The Third Wave Feminism: The Failure Of The Women's Movement

The Women 's movement is usually split up into the First Wave, Second Wave, and Third Wave. The First Wave took place in the 19th cenutry and early 20th century, the Second Wave was from the early 1960s to the 1980s, and the Third Wave started in the 1990s and we are still currently in the Third Wave. In a way, the First Wave was the foundation to the Second wave, and the Third Wave built on the Second Wave. According to Judith Lorber in Feminisms And Their Contributions To Gender Equality, the First Wave feminists advocated for more "basic" rights that we often take for granted such as the "right to vote, to own property and capital, to borrow money, to inherit, to keep money earned, to initiate a divorce, to retain custody of children,

In Unsettling "Third Wave Feminism," Leela Fernandez implies that the improvement of the Third Wave from the other waves was the "new surge of writing and activism by feminists of color" because it decreased the exclusions of groups women. Fernandez claims that the Third Wave feminism focused on "multicultural inclusion, identity politics, and intersectionality." Intersectionality was not really focused on in the First and Second Waves because of the exclusion of some women based on their class, ethnicity, race, and "diverse set of identities." For the first time, the LGBTQ community and men were included in the feminist movement. The Third Wave introduced a form of consciousness which was shown in the mass of writings by many feminists. the Third Wave differed from the other two waves by its accentuation of the differences amongst women, which is used as a positive tool to fight patriarchy. The Third Wave is advocating for goals for both other waves did as well, such as abolishing gender roles and stereotypes, changing language in which we speak about gender, equality in the work force, and stopping sexual violence and harassment. Ideas that are new that emerged within the Third Wave include ideas such as queer theory, the focus on body politics, defending sex workers, and reforms in public policy regarding oppression other than just sexism. It is hard to indicate the limitations for the Third Wave because we are currently in it, but some of the limitations include the lack of education to the mass population about gender inequality, the idea that women are no longer oppressed, and that women are being oppressed but think they are being liberated by expressing their agency like in the case of cosmetic surgery and body