Third-Wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study whose exact boundaries in the historiography of feminism are a subject of debate, but often marked as beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present. The movement arose as a response to the perceived failures of and backlash against initiatives and movements created by Second-Wave feminism but also a response to the achievements of the Second Wave. In the 1960s to 1980s, the realization that women can use the stereotypes given to them and create a sense of empowerment and "the Third-Wave redefined women and girls as assertive, powerful, and in control of their own sexuality".[1] There was also a realization that women are of "many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultural backgrounds".[2] The Third Wave embraces diversity and change.[2] In this wave, as in previous ones, there is no all-encompassing single feminist idea, as all social movements resist static and unitary definition.[2]
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Third-Wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity, which often assumed a universal female identity and over-emphasized the experiences of upper-middle-class white women. The shift from Second Wave feminism came about with many of the legal and institutional rights that were given to women. However, the Third Wave believed there needed to be further changes in stereotypes of women and in the media portrayals of women as well as in the language that has been used to define women. Therefore, a more Post-Structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to Third Wave ideology. Post-Structuralism emphasizes discursive power and the ambiguity of gender and the power of language. In "Deconstruction Equality Versus-Differences; or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism" Joan W. Scott describes how language has been used as a way to understand the world, however, "post-structuralist insist that words and texts have no fixed or intrinsic meanings, that there is no transparent or self-evident relationship between them and either ideas or things, no basic or ultimate correspondence between language and the world"[3]
Thus, while language has been used to create binaries such as gender differences post-structuralists see these binaries as artifacts of language created to maintain the power of dominate groups (men, whites, heterosexuals) over their imputed negations who are deemed subordinate or inferiors.
Third-Wave theory usually incorporates elements of queer theory; anti-racism and women-of-color consciousness; womanism; post-colonial theory; postmodernism; transnationalism; ecofeminism; libertarian feminism; new feminist theory, transgender politics and a rejection of the gender binary. Also considered part of the third wave is sex-positivity, a celebration of sexuality as a positive aspect of life, with broader definitions of what sex means and what oppression and empowerment may imply in the context of sex. For example, many third-wave feminists have reconsidered the opposition to pornography and sex work of the second wave, and challenge existing beliefs that participants in pornography and sex work are always being exploited.[4]
Third-wave feminists such as Elle Green often focus on "micro-politics", and challenge the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for women.[5][6][7][8]
Proponents of third-wave feminism claim that it allows women to define feminism for themselves by incorporating their own identities into the belief system of what feminism is and what it can become through one's own perspective. In the introduction to the idea of third-wave feminism in Manifesta, authors Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards suggest that feminism can change with every generation and individual:
"The fact that feminism is no longer limited to arenas where we expect to see it — NOW, Ms., women's studies, and redsuited Congresswomen — perhaps means that young women today have really reaped what feminism has sown. Raised after Title IX and William Wants a Doll [sic], young women emerged from college or high school or two years of marriage or their first job and began challenging some of the received wisdom of the past ten or twenty years of feminism. We're not doing feminism the same way that the seventies feminists did it; being liberated doesn't mean copying what came before but finding one's own way-- a way that is genuine to one's own generation."[9]
The Third Wave feminists have also utilized the internet and modern technology to enhance their movement, which have allowed for information and organization to reach a larger audience.
"The increasing ease of publishing on the Internet meant that e-zines (electronic magazines) and blogs became ubiquitous. Many serious independent writers, not to mention organizations, found that the Internet offered a forum for the exchange of information and the publication of essays and videos that made their point to a potentially huge audience. The Internet radically democratized the content of the feminist movement with respect to participants, aesthetics, and issues”[10]
Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and also as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Kerry Ann Kane, Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of subjects related to race.[7][11]
In 1981, Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa published the anthology This Bridge Called My Back, which, along with All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies (1982), critiqued second-wave feminism, which focused primarily on the problems and political positions of white women.
