Waves Of Feminism

“In modern societies women are no longer oppressed. Therefore

feminism has lost its relevance.” Do you agree?

This essay discusses the importance of feminism today and addresses the question whether in modern societies feminism is still relevant. A historical review of the three waves of feminism is carried out. For each of the three waves, the most important goals are described and the question whether or not these were achieved is addressed. Examples of the most prominent protagonists and their key writings are given. Finally, the essay argues that feminism in the sense of its early visionaries has lost its relevance, but nevertheless there are still many aspects in which men and women are not treated equally. There continue to be many inequalities between men and women, such as, for example, uneven distribution of income, wealth or access to leadership positions. As long as these still exist, feminism still is relevant even today, and most likely for many years to come.

The word “feminism” has its origins in the Latin language, where “femina” means “woman”. One of the first international philosophical writings on the situation of women goes back to the end of the 18th century and is entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft, 1792).

She criticized the prevailing prejudice that women can only feel but not think. At the time of Wollstonecraft’s writings, women were oppressed and had very few rights. The first wave of feminism was strongly connected to the demand for voting rights or “suffrage” – in French, meaning the “right to vote”. The term “Suffragettes” was originally used for the more radical members of the movement in the United Kingdom that fought for voting rights of women. (Hoffman et al., 2006) Some of the suffragettes carried out spectacular and sometimes violent demonstrations to raise attention for their cause. Some suffragettes even went into hunger strike when they were imprisoned. This kind of violent feminism is no longer relevant in modern society.

However, at the time and for several decades thereafter, feminism found little support. While some countries such as New Zealand or Australia introduced voting rights for women at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, other countries took much longer to grant women this basic right. To mention a few examples, Chinese women are allowed to vote since 1949, Swiss women since 1971, and Iraqis since 1980. But even today there are still some countries where women don’t have the right to vote, e.g., Brunei and Saudi Arabia. (www.ipu.org/wmne/suffrage.htm) Despite these few exceptions, one can say that overall, this aspect of the first wave of the feminist movement has been achieved and has therefore lost its relevance.

The 1960s saw the development of a second wave of feminism, which had the aim that men and women should have equal rights in every respect, equal pay for equal work, sexual liberation of women, and the right of women to decide whether or not they want to have children. While female workers were quite common since the industrialization, middle-class women had to fight for the right to work as well as for access to higher education. Although during the Second World War women had moved into powerful positions, they had to make room for their returning husbands after the war. In the immediate post-war years, other problems were in the forefront than the rights of women. One notable exception was the French philosopher and author Simone de Beauvoir and her famous book “The Second Sex” (de Beauvoir, 1949).

She argued that it was not the physical difference between men and women as such that had led to the patriarchy, but rather that the importance assigned to the physical differences had pushed women into a passive role. "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman". She therefore demanded that women should have the right of self-realization and emancipation, in the same way as men. In modern societies, the emancipation of women is often taken for granted, although there are still women who are suppressed by men and don’t have the possibility of self-realization. This can often be observed, for example, in less developed rural areas.

In 1963, the American feminist activist Betty Friedan published her famous book The Feminine Mystique, which marked the beginning of a new international women movement (Friedan, 1963).

She criticized the boring, unfulfilled life of American middle class women who only lived for their family and. (Holland-Cunz, 2003) Her advice was for women to seek knowledge and education. She encouraged women to achieve economic and social independence, which she saw as the only way out of the “comfortable jail in which they were buried alive”. (Friedan, 1963) Together with other women Betty Friedan established NOW, the National Organization for Women, which was fighting for equal rights in work and politics. Today it also focuses on abortion and reproductive rights, ending sex discrimination, lesbian rights, stopping violence against women and similar issues. (www.now.org) The fact that NOW continues to be active shows that there are still many unmet demands of the feminist movement.

Thus, in the 1960s and 1970s, topics such as unpaid work in the household and child raising, economic dependency on men, and the anti-abortion laws were in the center of the feminist movement. Another prominent leader of this movement is Alice Schwarzer, a German feminist whose most famous book “The little difference and its huge consequences” described sexuality as a means of suppressing women.

(Schwarzer, 1975) She was a strong advocate against the anti-abortion law in Germany, and not least through the debate she initiated, abortion was legalized in Germany in 1974. This was seen as a major achievement on the road to selfdetermination of women. Women’s right to abortion has been legal in many western societies for several decades, although it has remained a very controversial issue, determined by different interpretations of when life actually begins. In the USA, abortion had been made legal in 1973, but under the Republican administration, the state of South Dakota endorsed a law in early 2006 banning legal abortion. Several other states followed, and it remains to be seen if this trend continues. (Goldenberg, 2006) This example shows that this aspect of feminism is still relevant in modern societies.

