Timeline of feminism

Updated on Dec 31, 2024

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The following is a timeline of the history of feminism. It should contain events within the ideologies and philosophies of feminism and antifeminism. It should, however, not contain material about changes in women's legal rights. See also: Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting), Timeline of women's suffrage and Women's suffrage.

Timeline of feminism

19th and early 20th century

First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought, that occurred within the time period of the 19th and early 20th century throughout the world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on gaining women's suffrage (the right to vote).

1960s

Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that first began in the early 1960s in the United States, and eventually spread throughout the Western world and beyond. In the United States the movement lasted through the early 1980s.

Black feminism became popular in the 1960s, in response to the sexism of the civil rights movement and racism of the feminist movement.

Fat feminism originated in the late 1960s.

1969: Chicana feminism, also called Xicanisma, is a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections of Mexican-American women that identify as Chicana. Chicana feminism challenges the stereotypes that Chicanas face across lines of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and sexuality. Most importantly, Chicana feminism serves as a movement that helps women to reclaim their existence between the Chicano and American feminist movements. The 1969 Chicano Youth Liberation Conference began the Chicano movement and eventually, MEChA. At the conference, women began to get involved in the male-dominated dialogue to address feminist concerns. After the conference, women returned to their communities as activists and thus began the Chicana feminist movement. "Our Bodies, Ourselves," is published. This begins the Womens' Healthcare Movement.

1970s

In the 1970s, French feminist theorists approached feminism with the concept of écriture féminine (which translates as female, or feminine writing).

1980s

The radical lesbian movement is a francophone lesbian movement roughly analogous to English-language lesbian separatism. Inspired by the writings of philosopher Monique Wittig, the movement originated in France in the early 1980s, spreading soon after to the Canadian province of Quebec.

In Turkey and Israel, second-wave feminism began in the 1980s.

Difference feminism was developed by feminists in the 1980s, in part as a reaction to popular liberal feminism (also known as "equality feminism"), which emphasized the similarities between women and men in order to argue for equal treatment for women. Difference feminism, although it still aimed at equality between men and women, emphasized the differences between men and women and argued that identicality or sameness are not necessary in order for men and women, and masculine and feminine values, to be treated equally. Liberal feminism aimed to make society and law gender-neutral, since it saw recognition of gender difference as a barrier to rights and participation within liberal democracy, while difference feminism held that gender-neutrality harmed women "whether by impelling them to imitate men, by depriving society of their distinctive contributions, or by letting them participate in society only on terms that favor men.”

Equity feminism (also stylized equity-feminism) is a form of liberal feminism discussed since the 1980s, specifically a kind of classical liberal feminism and libertarian feminism.

1990s

Third-wave feminism refers to several diverse strains of feminist activity and study, whose exact boundaries in the history of feminism are a subject of debate, but are generally marked as beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to the present. The movement arose partially as a response to the perceived failures of and backlash against initiatives and movements created by second-wave feminism during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and the perception that women are of "many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and cultural backgrounds". This wave of feminism expands the topic of feminism to include a diverse group of women with a diverse set of identities.

Riot grrrl is an underground feminist hardcore punk movement that originated in the early 1990s in Washington State (particularly Olympia) and the greater Pacific Northwest. It is a subcultural movement that combines feminist consciousness and punk style and politics. It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as its starting point. It has also been described as a musical genre that came out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a musical movement in which women could express themselves in the same way men had been doing for the past several years.

2000s

2008: Fourth-wave feminism is often said to have started in 2008. Kira Cochrane, author of All the Rebel Women: The Rise of the Fourth Wave of Feminism, defined fourth-wave feminism as a movement that is connected through technology. Researcher Diana Diamond defined fourth-wave feminism as a movement that "combines politics, psychology, and spirituality in an overarching vision of change."

References

Timeline of feminism Wikipedia

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