The roots of the Third Wave began, however, in the mid 1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the Second-Wave called for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They sought to negotiate prominent space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related subjectivities. This focus on the intersection between race and gender remained prominent through the Hill-Thomas hearings, but was perceived to shift with the Freedom Ride 1992, the first project of the Walker-led Third Wave Direct Action Corporation. This drive to register voters in poor minority communities was surrounded with rhetoric that focused on rallying young women.[12]
In 1991, Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas, a man nominated to the United States Supreme Court, of sexual harassment. Thomas denied the accusations and, after extensive debate, the United States Senate voted 52–48 in favor of Thomas.[7][11][13]
In response to this case, Rebecca Walker published an article entitled "Becoming the Third Wave" in which she stated, "I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the third-wave."[14]
In 1992, the "Year of the Woman" saw four women enter the United States Senate to join the two already there. The following year another woman won a special election, bringing the number to seven. The 1990s also saw the first female United States Attorney General and Secretary of State, as well as the second woman on the Supreme Court, and the first US First Lady (Hillary Rodham Clinton) to have an independent political, legal, corporate executive, activist, and public service career. However, the Equal Rights Amendment, which is supported by second- and third-wave feminists, remains a work in progress.
The fundamental rights and programs gained by feminist activists of the second wave - including the creation of domestic-abuse shelters for women and children and the acknowledgment of abuse and rape of women on a public level, access to contraception and other reproductive services (including the legalization of abortion), the creation and enforcement of sexual-harassment policies for women in the workplace, child-care services, equal or greater educational and extracurricular funding for young women, women's studies programs, and much more — have served as a foundation and a tool for third-wave feminists.
Some third-wave feminists prefer not to call themselves feminists, as the word feminist can be misinterpreted as insensitive to the fluid notion of gender and the potential oppressions inherent in all gender roles, or perhaps misconstrued as exclusive or elitist by critics. Others have kept and redefined the term to include these ideas. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge any universal definition of femininity. In the introduction of To Be Real, the Third Wave founder and leader writes:
"Whether the young women who refuse the feminist label realize it or not, on some level they recognize that an ideal woman born of prevalent notions of how empowered women look, act, or think is simply another impossible contrivance of perfect womanhood, another scripted role to perform in the name of biology and virtue."[13]
Third-wave feminism deals with issues that seem to limit or oppress women, as well as other marginalized identities. Consciousness-raising activism, which is “the collective critical reconstitution of the meaning of women’s social experience, as women live through it"[15] In their book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards write:
"Consciousness among women is what caused this [change], and consciousness, one's ability to open their mind to the fact that male domination does affect the women of our generation, is what we need... The presence of feminism in our lives is taken for granted. For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice we have it—it's simply in the water."[9]
Feminist scholars such as Shira Tarrant object to the "wave construct" because it ignores important progress between the so-called waves. Furthermore, if feminism is a global movement, the fact that the "first-, second-, and third waves time periods correspond most closely to American feminist developments" raises serious problems about how feminism recognizes the history of political issues around the world.[16]
Gender Violence has become a central issue for third-wave feminists. They have organizations such as V-Day, which want to end gender violence, as well as the artistic expression of the Vagina Monologues, to bring awareness and action. Third-wave feminists want to transform the stereotype and embrace “an exploration of women’s feelings about sexuality that included vagina-centred topics as diverse as orgasm, birth, and rape”[10]
One of feminism's primary concerns is reproductive rights, such as access to contraception and abortion. According to Baumgardner and Richards, "It is not feminism's goal to control any woman's fertility, only to free each woman to control her own".[9] South Dakota's 2006 attempt to ban abortion in all cases, except when necessary to protect the mother's life,[17] and the US Supreme Court's recent vote to uphold the partial birth abortion ban are viewed by many feminists as restrictions on women's civil and reproductive rights.[18][19] Restrictions on the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States, are becoming more common in states around the country; such restrictions include mandatory waiting periods,[20] parental-consent laws,[21] and spousal-consent laws.[22]
Words such as spinster, bitch, whore, and cunt continue to be used in derogatory ways about women. Inga Muscio writes, "I posit that we're free to seize a word that was kidnapped and co-opted in a pain-filled, distant, past, with a ransom that cost our grandmothers' freedom, children, traditions, pride, and land." Third-wave feminists believe it is better to change the connotation of a sexist word than to censor it from speech.
