Third Wave Feminism - April 22nd Meeting

Third Wave Feminism

• First-Wave: fought and gained the right for women to vote.
• Second-Wave: obtained the right for women to have access and equal opportunity to the workforce, as well as ending of legal sex discrimination.
• Third-Wave: lack of a single cause. It evolves from the Second Wave of independence to a model of interdependence.

Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the Second Wave's methodical definitions of femininity and feminism. These definitions over-emphasize the experiences of upper middle-class white women.

The Feminist Establishment has accumulated power, and they flex this power to mute younger generations of feminists.

Third Wave Activism

• Reproductive rights
• Race
• Social class
• Sexuality
• Workplace issues (glass ceiling, sexual harassment, unfair maternity leave policies, motherhood -support for single mothers and respect for working mothers and mothers who decide to leave their careers to raise their children full-time).
• Image (struggle for women to be seen as intelligent, political beings; acknowledging lack of diverse, positive female representatives and role models in pop culture).
• Draw attention to media’s unhealthy standards of women (glamorization of eating disorders; portrayal of women as sexualized objects catering to men’s needs; anti-intellectualism).
• Reclaiming derogatory terms (spinster, bitch, whore, and cunt are used in derogatory ways – by both men and women – to demean women. It is better to change the meaning of a sexist word than to censor it from speech).

• Feminism will lose relevance if it can’t embrace a wider view.
• Third Wave Feminism is about supporting the entire community (society), not just women.
• Promoting only one piece of feminism can oppress everything else.
• Third Wave Feminism allows people their own understanding of feminism instead of creating a status quo – it allows you to find your own place.
• Discussion content:

-Second wave feminist disliked the saty at home moms, because they wanted real career oportunities that was difficult to obtain as a result of the stay at home moms.

-it seems what men do is validated more then the choices made by women in the same situations.

-Cuba, and even Canada have maternity leave, while just recently in washington, state workers can now obtain 6-8 weeks of paid maternity leave.

-the outrageous bikini baristas in school zones

-that women are intelligent in the same subjects that are dubbed as men's fields.

-Partriarchal language demeans women through words that connect to our gender such as:

pussy, cunt, bitch, and even she throws like a girl. It is implying when used in those contents that having a vagina, and being a girl is somehow weak.