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.