The debate around the legalization of abortion was only one part of the sexual liberation movement of women. In the center of this discussion was the claim that the body is the personal property of the woman and therefore nobody but the woman herself has the right to decide how her body should be used. At the height of this movement, many women completely rejected traditional relationships, and lesbian, childless ways of living became popular. There were passionate debates and disagreements between lesbians and heterosexual women, mothers and childless women, highly educated career women and those of lesser education. As a result, many women turned away from feministic ideas, because now they felt that they were

patronized by other women who tried to impose on them how they had to live their life. (Holland-Cunz, 2006)

Have the demands dominating the second wave of feminism been met and thus lost their relevance? Not really, or at least not all of them and not to the extent aimed for. One can argue that at least in western societies sexual liberation of women has taken place and is no longer an issue. However, there are still many women who are socially and economically dependent, there is still a considerable gap between the income of men and women in comparable positions, and there are still limits to leadership positions available to women.

The third wave of feminism started in the 1980s and 1990s. It continued to pursue the goals of the earlier feminists. This period was characterized by differences among feminists themselves. One side criticized the fact that women are only seen as patriarchic victims, but in reality this is not only to the disadvantage of women. In fact, they, too, can benefit from the existing social order. Today, many private companies and state agencies have implemented regulations that favor women in the work place. If a woman “plays this card”, she can get very far in her career, because many employers are afraid they may be accused of sex discrimination. In Austria, for example, there is a rule that the share of women in political functions should be 50%. The very fact that it is apparently necessary to have such a quota shows that this goal of the feminist movement is still relevant today.

Other feminists criticized the differentiation between sex and gender, because it implied that a clear line could be drawn between natural and cultural development. (Schiller, 2007/08). Anti-feminists argued that instead of the promised liberation, the feminist movement had brought the loss of traditional relationships, childlessness and solitude to women, saying that feminism makes free but unhappy. This also explains the considerable drop in the birth rate over recent decades and is still relevant today. 

Feminism nowadays is not really modern. Especially young and successful women don’t view feminism as significant for their life. Today, girls and young women are often better educated than men. Some countries, such as China, have actually introduced quotas against women for university entrance, because, on average, young women have achieved higher grades in secondary schools than men and were more likely to pass the entrance exams. In a modern, knowledge-based economy, women can more easily find good jobs, because they are often better in languages and have better overall communication skills than men. In terms of access to education, in modern societies there is today no difference between men and women, so this goal of the feminist movement has been achieved.

Many young women also dislike radical feminism, because they simply do not want to be like men. They feel that radical feminism denies them many “natural” pleasures. They enjoy beautiful, feminine cloths, they want to have children, and they like the attraction they have on men. These young women usually are better educated and have an income of their own. They consider it normal that women have the same rights as men, but they don’t believe they must have the same preferences and desires. These emancipated women want to have their own career – but maybe as a physician or banker and not necessarily in coal mining, car engineering or computer programming (but this has also to do with the fact that often these jobs can hardly be carried out by women because they are physically not strong enough).

Thus, the primary goals of feminism have not lost their relevance. Real equality has not yet been achieved, and power and income are still unevenly distributed. For many successful women there is still a “glass ceiling” which they cannot surpass. This term was first used by the Wall Street Journal to “describe the apparent barriers that prevent women from reaching the top of the corporate hierarchy.” (www.economist.com/business/) They may have good jobs and earn their own money, but the top positions are often still reserved for men. Feminism today is mostly concerned with the traditional roles of women, the difference between income of men and women in comparable positions, and discriminatory structures, where

women are prevented from moving up the hierarchical ladder despite same or sometimes even higher qualifications than their male colleagues.

Still today the responsibility for taking care of children and for household duties rests mostly with women, even if they have a good job. While maternity leave is quite common in modern societies, paternity leave is only at the beginning, and it is not even legally possible in some modern societies. It is also almost always the

woman, who has to take care of the elderly in the family. This double burden of family and career is highly unfair to women and motivates many to remain single and childless. It also shows that there is still a long way to go until these social responsibilities are equally distributed between men and women.

To return to the question whether feminism has lost its relevance, one can see that much has been achieved, but as long as women own only 1% of the world’s wealth, have only a 10% share of the global income, occupy only 14% of leadership positions in the public and private sector, and account for 70% of the world’s poor, there is still a long way to go until there is real equality between men and women.

(International Trade Centre, 2009)

References

 De Beauvoir Simone (1949), The Second Sex, first published in English by

Jonathan Cape, 1953

 Friedan Betty (1973), The Feminine Mystique

 Goldenberg Suzanne (8 March 2006), ‘State’s abortion ban fires first shot in a

long war over women’s rights’, The Guardian

 Hoffman John, Graham Paul (2006), Introduction to Political Concepts.

Pearson Education Limited.

 Holland-Cunz Barbara (2003). Die alte neue Frauenfrage. Edition Suhrkamp,

Frankfurt am Main

 Holland-Cunz Barbara (2006). Der neue Feminismus von 1963 bis heute.

Gender Politik online.

 International Trade Centre (10 March 2009), Trade Finance: Make it work for

women. Press statement.

 Schiller Anna (2007/08). Gleich? Besser? Anders? – Feministische Theories

seit 1945. Skriptum zum Vortrag für das Gender Art Laboratory.

 Schwarzer Alice (1975). Der kleine Unterschied und seine grossen Folgen

(The little difference and its huge consequences) S. Fischer Verlag.

 Wollstonecraft Mary (1792), A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

 www.ipu.org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm

 www.now.org/issues/

 www.economist.com/business/: Women in business, 21st July 2005