The feminism must be understood as a set of theories which, according to feminists and intellectuals, divided the history of the movement in three stages: the first refers mainly to the achievement of women’s suffrage , the nineteenth century movements and early twentieth concerned mainly with women’s right to vote. The second major movement concerns the ideas and actions associated with the women ‘s liberation movements started in the second half of the 1960s, which fought for the legal and social equality of women. The third great moment, started in the 1990s, can be considered a continuation and a reaction to the failures of the second movement.
The first major phase of the feminist movement refers to the intense activity of women that took place during the nineteenth and late twentieth centuries, in Great Britain and the United States. This movement was primarily focused on the promotion of legal rights , such as the issue of contractual and property rights, opposition to arranged marriages and the ownership of women and children by their husbands. However, at the end of the 19th century, the movement’s objective focused mainly on the conquest of political power , especially the right to vote.
The second major moment of feminism aimed at women’s liberation and refers to a period of intense feminist activity that began in the second half of the 1960s and lasted until the end of the 1980s. The feminists of this second wave saw the cultural and political inequalities of women as closely linked issues. Using the rise and effectiveness of mass communication, feminists encouraged women to reflect on various aspects of their personal lives as being deeply related to the power – sexist power structure.
Don’t stop now … There’s more after the publicity;)
During this period, expressions like “Women’s liberation” emerged in the United States. Feminist protests, such as the famous bra burning, became associated with this phase of feminism. However, one of the most striking criticisms of this phase of the movement argues that feminists would have overlooked the issue of class division and, thus, failed to reach the real points that divided women.
Finally, the third great feminist movement started in the 1990s, in response to the supposed failures of the previous movement. This moment in the movement aimed at avoiding essentialist definitions of women , typically from the second phase, which was essentially based on the experiences of white upper-middle class American and British women.
This third phase of the movement challenged the paradigms of the previous moment of feminism, calling into question micropolitics and the discussion of what is best for women. Among the most important issues defended by women in this phase are the discussions related to the cultural, social and political issue of color , especially the participation of black women in society, as well as the debate on difference feminism , whose discussion centered on differences between the sexes, while other aspects consider that there are no differences between men and women, whose roles would be socially conditioned.
