first wave of feminism focused on women’s access to the following rights:
- To the education.
- To the freedom.
- To the equality.
- To the political rights: expressing your right to vote.
However, the response they obtained to their demand in the Napoleonic Civil Code was the creation of discriminatory laws, such as ruling that the home was an exclusive area for women, it was established that women would be considered minors and they were constituted specific crimes such as adultery or abortion. In addition to this, women continued to be excluded in the educational field.
Within the framework of the stages of the feminist movement, it was in the first wave when the female collective began to become aware of oppression of society on women, women wanted to stop being only mothers and wives.
Second wave of feminism
The second wave of feminism, known socially as suffragismtook place between the mid-19th century until the 1950s, at the end of World War II.
Second wave of feminism in the United States
The second stage of the feminist movement began in the United States, where four women joined the fight for the country’s independence and the cause for the liberation of slaves. These two events gave rise to women beginning to deal with social and political issues. Given this, suffragism was born, which pursued two objectives: the right to vote for women and the right to educationwhich remained related, since the movement defended that with the possibility of educational training it would be more difficult to deny them the right to vote.
The movement’s collective remained interclassist, since it was considered that every woman suffered from these inequalities, regardless of their social class. At that time, the passive revolution that had begun to take place changed strategy to become an active movement, where women began to have a more activist role carrying out actions such as interrupting speeches or carrying out hunger strikes.
The strength of the movement began when the four women who had fought for independence and slaves in the United States traveled to England to attend an anti-slavery congress, to which they were denied entry because they were women. After several years of struggle in England, John Stuart Mill positioned himself as an ally of the movement, indicating that the solution to the women’s struggle was to eliminate discriminatory legislative positions, since once these restrictions were eliminated, women could leave the subordination and begin to become independent.
Second wave of feminism in Europe
It was not until the end of World War II that women in England did not obtain the right to vote, since During the war, women began to take men’s jobs. that they had gone to war and, given this, society could not oppose their demands. Faced with this, by the 1930s, the vast majority of developed countries had reconsidered and recognized women’s right to vote.
The struggle of feminism continued with the demand for free access to higher education, equality in all professions, as well as in salary and civil rights, the right to share parental authority over their children. They also claimed the injustice of the husband having to be the administrator of the marital property.
Even after the war, the media and governments focused on the objective of removing women from the jobs carried out during the war, returning them to the home, a maneuver called The mystique of femininity.
Third wave of feminism
The third wave of feminism arrived in the Sixties decade, where in the face of the Mystique of femininity, women felt empty because of the role they should play in society, that of mother, wife and housewife. It was then that Betty Friedan created the National Organization for Women (NOW), becoming the most representative women’s organization of liberal feminism.
He liberal feminism It was characterized by its opposition to inequality, and not in terms of oppression and exploitation, it sought to reform the system to achieve equality between genders. The liberals defended that the basis of the problem centered on the exclusion of women in the public sphere, appealing to their right to enter the labor market.
What is radical feminism
It was he who gained prominence in the sixties. Radical feminism was opposed to the ideas of liberalism, which was based on a reformist policy, since they had the objective of abolishing the patriarchal order, which remained intact, because even if they had achieved legitimation of rights, the social system It continued to be based on sexist, classist, racist and imperialist values.
Faced with this reality, the New Left and new radical social movements appeared, such as radical feminism, which pursued the objective of forging a new form of society. The following article explains in more depth the .
The first proposal of this movement was based on the women’s liberation movement, which consisted of let women organize autonomously, separating from the men. The entire group agreed with the need to separate the male gender, however two branches were born: radical political feminism and radical feminists. For the first group, women’s oppression was produced by capitalism, considering feminism a part of the left, while radical feminists opposed subordination to the left, indicating that men benefited from their domination. However, they shared most of their ideals.
The common goal of radical feminism was the abolition of patriarchydefined as a system governed by the sexual denomination, oppressive of women, under the motto “the personal is political”, defending that the values of patriarchy also affected private life, such as family structure or sexuality.
Fourth wave of feminism
The fourth wave of feminism begins after the eighties It focuses on the present, where the feminist collective claims the need for another wave, due to the continuity of gender abuse, abuses and rapes, the differences that still exist in the world of work, the inequality in judicial sentences, etc.
Given this, the feminist movement is showing itself more strongly than ever and is characterized by its activism on the Internet. They use social networks to increase their visibility and greater international impact, demanding the fight for equalitycivil rights, the right to abortion, the opposition to sexist violence and stereotypes, the defense of sexual freedom, where it enters strongly the LGTBI collective and the complaint to…