Feminism today means many things to many people, with differing interpretations often clashing. Women’s rights to vote, to have an abortion, to be paid equally to men, to be allowed time off to have children and to dress without fear of judgement or expectation – all these (and much else besides) may be regarded as expressions of feminism. At its heart, though, is the idea that the sexes are equal and that women should not face discrimination on the basis of their gender.
It is widely accepted that men have enjoyed a privileged position throughout history, commanding the reins of power and wielding it often at the expense of women. Of course, there have been figures who have bucked the trend, like Hatshepsut and Cleopatra in ancient Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China, Byzantine Empress Theodora, Elizabeth I in England, Maria Theresa of Austria and Catherine the Great in Russia. But over the broad sweep of time, they have been the exceptions. Furthermore, there was little in the way of a concerted effort to change the situation until the 19th century.
The great 20th-century feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, identified the French writer Christine de Pizan (1364–c. 1430) as the first female explicitly to decry misogyny.
Others look to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) as the first consciously feminist work of literature. Her core theme was that men and women are capable of equal rationality and moral judgement when educated to the same level. While stopping short of expressing a ‘wish to invert the order of things’, her message to ‘Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of men’ was nonetheless new and powerful.
But it would not be until late the next century that feminism enjoyed its so-called First Wave. This was characterized by a demand for women’s rights and social emancipation – as epitomized by the Suffragists who demanded women get the vote. There were also calls for better working and property rights, as well as protection against sexual violence within marriage. The term ‘feminism’ first came into popular usage in the 1880s but, after the eventual granting of certain legal concessions in much of the developed world over the ensuing decades, feminism’s Second Wave did not arrive until the 1950s.
Feminism’s Second Wave
Arguably beginning with the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (in which she proclaimed the existentialist view that ‘One is not born but becomes a woman’), this phase was led by figures including social and political activist and feminist, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan (author of The Feminine Mystique), Germaine Greer and Kate Millett. As well as seeking greater equality across all aspects of society, there was a push for sexual liberation, which seemed even more achievable with the introduction of the contraceptive pill that gave women new levels of control over their reproductive lives.
The Second Wave had subsided by the 1980s amid claims that the big arguments had now been won, but a Third Wave appeared in the 1990s. It sought to resolve issues emerging from the previous waves – including arguments that issues of class and race had not been sufficiently addressed by classical feminism. Into the 21st century, where gender identity is ever more fluid and the rise of social media has stoked a feminist backlash, the idea that feminism’s job is done seems more far-fetched than ever.