Part of taking back the word bitch was fueled by the 1992 single, "All Women Are Bitches" by the all woman band Fifth Column, and, later, by the 1999 book Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel. In the successful declaration of the word bitch, Wurtzel introduces her philosophy: "I intend to scream, shout, race the engine, call when I feel like it, throw tantrums in Bloomingdale's if I feel like it and confess intimate details about my life to complete strangers. I intend to do what I want to do and be whom I want to be and answer only to myself: that is, quite simply, the bitch philosophy."[23]
Recently, the utility of the reclamation strategy has been a hot topic among third-wave feminists with the advent of SlutWalks. The first SlutWalk took place in Toronto on April 3, 2011 in response to Toronto police officer Michael Sanguinetti's statement that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."[24] Additional SlutWalks sprung up rapidly in cities all over the world, with marchers reclaiming the word "slut" to make the point that if victimized women are sluts, then all women must be, since anyone can be victimized regardless of what they are wearing.[25][26] Third-wave feminist bloggers have both praised and criticized the Slutwalks, with the reclamation of the word "slut" being questioned for its possible exclusion of some cultural groups.[27][28][29][30][31]
Third-wave feminism's central issues are that of race, social class and sexuality. However, there are also concerns of workplace issues such as the glass ceiling, sexual harassment, unfair maternity leave policies,[32] motherhood—support for single mothers by means of welfare and child care and respect for working mothers and mothers who decide to leave their careers to raise their children full-time.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that started in the 1990s and is often associated with third-wave feminism. It was grounded in the DIY philosophy of punk values, riot grrls took an anti-corporate stance of self-sufficiency and self-reliance.[33] Riot grrrl's emphasis on universal female identity and separatism often appears more closely allied with second-wave feminism than with the third wave.[34] Riot grrrl bands often address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, and female empowerment. Some bands associated with the movement are: Bikini Kill, Hole, Bratmobile, Excuse 17, Babes In Toyland, Jack Off Jill, Free Kitten, Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear, L7, Fifth Column and Team Dresch. In addition to a music scene, riot grrrl is also a subculture: zines, the DIY ethic, art, political action, and activism are part of the movement. Riot grrrls hold meetings, start chapters, and support and organize women in music.[35] The term Riot Grrrl uses a "growling" double or triple r, placing it in the word girl as an appropriation of the perceived derogatory use of the term.[33]
The movement sprang out of Olympia, Washington and Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s. It sought to give women the power to control their voices and artistic expressions.[33] Its links to social and political issues are where the beginning rumblings of the third-wave feminism can be seen. The music and zine writings produced are strong examples of "cultural politics in action, with strong women giving voice to important social issues though an empowered, female oriented community, many people link the emergence of the third-wave feminism to this time".[33] The movement encouraged and made "adolescent girls' standpoints central", allowing them to express themselves fully.[36]
One issue raised by critics is the lack of a single cause for third-wave feminism. The first wave fought for and gained the right for women to vote. The second wave struggled to obtain the right for women to have access and equal opportunity to the workforce, as well as ending of legal sex discrimination.[33]
The third wave of feminism, some argue, lacks a cohesive goal, and it is often seen as an extension of the second wave.[33] Also, third-wave feminism does not have a set definition that can distinguish itself from second-wave feminism. Some argue the third wave can be dubbed the "Second Wave, Part Two" when it comes to the politics of feminism, and "only young feminist culture as truly third wave".[9]
Amy Richards defines the feminist culture for this generation as "third wave because it's an expression of having grown up with feminism".[33] Second-wave feminists grew up where the politics intertwined within the culture, such as "Kennedy, the Vietnam War, civil rights, and women's rights"; while the Third Wave sprang from a culture of "punk-rock, hip-hop, 'zines, products, consumerism and the Internet".[9]
Tension continues between second-wave and third-wave feminists. In an essay entitled "Generations, Academic Feminists in dialogue" Diane Elam writes:
This problem manifests itself when senior feminists insist that junior feminists be good daughters, defending the same kind of feminism their mothers advocated. Questions and criticisms are allowed, but only if they proceed from the approved brand of feminism. Daughters are not allowed to invent new ways of thinking and doing feminism for themselves; feminists’ politics should take the same shape that it has always assumed.[9]
Rebecca Walker, in To Be Real, writes about her fear of rejection by her mother (author Alice Walker) and by her godmother (Gloria Steinem) for challenging their views:
Young Women feminists find themselves watching their speech and tone in their works so as not to upset their elder feminist mothers. There is a definite gap among feminists who consider themselves to be second wave and those who would label themselves as third wave. Although, the age criteria for second wave feminists and third wave feminists is murky, younger feminists definitely have a hard time proving themselves worthy as feminist scholars and activists.[13]