📘 Fact Sheet: Feminism — Multiple Waves

Overview • Waves • Thinkers • Variants (Marxist / Eco / Intersectional) • UGC-NET tips

Overview

Feminism is a collection of movements and theories that critique gender inequality and campaign for women's rights, bodily autonomy, social, political and economic equality. It developed in multiple waves with different emphases: legal rights, patriarchy & sexuality, intersectionality & identity, and digital/hashtag activism.

Key tags: Gender equality Reproductive rights Intersectionality

1st Wave — Liberal Feminism (19th & early 20th c.)

Core focus & demands

• Political and legal equality: voting rights (suffrage), property, education, employment, equal pay, legal rights in marriage and family.

Main thinkers & activists

• Mary Wollstonecraft — Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone — US suffrage leaders.
• Olympe de Gouges — Declaration of the Rights of Woman.
• J.S. Mill — The Subjection of Women (1869).

Remember: 1st wave = legal & formal equality (votes, property, franchise).

2nd Wave — Radical / Social Feminism (1960s–70s)

Core ideas

• Critique of patriarchy as a system; challenged socially constructed gender norms.
• Focused on reproductive rights, sexual liberation, domestic violence, workplace inequality.
• Slogan: “The personal is political.” — linked private experience to public structures.

Key texts & figures

• Betty Friedan — The Feminine Mystique (sparked US second wave).
• Simone de Beauvoir — The Second Sex (1949): “One is not born, but becomes, a woman.”
• Kate Millett — Sexual Politics (1971).
• Activists & theorists: Shulamith Firestone, Germaine Greer, Adrienne Rich.

Second wave emphasized structural sources of gender oppression and collective consciousness-raising.

3rd Wave — Post-modern / Intersectional (1990s–2010)

Core ideas

• Emphasis on intersectionality: overlapping oppressions of caste, class, race, sexuality, gender.
• Fluidity of gender, critique of universal womanhood, inclusion of LGBTQ+ rights.
• Focus on culture, media, beauty standards, and backlash analysis.

Key figures & works

• Rebecca Walker — “Becoming the Third Wave”.
• Eve Ensler — The Vagina Monologues.
• Naomi Wolf — The Beauty Myth; Susan Faludi — Backlash.
• Judith Butler — Gender Trouble (gender performativity).
• Kimberlé Crenshaw — coined intersectionality (Mapping the Margins).
• bell hooks, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins — race, class & gender critiques.

3rd wave broadened feminism to cultural critique, identity politics, queer theory and global perspectives.

4th Wave — Digital / #MeToo (Since ~2010)

Focus & tactics

• Online activism, use of social/digital media (hashtag campaigns like #MeToo), mobilization against sexual harassment, rape culture, body-shaming.
• Promotes body positivity, intersectional solidarity, climate justice links, and global activism.

Prominent authors & campaigns

• Rebecca Solnit — Men Explain Things to Me; Laura Bates — Everyday Sexism.
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — We Should All Be Feminists.
• Movements: #MeToo, online feminist zines, global youth protests.

4th wave is strongly digital, fast-moving and intersectional in practice.

Variants / Traditions

• Marxist / Socialist Feminism: Emphasizes class, property & production (Engels — The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State). Key thinkers: Alexandra Kollontai, Sheila Rowbotham, Martha Nussbaum.
• Ecofeminism: Links exploitation of women & nature; coined by Françoise d’Éaubonne. Thinkers: Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies, Susan Griffin.
• Communitarian & Radical strands — focus on communal values & structural patriarchy.
• Feminist legal & justice critiques: Susan Moller Okin wrote on justice & family.

These traditions critique mainstream (often white, middle-class) feminism and stress class, race, ecology or community.

Key Concepts & Terms

• Personal is Political: private/domestic issues reflect public power structures.
• Intersectionality: overlapping identities produce unique forms of oppression.
• Gender performativity: (Butler) gender as enacted performance.
• Universal sisterhood: contested — criticized for erasing race/class differences.

Feminism in UGC-NET Past Questions (Quick Facts)

• Slogan “Personal is political” — linked with second wave / radical feminism.
• Post-colonial feminist reference: Chandra Talpade Mohanty (often asked).
• Susan Moller Okin — feminist critique of justice and family (reformulation of Rawls).
• Kate Millett — author of Sexual Politics (second-wave text).
• Vandana Shiva — associated with ecofeminism.
• Which wave talks about sexual politics? — Second wave / Radical feminism.

Representative Books & Authors

• Mary Wollstonecraft — Vindication of the Rights of Woman
• Simone de Beauvoir — The Second Sex
• Betty Friedan — The Feminine Mystique
• Kate Millett — Sexual Politics
• Germaine Greer — The Female Eunuch
• Judith Butler — Gender Trouble
• Kimberlé Crenshaw — Mapping the Margins (intersectionality)
• bell hooks — Ain't I a Woman?
• Vandana Shiva — Staying Alive (ecofeminism)
• Roxane Gay — Bad Feminist (contemporary critique)

Quick Revision Tags

Use these for flashcards: 1st Wave — Suffrage 2nd Wave — Patriarchy 3rd Wave — Intersectionality 4th Wave — #MeToo/Digital