A Short History of Feminism

Women have been fighting for equality for well over 100 years now. The history of this struggle is often described as in the context of ‘waves’. The following is a very brief sense of the key elements in these waves of activism:

First Wave Feminists focused their struggles primarily on gaining legal rights such as the right to vote (women’s suffrage) and property rights. The first known publications by women that referred to a demand for equality between men and women were published in the 15th century, but what is referred to as first wave feminism really began in earnest in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. This wave of feminism ended when women made some legal gains in North America (rights to have a say with regards to their children, the right to own property and inherit property) and when some women won the right to vote between 1917 and 1920. In Canada, Aboriginal women living on reserves would not win the right to vote until 1960.

Second Wave Feminists focused on a broad range of issues in the 1960’s, 70’s and early 80’s including discrimination in workplaces and in broader society. Some of the key struggles were around affirmative action, pay equity, rape, domestic violence, pornography and sexism in the media, and reproductive choice. The fight for reproductive choice included a fight to have information about, and access to, birth control (selling or promoting birth control was illegal in Canada until 1969) as well as the struggle to decriminalize abortion. In 1988 the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law noting that it fundamentally violated a women’s right to ‘liberty and personal autonomy’ as guaranteed in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A subsequent attempt one year later to introduce a new abortion law

failed in the Senate due to a tie vote. During this time frame both the United States (in 1963) and Canada (in 1967) launched investigations into the status of women and through the subsequent reports made public the depth and breadth of the inequalities experienced by women. The National Action Committee on the Status of Women was

set up following the Canadian Royal Commission on the Status of Women to advocate for women’s equality and became an important focal point for feminist action in Canada during the 1970’s and 80’s.

Third Wave Feminism emerged in the 1990’s in part as a response to the backlash from the gains 2nd wave feminists had made in the 1970’s and 80’s. While women made significant gains during the second wave of feminism, equality was still a distant dream. Race and Class became important issues for reflection and action within the

movement – a movement that had been dominated by white, mostly middle-class, women. This wave of feminism is not galvanized around one or two key struggles, such as the right to vote or reproductive choice, as was the case in both the 1st and 2nd wave. Even the term feminist is not universally adopted but often rejected by new activists. While the movement seems less galvanized in this current wave there is no doubt that the fight for women’s equality is far from over. Mobilizing and organizing across age, race, class and our differences as women remains our challenge in continuing the fight for equality for women.